The imagination is undergoing somewhat of a renaissance within philosophical thought, and in recent decades, has been called upon to explain a wide variety of human activities, from engaging with the arts to engaging with others.Footnote 1 It has also been tied to our capacity to pretend or make-believe, and thought to be crucial for creativity.Footnote 2 Although it is far from uncharted territory, some contemporary thinkers have been pushing the idea that imagination plays a central role in perception; specifically, as that which explains the phenomenon of perceptual presence.Footnote 3 However, there appears to be a tendency among thinkers to place the vague notion of mental imagery at the core of their understanding of what it is to imagine. It is now rare to come across an article on the imagination within contemporary philosophy of mind and cognitive science that does not assume it to consist in the formation and manipulation of mental images.Footnote 4 For instance, Kind (Reference Kind2001) argues that mental images are essential for the imagination, and Nanay (Reference Nanay2023) goes as far as to argue that we should do away with talk of imagination and instead, speak solely of mental imagery. I believe there is good reason for its widespread application, and I agree with the general claim that the imagination plays an important role in perceptual presence. However, conceiving of the imagination as consisting primarily in the formation of images would only serve to limit our investigations and undermine its importance. As we will see, the phenomenon of perceptual presence is precisely where the problems with this imagistic approach become most evident.
In what follows, I will begin with recent attempts by Bence Nanay (Reference Nanay2010) and Amy Kind (Reference Kind, Macpherson and Dorsch2018) to explain perceptual presence in terms of mental imagery; call this the imagery view. I will argue that they are unable to account for the phenomenological manifestation of the precise aspects of our perceptual experience they seek to explain. In §3 I will turn to an alternative solution developed by Alva Noë (Reference Noë2004, Reference Noë2012), who is responsible for ushering this insight to the attention of contemporary discussion. Noë’s solution involves an appeal to a form of implicit bodily understanding of how we can access hidden aspects of objects; call this the access view. I will argue that appeal to access will leave the presence of certain properties unaccounted for. In §4, I will propose an alternative solution that can be attributed to Merleau-Ponty. This alternative involves both appeal to a form of bodily knowledge and an imaginative capacity for entertaining the possibility of being situated otherwise; that, when exercised, gives rise to the presence of whole objects in perceptual experience as the objects that they are. I will conclude that the view I have developed overcomes the issues faced by both the imagery and access views, and I suggest that it presents a promising alternative conception of the imagination that deserves further investigation.
1. Perceptual Presence
It is widely accepted that perception has a ‘presentational’ phenomenal character. That the world appears as there, as real; immediately and directly presented before the perceiving subject. What is interesting about the presentational character of perception is that much of what is presented to us transcends what we are in actual sensory contact with. Perceptual experience presents us with a world of whole objects that are distinct from our experience of them, harbouring occluded aspects and latent properties. They are experienced as real, as there in the world, present in their entirety, even though they are not entirely present to the senses. This raises what has come to be known as the problem of perceptual presence. Footnote 5
A common example of perceptual presence is amodal completion; the ability to perceive entire objects, even though some of its features are occluded, either by the object’s facing sides or by other objects. To borrow Noë’s (Reference Noë2004) much-cited examples; when looking at a tomato, you don’t just experience its facing sides. Rather, you have a sense of the presence of the whole tomato, complete with the sides that are out of view. Similarly, in perceiving a cat behind a fence, we do not experience the cat as the individual parts that are not occluded by the fence, but rather, we experience a whole cat behind a fence. We are not in sensory contact with the back of the tomato or the hidden parts of the cat, and nonetheless, the whole tomato, or the whole cat are present to us in experience. They are present as whole objects, complete with the unseen features that continue beyond their facing side and behind that which occludes them.
On a standard view of perception, to perceive something is to be in sensory contact with it; and given that we are not in sensory contact with the whole object, we cannot claim to perceive those parts we are not in sensory contact with. An alternative would be to claim that we are seeing what we believe; that the hidden parts of the object are somehow inferred on the basis of our background beliefs, which then contribute to the character of experience. However, we know full well that our beliefs do not permeate our perception so easily (Noë, Reference Noë2004, pp. 62–64; Nanay, Reference Nanay2010; cf. Briscoe, Reference Briscoe2011). Taking a ruler to the Müller-Lyer illusion serves to cement my conviction that the lines are identical in length. Yet, no matter how hard I try to bring my beliefs to bear on my perception of the lines, time and time again, I fail to see them as the same.Footnote 6 In light of these issues, some thinkers have argued that we should be looking to the imagination as that which is responsible for the presence of the object’s hidden aspects. I am in agreement with this general approach. Be it in acts of visualising, pretending, appreciating the scene depicted in a painting, or characters expressed in a novel, the imagination is often taken to be that which makes present in experience (to some degree or another) what is absent to the senses. As such, the imagination seems like a prime candidate for the sort of thing that can explain perceptual presence. However, as we will see, if we conceive of the imagination in imagistic terms, then we cease to be able to account for perceptual presence; as the phenomenology of mental imagery is incompatible with the phenomenal structure of the hidden aspects of objects it is called upon to explain.
