Читать книгу Phenomenology of Productive Imagination: Embodiment, Language, Subjectivity - Saulius Geniusas - Страница 13

It is not by chance that virtually every theorist who has aimed to develop a model of productive imagination agrees with Kant’s famous remark that “imagination is a necessary ingredient of perception itself” (Kant 2007, A120, fn). By qualifying phantasy as an essentially reproductive mode of consciousness, Husserl introduces an indissoluble breach between perception and phantasy, which excludes any possibility of identifying phantasy as an ingredient of perceptual consciousness, and vice versa. The question to be asked, then, is whether Husserl’s phenomenology of phantasy necessarily proscribes the recognition and analysis of productive imagination.

In contrast to a large number of philosophers who argue that perception is “animated by,” “infused with,” “shot through with” or “soaked in” imagination (see Kant 2007, Wittgenstein 1986, Strawson 1974, Warnock 1978, Nanay 2010 and, as we will see, many post-Husserlian phenomenologists), scholars working within the Husserlian tradition retort that such a view presupposes a passive and static notion of perception, which lacks phenomenological justification. As Julia Jansen insightfully remarks, “there is no such passive and bare perception, which would require an infusion with imagination, in the first place” (Jansen 2015, 6). She argues elsewhere that “contributions [that] make use of the phenomenological evidence … highlight the differences between perception and imagination and thus reject the hypothesis of a ‘grand illusion,’ that is, of the view that imagination might be an ingredient of perception” (Jansen 2010, 152). The analysis I have offered above clarifies why, from a Husserlian standpoint, this hypothesis is superfluous and needs to be rejected.

Nonetheless, such a response does not clarify the relation between perception and phantasy. This is unfortunate, especially in light of recent neuroscientific findings. Consider a recent study by Christopher C. Berger and H. Henrik Ehrsson (Berger and Ehrsson 2013). In this investigation, qualified as “an unparalleled example of how imagination can change perception,” Berger and Ehrsson (who work for the Karolinska Institute in Stockholm) argue that to imagine the act of hearing changes what one sees, just as to imagine the act of seeing changes what one hears. Their study relies heavily upon three classical examples in psychology, each of which demonstrate that sensory information in one perceptual modality affects one’s perception in a different modality. First, let us consider the so-called cross-bounce illusion. This experiment, which has its roots in Gestalt psychology, demonstrates that the presentation of an unrelated sound at the moment when two objects coincide promotes the illusory perception that the objects collide (see Sekuler et al. 1997). In their study, Berger and Ehrsson modify this classical experiment by substituting the actually heard sound for a merely imagined sound. This modification results in the realization that not only actual sounds, but also imaginary sounds modify visual experience. Second, let us consider the ventriloquist illusion, which aims to prove that vision dominates the other senses in sensuous perception. In its classical presentation (see Alais and Burr 2004), this experiment demonstrates that conscious localization of sound largely depends on visual stimuli, so much so that with each and every shift in visual stimuli, sound localization shifts as well. In short, visual data affect the meaning of the auditory stimuli that one is exposed to. Berger and Ehrsson modify the ventriloquist illusion by replacing actually perceived visual shapes with merely imaginary ones. The results of this modification lead to the realization that the meaning of auditory stimuli is co-constituted, not only by actual visual perceptions, but also by imaginary visualizations. Finally, Berger and Ehrsson offer a third experiment in the form of a modified version of the “McGurk illusion” (see McGurk and MacDonald 1976). In one of its classical presentations, an auditory stimulus of the phoneme “ba” is paired with a visual stimulus of someone’s lip movements articulating “ga,” resulting in a fused illusory percept “da.” Berger and Ehrsson modify this experiment by replacing an actually heard phoneme with an auditory imagery of the same phoneme. The participants in this experiment see the person’s lips make the utterance “ga,” while, at the same time, they imagine hearing “ba;” yet, because they synthesize “ga” and “ba,” they end up hearing “da.” This means that auditory imagery can be integrated with visual speech stimuli, thereby promoting illusory speech percept.

These neurological findings bring into question the view that, as Sartre famously puts it, “the image and the perception, far from being two elementary psychic factors of similar quality and that simply enter into different combinations, represent the two great irreducible attitudes of consciousness” (Sartre 2004, 120).15 These findings suggest that, on the contrary, imagination can be productive in the sense that it can shape our perceptual relation to the world at large. In light of these findings, one can maintain that, at least under some circumstances, what we see and what we hear is largely shaped phantasmatically. Nonetheless, and this should not be overlooked, these findings do not corroborate the widespread view that “imagination is an ingredient of perception itself,” for clearly, the participants in these experiments must have been conscious of the distinction between phantasy and perception, since otherwise they would simply not have been able to imagine sounds while being exposed to visual phenomena, or to imagine visual phenomena while being exposed to sounds. These participants must have at least implicitly been aware that, although perception marks their immediate access to actually existent phenomena, their ability to phantasize only allows them to see as if or hear as if. Thus, strangely, Berger’s and Ehrsson’s experiments contest the view that phantasy is a perceptual ingredient, even while these experiments nonetheless demonstrate that perceptual content can be shaped phantasmatically. How, then, is one to understand the intricate relationship between phantasy and perception?

