Numéro 1

Abstract

Extrait du premier article du numéro: Introduction A thing, says Merleau-Ponty, has its specific traits: colour, size, form, etc. The peculiar fact about this is that those specific traits seem to be changeable and even elusive. A white table, for example, appears very differently under different lightening conditions. Similarly, a cube may appear as a square. However, we still identify them unequivocally as white and as a cube without second thoughts. How is this possible? How are we capable of ascribing to things some determinate forms that belong to them essentially? One way of finding a way around this problem is to treat such changeability as a deficiency. We could suppose that there is something like the objective size or the objective form that belong to objects in themselves and, thus, subscribe to what Merleau-Ponty calls empiricism, or we could stand on the side of intellectualism and claim that these true elements are simply obtained in the concept that we apply to them. In both cases, we would postulate something like a ground (either empirical or intellectual) that unifies all the changeable manifestations of things. So, when a table appears to me as grey, I know that in reality it is white and only appears differently because of the light. When I see a diamond, I recollect that this is a square only seen from a particular perspective. I deduce and distil the perspectival influences on my perception to get to the object in itself. The perspectival and changeable character would only be a necessary lim