2. Presence as Mental Imagery
Within contemporary philosophy of mind and cognitive science, mental imagery is typically assumed to be a perceptual representation, akin to the kind of representation taken to be involved in veridical perception, but distinct insofar as it is not triggered by corresponding sensory stimuli. Instead, the representation is said to be owing to some form of top-down knowledge of how things look. Nanay (Reference Nanay2010) has proposed that mental imagery can explain amodal completion. For Nanay, we perceive the whole cat, despite parts of it being occluded by the picket fence, because ‘we represent the cat’s tail [its occluded part] by means of mental imagery’ (Nanay, Reference Nanay2010). Similarly, Kind has suggested that imagination (for which she takes mental imagery to be essential) can also provide a solution to the problem of perceptual presence. For Kind: ‘looking at the … can on my desk, it’s via a conjunctive effort of vision and imagination that I have the perceptual sense of the can as a voluminous whole. The front side of the can is seen; the back side of the can is imagined’ (Kind, Reference Kind, Macpherson and Dorsch2018). The basic idea is that features of objects that we are not in sensory contact with are represented in experience by means of mental imagery in virtue of some form of background knowledge about the way things look (Nanay Reference Nanay2010, Reference Nanay2015, Reference Nanay2023; Kind, Reference Kind, Macpherson and Dorsch2018; see also Briscoe, Reference Briscoe2011). However, on my view, mental imagery does not have the resources to account for the phenomenal structure of the hidden aspects it is called upon to explain.
2.1 Object Horizons
For both Nanay and Kind, what appears when we are visualising is a paradigmatic example of mental imagery. So, when I close my eyes and imagine a tomato in a sensory-like manner, what I am ‘seeing with my mind’s eye’ (as such theorists would say) is mental imagery of the very same kind as the mental imagery supposedly responsible for the presence of the hidden aspects of the perceived tomato. If that were the case, we would expect the hidden aspects of visually perceived objects to be experienced in a similar manner to the visualised object. Given that the imagined object appears in a quasi-visual manner, as if ‘seen’ from a certain vantage point, with its own facing sides, then we arrive at an unpalatable consequence. For if mental imagery is responsible for the experienced presence of the invisible aspects of perceived objects, and having a mental image of an object is phenomenologically similar to perceiving it, then the experience of their hidden aspects of perceived objects would be qualitatively similar to the experience of their facing sides. Nanay seems to warmly embrace this consequence when claiming that ‘what it is like to be aware of the occluded parts of perceived objects is similar to what it is like to perceive those parts that are not occluded’ (Nanay, Reference Nanay2010, p. 252). But this is far from the case.
The object’s visible aspects are given with relative determinacy, while the invisible or hidden aspects constitute what phenomenologists call the object’s horizon; understood as an indeterminate background that encompasses and refers to the ways the object could manifest sensibly.Footnote 7 The object’s horizon ranges from the more situation-specific anticipated perspectival or experiential changes of the object relative to perceiver movement, to the more general ways in which this object could show up under different lighting conditions, through different sensory modalities, across different scenarios and interactions. It is in virtue of the horizon that the object shows up for us as something that can be explored, interrogated, or seen otherwise. The hidden aspects of the object are not, strictly speaking, visible or present in the same way as its facing sides. But, they are not entirely invisible and wholly absent either. Rather, the object’s hidden aspects are referred to or implied by its horizon, giving them a visual sense and a peculiar quasi-presence in experience. For example, the softness of a wool rug has a visual sense, despite being an invisible property. I cannot exactly see softness, but there is a sense in which I see that the wool rug is soft. Particularly, in comparison to the hardwood floorboards it is laid across. Although I am not touching the rug or feeling its softness right now, its softness is still present to me in some sense when I look at it, precisely because it is included in and implied by its horizon. Importantly, the object’s horizon is indeterminate. It does not indicate how the object will show up should one look at it from a different vantage point or reach out and touch it; rather, it is more suggestive of how the thing could manifest sensibly.
This is a far cry from how the object’s visible aspects are given in perception, and importantly, how the imagined object appears in visualising. For much like the perceptual case, the imagined object or mental image shows up in a quasi-visual manner. It appears perspectivally, as if ‘seen’ from a particular vantage point, with its own relatively determinate facing sides; and its own ‘hidden’ aspects that constitute its indeterminate horizon. The phenomenal structure of having a visual mental image of an object is qualitatively similar to having a visual perceptual experience of that object; and it is precisely in virtue of this similarity that the phenomenal structure of having a visual mental image of an object is qualitatively distinct from the phenomenal structure of the perceived object’s hidden aspects. The plausibility of the claim that mental imagery is that which fills in the gaps in our limited sensory contact with the world depends on a phenomenological similarity between what it is like to experience the visible aspects of objects and what it is like to experience their invisible or hidden aspects; and this similarity simply does not exist. Rather, their hidden aspects are experienced as part of their horizon. As such, any story that wishes to account for the presence of the hidden aspects of perceived objects should be able to accommodate for their phenomenological manifestation within the object’s horizon, and the imagery view cannot.
To clarify, the objection above only applies to attempts to explain perceptual presence in terms of mental imagery; not the imagination. The idea that imagination plays such a pervasive role in perception has a long history, but it is perhaps most famously associated with Immanuel Kant. Nanay modifies Kant’s famous footnote, in claiming that: ‘Mental imagery is indeed “a necessary ingredient of perception itself”’ (Nanay, Reference Nanay2010).Footnote 8 However, Kant defined the imagination in much broader terms, as the ‘faculty for representing an object even without its presence in intuition’ (Kant, Reference Kant, Guyer and Wood1998). Which we could interpret as the capacity for making present to consciousness what is absent to the senses. If we conceive of the imagination in this broader form, then it remains a natural candidate for explaining perceptual presence. However, as we have seen, if we narrow our understanding of the imagination to the capacity to form mental images, then it becomes hard to see how this can contribute to the presence of the whole object in perception whilst doing justice to the phenomenology. Before we turn to the alternative imagination-based account, it will be important to address Noë’s solution to the problem of perceptual presence, as thinking through his proposal and its limitations will allow us to derive further desiderata.
3. Presence as Access
Noë’s attempts to solve the problem of perceptual presence by appealing to his sensorimotor or actionist account of vision (O’Regan & Noë, Reference O’Regan and Noë2001; Noë, Reference Noë2004, Reference Noë2012). According to the sensorimotor theorist, perception is not something that happens to us, or in us. It is neither passive nor mediated by inner representations. Rather, on their view, perception is something we do. It is an active, dynamic, temporally-extended, and embodied activity that unfolds between the experiencing subject and their environment, that is mediated by our sensorimotor understanding; a kind of implicit knowledge of sensorimotor contingencies. Sensorimotor contingencies are understood as the relations obtaining between sensory stimulation and movement or the ways in which the character of our experience will change in relation to movement, either through movement of the body, or of the object (O’Regan & Noë, Reference O’Regan and Noë2001; Noë, Reference Noë2004).
For the sensorimotor theorist, the phenomenal character of perceptual experience is, in part, constituted by our sensorimotor understanding of this network of relations. For Noë, to experience an object as the object that it is, is to experience it as exhibiting a characteristic sensorimotor profile; understood as a totality or a system of ways in which its appearance would change should you move with respect to it. We have an implicit grasp of the object’s sensorimotor profile; that is, we know (implicitly) how it would look if we moved our body to occupy a different vantage point or how it would feel should we reach out and touch it. For Noë, it is in virtue of our grasp of the object’s sensorimotor profile that the whole object, complete with its hidden aspects, is present to us in experience. The whole object is present in experience because it is accessible through bodily movement, and shows up for us in virtue of our understanding of the ways we can move in order to access its hidden features, coupled with expectations concerning what we would experience if we were to move in those ways. For Noë (Reference Noë2004, Reference Noë2012) the degree or intensity with which something shows up for us as present depends upon the degree to which it is accessible, and this accessibility is grounded in our sensorimotor skills or know-how.
The main reason to prefer Noë’s access view over the imagery account is its compatibility with the phenomenology. Although Noë does not explicitly state that the object’s hidden aspects manifest as part of their horizon; to my knowledge, there is nothing in the account that would oppose this description. However, on my view, this correlation between presence and accessibility places unnecessary constraints on what can be experienced as present; and this leaves important aspects of the phenomenon unexplained.
3.1 The presence of dispositional properties
On the access view, what is experienced as present, and the intensity with which it is experienced as present, depends upon the degree to which it is accessible through movement. Which is to say that in order for something; be it an object, its hidden aspect, or latent property, to be present to me in experience, it needs to be accessible. The unseen backside of the tomato is accessible to me; as is the cat behind the fence. I possess the bodily skills required to bring these hidden aspects into view. The softness of the wool rug is also accessible to me. I know-how to reach out and touch the rug to make this softness manifest, and as such, it is present to me as I look at it. But, what about dispositional properties of objects? Are they accessible to us? Although the idea that we perceive dispositional properties of objects is not entirely uncontroversial, there is a clear sense in which I can see the fragility of glass or the crushability of the red apple. These properties are present to me in my experience of objects; but they are not hidden properties that could be brought into view through bodily movement. The fragility of glass can be confirmed by its shattering, but its fragility was there to be perceived all along. What sense is there in saying that we can access the fragility of glass? None really, but a proponent of the access view would say that, in virtue of my implicit understanding of the contingencies associated with the sensorimotor profile of the glass, I have a set of expectations concerning how my experience will change in relation to certain movements. In other words, we know-how to move in a way that would shatter the glass, and we have expectations concerning the experiential consequences of those movements. We expect the glass to shatter if we were to move in a certain way, and so we perceive the glass as fragile. As such, it is the effects that are accessible through bodily movement, and this could be argued to secure the presence of the dispositional property. However, on my view, there are dispositional properties of certain objects that are always inaccessible, insofar as their experiential consequences are, by definition, not something we can bring about for ourselves.
Returning to the cat behind the fence; there is much more to seeing a cat than seeing some distinct, three-dimensional, voluminous whole whose appearance would change if we moved, or if it moved in relation to us. Paraphrasing Strawson (Reference Strawson1974), to see a silent and stationary cat as a cat, is to see it as a potential mover, hunter, or purrer.Footnote 9 The core of the insight here is akin to what Noë has in mind. In perceiving an object as a certain kind of object, our perception is, in some way, animated by possible perceptions of the same object. These dispositions for moving, hunting, or purring are not hypothesised or inferred following the identification of the cat as a cat, giving rise to the possible perceptions. Rather, the idea is that these possible perceptions are alive in, and a necessary part of what it is to experience a cat as a cat. To experience the presence of a cat is to experience the presence of an animate object capable of moving, hunting, and purring of its own accord. I don’t see how one can account for such autonomous dispositions in terms of accessibility.
If presence is made possible through expectations concerning how the character of my experience will change, then these expectations must go beyond what I would experience if I were to move or act in a particular way; and instead, include the more general ways in which this kind of object could be experienced. It is far from clear how these object-kind-specific expectations can be accounted for in terms of accessibility on the basis of our bodily know-how. I certainly possess the know-how for sitting there, watching, and waiting to see if this silent and stationary cat moves, hunts, or purrs; but again this presupposes some form of understanding of the ways in which this kind of object can and does behave. A proponent of the access view could reply that I know (implicitly) that if I ran up to it, it may move; if I placed a mouse next to it, it may hunt, or if I stroked it, it may purr, and all of these contingencies are baked into what it is to perceive it as a cat; but then how do we arrive at perceiving the cat as an animate object capable of engaging in moving, hunting, or purring, without our intervention? It would seem then, that in perceiving animate objects, the possible perceptions, or set of expectations that would enable us to see this object as a potential mover, hunter, or purrer cannot be constrained to how it would show up in experience should either myself of the object move, but must encompass the manifold ways in which this kind of object; a cat, could be perceived more generally; and this seems to demand some grasp of the kind of object that it is and its dispositions and behavioural tendencies. As such, one’s implicit sensorimotor knowledge, as that which grounds our access to the world, is insufficient in itself to account for the presence of certain latent properties that are removed from our bodily skills of access. One would also require a grasp of the various ways in which the object could manifest sensibly, that is independent of our intervention and not constrained by what we can access.
I am in agreement with Noë and proponents of the access view that our implicit bodily knowledge and skills are important in understanding the phenomenon of perceptual presence. Moreover, appeal to our bodily expectations concerning the experiential consequences of possible movements as that which shapes the character of experience is perfectly compatible with the phenomenology and can be said to manifest as part of the object’s indeterminate horizon. However, as we have seen, there is more to the object’s horizon than what is accessible; and so, the notion of access or accessibility must be either built upon or replaced by something that can accommodate what is present to us in experience and the degree to which it is present.
4. Presence as the Bodily Imagination
The alternative solution to the problem of perceptual presence that I would like to explore shares something of the intuitions of the imagery view and the access view. The alternative, that can be extracted from Merleau-Ponty’s Phenomenology of Perception (henceforth, Phenomenology) involves both appeal to a form of bodily knowledge and a capacity to entertain possibilities that bears a strong relationship with our ability to imagine. It is widely accepted that, for Merleau-Ponty, perception is an embodied activity that unfolds between the experiencing subject and their environment, that is not mediated by mental representations, but by the embodied perceiver and their possession of a form of bodily knowledge which shapes the character of experience. As such, Merleau-Ponty has found himself as a source of inspiration for the ‘embodied turn’ in contemporary philosophy of mind and cognitive science, of which Noë is one of the leading advocates.Footnote 10 However, relatively little attention has been paid to the role of the imagination within the embodied theory of perception that emerges from the Phenomenology. A notable exception can be found in the work of Samantha Matherne (Reference Matherne2014, Reference Matherne2016, Reference Matherne2019). Matherne (Reference Matherne2014) argues that interpretations of the Phenomenology by embodied theorists are ‘motor-centric’, and as such, overlook the fact that Merleau-Ponty can be read as incorporating Kant’s productive imagination into his own account of subjectivity by grounding it in the body.Footnote 11 (Matherne Reference Matherne2014; see also Matherne Reference Matherne2016, Reference Matherne2019) Matherne is right to argue that the textual evidence throughout the Phenomenology indicates that Merleau-Ponty saw great value in Kant’s productive imagination, giving credence to the idea that there is something imaginative about perception for Merleau-Ponty. Merleau-Ponty’s theory of embodied perception as developed in the Phenomenology bears a lot in common with the view Noë developed over half a century later However, on my reading, for Merleau-Ponty, there is much more to the phenomenon of presence than what is accessible to us in the here and now, and this is owing to an imaginative capacity for entertaining the possible ways in which the object could be experienced more generally. That is, beyond what we could access through bodily movement in the here and now; to encompass how it could be experienced in a multiplicity of virtual situations. As such, embodied theorists may find a valuable addition to their explanatory toolkit in what follows.
4.1 The Power to Situate Oneself Otherwise
In the Phenomenology, the deeper function responsible for perceptual presence is made most explicit in his famous pivotal analysis of the pathological patient named Schneider, who was reportedly incapable of performing movements that were not directed at any actual situation in an ordinary manner.Footnote 12 When blindfolded under experimental conditions, he was unable to mobilise his limbs or extend a finger upon command. He could only achieve this by taking up preparatory movements and engaging his whole body before narrowing them down to the relevant limb or digit. (PhP, p. 105/133) However, in ordinary everyday life, Schneider was able to perform habitual actions, such as taking a match from a box to light a lamp, reaching for a handkerchief from his pocket to blow his nose, grasping a point on his body where a mosquito is biting him, and was even capable of continuing working his day-job as a wallet-maker. (PhP, p. 106/133) To account for the differences in Schneider’s responses to certain tasks, the distinction was introduced between concrete and abstract movements. Concrete movements are those fluid and habitual movements towards the tasks that he can perform with ease, such as making wallets at work, and abstract movements, being those those he struggles with, such as pointing to his nose with a ruler. For Merleau-Ponty, concrete and abstract movements are to be distinguished in terms of their relevance to the ‘actual situation’ (PhP, p. 105/132) Concrete movements are those that are directed towards things in the ‘given world’, whereas abstract movements are not directed towards any ‘real situation’. (PhP, p. 113/141) For Merleau-Ponty:
The distinction between abstract movement and concrete movement is thereby clarified; the background of concrete movement is the given world, the background of abstract movement is, on the contrary, constructed. (PhP, p. 113/141)
For Merleau-Ponty, what makes abstract movement possible is a subject-side contribution to the character of experience; a composition of a virtual dimension that is interwoven with the actual, and this is made possible by what he terms the ‘function of projection’.Footnote 13 In his words:
Within the busy world in which concrete movement unfolds, abstract movement hollows out a zone of reflection and of subjectivity, it superimposes a virtual or human space over physical space. Concrete movement is thus centripetal, whereas abstract movement is centrifugal; the first takes place within being or within the actual, the second takes place within the possible or within non-being; the first adheres to a given background, the second itself sets up its own background. The normal function that makes abstract movement possible is a function of “projection” by which the subject of movement organises before himself a free space in which things that do not exist naturally can take on a semblance of existence. (PhP, p. 114/142)
For Merleau-Ponty, it is through the construction of this background or horizon that a particular perspectival appearance of an object comes to be experienced as a whole object, complete with sides and properties that are hidden from view; as the horizon is suggestive of the ways in which the object could be experienced otherwise. For Merleau-Ponty, this also allows for the object to take on a more general, practical, and cultural form of meaning. Such that ‘things that do not exist naturally can take on a semblance of existence’ and the object can be made present as the object that it is. (PhP, p. 114/142) Although the function of projection is what makes abstract movement possible, it is not limited to constructing a background to enable us to carry out conscious movements upon verbal commands under experimental conditions. Rather, for Merleau-Ponty, it plays a more fundamental role in shaping the various ways we experience and engage with the world through perception, action, thought, and imagination. This is why Schneider’s injuries manifested in a variety of perceptual and intellectual difficulties in addition to his motor disorders. For instance, Merleau-Ponty notes that Schneider cannot understand simple metaphors such as ‘the head of the nail’ and is incapable of recognising his psychologist’s house (that he visits frequently) unless he has formed the intention to go there.Footnote 14 For Merleau-Ponty, Schneider had lost a sort of openness to different possible meanings. In his words:
Schneider is “bound” to the actual, and he “lacks freedom,” he lacks the concrete freedom that consists in the general power of placing oneself in a situation. (PhP, p. 137/169)Footnote 15
This suggests that, for Merleau-Ponty, this openness is in virtue of a ‘power’ or capacity to place oneself in non-actual situations and entertain possibilities. Whereas:
The normal subject’s body is not merely ready to be mobilised by real situations that draw it toward themselves, it can also turn away from the world, […] lend itself to experiments and, more generally, be situated in the virtual. (PhP, p. 111/139)
In lacking this deeper power for entertaining possibilities and situating oneself in the virtual, Schneider’s world exists only as a ‘ready-made or fixed world’; the world given by the actual situation (PhP, p.115/143). Whereas, ‘[t]he normal person reckons with the possible, which thus acquires a sort of actuality without leaving behind its place as a possibility’ (PhP, pp. 112/139-140). The ‘possible’ manifests as the object's indeterminate horizon; acquiring a sort of actuality; a quasi-presence, or visual sense; taking on a ‘semblance of existence’ without leaving behind its place as an indeterminate possibility; a vague sense of the way the object could be experienced otherwise.
What I take Merleau-Ponty to be suggesting here is that the function of projection; that which constructs a horizon around the object (which he takes to be impaired in the case of Schneider), depends, in part, upon a capacity to entertain the possibility of being situated otherwise; that is, as in a non-actual or virtual situation. Of course, I don’t take Merleau-Ponty to be suggesting that in normal circumstances, we are consciously entertaining the possibility of occupying a virtual situation, although we can. Rather, the idea is that we have the capacity to entertain the possibility of occupying virtual situations and that we effortlessly and unknowingly exercise this capacity throughout our experiential lives. But, how do we get from a capacity to entertain the possibility of being situated otherwise to a projected background or horizon that manifests in experience and makes the object present to us as the object that it is?
4.2 Anticipating the Virtual
For Merleau-Ponty, the character of experience is constituted by the body, not as one object among objects, but as ‘a system of possible actions’ (PhP; p. 260/297). A body that has obtained a familiarity with its world; come into possession of the habits and skills for perceiving and engaging with it, and acquired a sort of implicit bodily knowledge, or a ‘schema [typique] of every possible being, or a universal arrangement with regard to the world’ that is reworked and renewed throughout its further interactions (PhP, p. 453/492). In virtue of our attunement with the world and possession of bodily knowledge, we know (implicitly) the ways that we could move or act with respect to the object, and we can anticipate the experiential consequences of those movements or actions.
My gaze and my hand know that every actual displacement would bring about a sensible response that conforms precisely to my expectation, and I sense, teeming beneath my gaze, the infinite mass of more detailed perceptions that I anticipate and upon which I have a hold. (PhP, p. 354/396)
As Merleau-Ponty stresses in another work, The Primacy of Perception - a presentation of the general thesis of the Phenomenology - these anticipations should not be conceived of as a form of explicit knowledge of the experiential consequences of movement; that is ‘as perceptions which would be produced necessarily if I moved’ or ‘the necessary consequence of a certain law of the development of my perception’ (PrP, p. 14). For Merleau-Ponty, ‘Perception does not give me truths like geometry but presences’ (PrP, p. 14). Instead, the general idea behind this ‘anticipation’ is that the subject already has an indeterminate sense of how the thing could manifest in experience; and these anticipations provide a subject-side contribution that shapes the character of our experience, manifesting phenomenologically as the object’s indeterminate horizon or background.
In this sense, we can see that the anticipations concerning the experiential consequences of possible movements are that which is projected by the function of projection. However, as formulated so far, this would only enable the function of projection to construct a background consisting in anticipations concerning the experiential consequences of movements and actions that are possible given the actual situation. And it is here we find the limits of Noë’s access account. For such anticipations would be limited to what I can access through bodily movement in the here and now; such as, what I would feel if I were to reach out and touch the object, or what I would see were I to reposition myself and look at it from a different vantage point. However, if we possessed, in addition to our bodily skills, the capacity to ‘turn away from the world’, ‘invert the natural relation between my body and the surroundings’, and entertain the possibility of being situated otherwise, then we open the door for movements and actions that would be relevant to virtual situations (PhP, p. 111/139 & 115/143) The virtual situations entertained could include the manifold ways that things could be otherwise; such as, if the occluding object were not there, or if I were to be occupying a different vantage point.Footnote 16 It could also encompass situations whereby the object were moving of its own accord, or in an entirely different context. On this view, in virtue of our capacity to entertain the possibility of being situated otherwise, the corresponding movements can be brought online and allow for their accompanying anticipations to act as potential contributors to the object’s horizon.
Such anticipations would outstrip those pertaining to what we would experience if we were to move with respect to the object, and instead, encompass the multiplicity of ways in which the object could be experienced more generally; from different angles, under different lighting conditions, through different sensory modalities, across different scenarios and interactions. This would encompass virtual situations that one might also be able to cash out in terms of access; such as non-actual situations where one is touching the object, or looking at it from an alternative vantage point, (i.e. live possibilities given my actual situation and possession of skills). But, as one is not wholly bound to the actual (i.e. what is accessible in the here and now), and instead, open to the possibility of things being otherwise, this enables us to account for varieties of presence that the access account can not. There may be objects and properties of objects that are practically inaccessible to me in my actual situation; yet, I can certainly entertain the possibility of being in a situation whereby it could be perceived, thus enabling what is inaccessible in the actual to be anticipated and projected; which ‘superimposes a virtual or human space over physical space’ (PhP, p. 114/142). A background or horizon where what might be inaccessible is nonetheless present in experience. The cat’s moving, hunting, or purring of their own accord are indeed behaviours I can bear witness to, should the cat engage in them, and I can certainly entertain the possibility of being in a situation where the cat were moving, hunting, or purring; but they are not accessible to me when the cat is silent and stationary. On this view, seeing a cat as a cat requires entertaining the possibility of being in a situation where the cat is displaying such cat-like behaviours. Entertaining these situations summons the virtual movements and corresponding anticipations that would be relevant; and these anticipations are brought to bear on our experience, manifesting as the object’s indeterminate horizon; such that, we come to see this object, as a potential mover, hunter, or purrer; we come to see it as a cat.
4.3 Degrees of Relevance to the Actual
This alternative, as developed so far, would likely rouse a few concerns. For if what can be present in perceptual experience is not limited to the actual situation, or what is accessible in the actual situation, then this allows for anticipations concerning every possible or fantastical situation that could be entertained to manifest in experience, giving rise to the presence of all manner of things that are not actually there. Luckily, that is typically not the case; so, the question is: what is it that determines what manifests as present, and the degree to which it does? What is constraining the virtual situations entertained and the accompanying anticipations that shape the object’s horizon?
My proposal is that, although what can be present in perceptual experience is not limited to the actual situation, it is, in most cases, heavily constrained by it. The character of our perceptual experience is, for the most part, and under normal circumstances, determined by the actual situation; but importantly, without being restricted to it. The actual situation can be said to be structured by the environment we are in, the objects that occupy it, our situation with respect to these objects, our bodily situation and capacities, the activity we are engaged in, our history of interactions, as well as our emotions, desires and more reflective intentions. So, we may think of the set of possible situations entertained as deviations from the centre that is the actual, and the virtual movements they would summon as ‘centrifugal’, directed outwards from the actual, into the possible.Footnote 17 Our perceptual relation to the world serves as our anchor in the actual situation, which itself serves as the locus from which the spectrum of entertained virtual situations spans out.
In this sense, degrees of presence can be cashed out in terms of degrees of relevance to the actual situation. Although the embodied subject may be entertaining a multiplicity of virtual situations, summoning a rich repertoire of possible movements, and readying itself in anticipation for what could be encountered, there will be certain movements that are more relevant to the here and now; those movements that would seem more appropriate to one’s actual situation. We can think of the virtual movements as summoned or motivated to differing degrees; the more strongly motivated movements will have a greater degree of salience and their accompanying anticipations will feature more prominently in experience, manifesting with a greater degree of presence. For instance, the unseen aspects of the perceived object that could be brought about through slight bodily movements will feature more prominently in the object’s horizon. We would expect them to be experienced as more perceptually present than unseen aspects or properties of the object that are less relevant to the actual situation; even though, they are aspects and properties of the object that could be experienced if one were situated otherwise. To account for the variability of presence we can appeal to the varying degree of relevance to the actual situation as what determines the degree to which virtual movements are summoned and the intensity with which their corresponding anticipations manifest as present in experience.
5. Conclusion: An Alternative Conception of the Imagination?
I hope to have shown that there is a plausible alternative solution to the problem of perceptual presence that has the resources to overcome the issues faced by both accounts we saw above. The imagery view, as argued by Nanay (Reference Nanay2010) and Kind (Reference Kind, Macpherson and Dorsch2018) is unable to accommodate the way the object’s hidden aspects and properties manifest as present for us in experience as part of the object’s indeterminate horizon. Noë’s (Reference Noë2004, Reference Noë2012) access view is compatible with the phenomenological manifestation of the object’s hidden aspects and properties. However, as we saw, the notion of accessibility places restrictions on what can be present; which is open to counterexamples. As I have argued, the alternative I have presented shares something of both accounts but faces none of these issues. On this alternative, presence depends upon our bodily knowledge and skills for engaging with the world and anticipations or expectations concerning the experiential consequences of those movements. These anticipations serve as a subject-side contribution to the phenomenology of perception, manifesting as the object’s background or horizon through which the object is made present as the object that it is; as a whole object, complete with its hidden or occluded sides, harbouring unseen and invisible properties, dispositions, and a more general form of meaning. But this is only made possible by the capacity to entertain the possibility of being situated otherwise, which gives rise to anticipations concerning the sensory consequences of possible movements that would be relevant to virtual situations, making present to consciousness more than is accessible in the here and now.
Of course, this is far from the kind of mental imagery involving imagination that Nanay (Reference Nanay2010) and Kind (Reference Kind, Macpherson and Dorsch2018) have in mind. However, I can only think to call this an imaginative capacity; or the operation as a whole, an achievement of the bodily imagination. For it involves unconsciously entertaining possible situations (supposition), the construction of an object horizon (both active, and creative), a subject-side contribution to the phenomenology of experience (sensory imagination), and has the power to make present in experience what is absent (‘mental imagery’, dreams, hallucination, etc.)
The anticipated concern that the alternative I have presented opens the door for fantasy to enter into our reality, is less of a concern and more of a benefit. In most cases, the operations of the bodily imagination are highly constrained by the actual situation. What is present, and the degree to which it is present is determined by the degree of relevance to the actual situation. But, in not being entirely restricted to the actual situation, we have the resources to explain the momentary presence of misperceptions, the ‘false’ presence of hallucinations, and the quasi-presence of what is imagined. For if what can be made present is not restricted to the actual situation, the given world, or what is accessible in the here and now, and instead, includes what could be experienced or accessed in virtual situations; then we can account for the ‘mental image’ that appears when we visualise as the pseudo-presence brought forth by the bodily anticipations in their composition of the absent object’s horizon. Our capacity to visualise, engage in so-called ‘imagistic’ imagining, and imaginatively entertaining possibilities more generally, would depend upon the ability to consciously exercise and control the bodily anticipations that are usually (and unconsciously) at work in perception, in making the perceived object present to us in experience as the object that it is.
The purpose of this paper has been to propose an alternative solution to the problem of perceptual presence, not to argue for a particular conception of the imagination. However, I do believe this paper presents a promising way to think about the imagination (and presence) that appears to be absent in contemporary literature and deserves further investigation.
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