In such a framework, it is hard to overestimate the importance of Husserl’s passing remark: “perception as apperception is itself a particular sort of ‘memory’” (Husserl 2005, 700). At first glance, this claim appears to be counterintuitive, since, as we saw in the last section, memory is a reproductive consciousness, while perception is original, unmodified, experience. Yet, Husserl here refers to perception as apperception,16 which means that in this framework perception cannot be reduced to the act of mere apparency, since it also incorporates the act of meaning that is founded in the act of apparency. This opens the further and highly promising possibility that we can conceptualize the relation between phantasy and perception. Even though perception and phantasy are, as Sartre puts it, irreconcilable attitudes of consciousness, phantasy can nonetheless shape and reshape perceptual consciousness indirectly, namely, by constituting those resources of sense from which the founded act of meaning draws its sustenance. Thus, even though I cannot both perceive and quasi-perceive the same object at the same time (see Bernet 2003, 213), imagination can supply dimensions of sense, which are subsequently transferred from the field of phantasy to the field of actuality. In the case of Berger’s and Ehrsson’s modified version of the cross-bounce illusion, the participants in the experiment do not conflate the imagined sound for a real sound; they are fully conscious that the sound is irreal, since, otherwise, they would not have been able to participate in the experiment. Nonetheless, as they imagine the sound of a crash at the moment when one visual body crosses the other, they transfer the meaning of the sound from the field of phantasy into the perceptual field, and on this basis they transform the meaning of the visual phenomenon. Ultimately, what they see is a crash.

Imagination is not an ingredient of perception itself: I can either perceive or quasi-perceive an object, but I cannot do both simultaneously. Nonetheless, the foregoing analysis shows that the meaning of a perceptual object, which is constituted in the act of apprehension, can incorporate dimensions of sense that are derived from phantasy consciousness. Perception and imagination cooperate at the level of meaning-constituting consciousness. In this extended sense, perception is not only a particular sort of memory, but it can also be a particular sort of phantasy.

How, then, can we conceive productive phantasy from the terms of Husserlian phenomenology? As noted above, Husserlian phenomenology invites us to admit that phantasy is essentially reproductive in the noetic sense, and yet this admission does not force us to exclude the possibility that it might be productive noematically. Against such a background, we can single out three fundamental senses in which phantasy can be said to be productive in the framework of Husserlian phenomenology. First, one can qualify phantasy as productive in that it can intend “original” appearances—not in the sense of perceptual appearances, but in the sense that the phantasized appearances do not “reproduce” perceptual appearances. I can thus phantasize about unicorns, sirens, mermaids, dragons, and other fictional objects produced by my imagination. This is the minimal and most straightforward sense to speak of productive phantasy from the terms of Husserlian phenomenology. In this sense, the productivity of phantasy can be explained as an integrative activity. It suffices to say that perceptually given manifolds can be taken apart and reorganized in a novel way. In other words, besides reproducing perceptual experiences, phantasy can also compound perceptually given elements and thereby generate new objectivities, which cannot be encountered in our perceptual surroundings. As Bernet explains in his outstanding study, phantasy is a productive form of reproduction: “it is a modified form of perception which indicates the possibility of a perception without presupposing its factual givenness” (Bernet 2003, 209).

Second, phantasy is productive insofar as it opens the field of pure possibilities. For Husserl, this capacity on the part of consciousness to transition from the field of actuality to that of possibilities is fundamentally important, since the field of pure possibilities provides consciousness with a point of access to the a priori, conceived as the field of essences. The productivity of phantasy is of so much importance for Husserlian phenomenology that Husserl goes so far as to uphold fiction as the vital element of phenomenology and as the source “from which the cognition of ‘eternal truths’ is fed” (Husserl 1983, 160). Husserl scholars have paid special attention in the secondary literature to this aspect of Husserl’s phenomenology of imagination. As Depraz remarks, if for Husserl “fiction is the essential element in phenomenological analysis, this is primarily due to the part eidetic variation plays in the constitution of phenomenological analysis” (Depraz 1998, 47). Or, as Jansen puts it, “a phenomenology of phantasy therefore truly is first philosophy” (Jansen 2005, 127) in that it enables phenomenology as an a priori science of pure possibilities and thereby prescribes a priori rules to reality.

Third, phantasy is productive insofar as it intends configurations of sense, which consciousness can subsequently transfer from the field of phantasy into the field of actuality. In other words, phantasy is productive insofar as it co-determines the meaning of perceptually given phenomena. This third sense of phantasy has hardly been explored in the framework of Husserlian phenomenology. This is understandable in light of Husserl’s famous characterization of phantasy at §111 of Ideas I (see Husserl 1983, 260) as a neutrality modification. There are, however, noteworthy exceptions. First and foremost, Natalie Depraz’ studies of imagination should be mentioned in this framework. Focusing on what she identified as “passive imagination” (Depraz 1998, 30) – which she understands as the implicit function of phantasy within the framework of Husserl’s phenomenology of passive constitution, and which, in turn, paves the way for what she identifies as “transcendental empiricism” – Depraz maintains that neutralization provides us with a severely restricted conception of phantasy. According to Depraz, the conception of “passive imagination” must be fleshed out even if it goes against some of Husserl’s own statements. “Imagination,” Depraz writes, “is in fact constitutively related to spatiotemporality. By opening up possibilities of being which exceed our own limited belonging to space and to time, imagination makes possible an enlargement of our very notion of what is real” (Depraz 1998, 49). With such a function of imagination in mind, Depraz speaks of “the new ‘principle’ of imagination” (Depraz 1998, 50) as “highly phenomenological: it brings to the fore the possibilities of reality and not reality itself” (ibid). My goal in the remaining parts of this chapter is to analyze and develop this train of thought, while focusing in particular on the role that phantasy plays in the constitution of cultural worlds. Just as Depraz emphasizes it in her analysis, we will also need to explore this idea as it appears in Husserl’s writings. We will endeavor to understand not only why the constitution of cultural worlds presupposes the constitution of other subjectivities, but also, and more importantly, why the constitution of other subjectivities relies upon phantasy acts, conceived as “acts of borrowing,” that is, we will need to understand those kinds of acts that appropriate the configurations of sense from other subjectivities. However, before articulating how such acts should be understood, I would like to entertain some of the criticisms that such an unusual phenomenology of phantasy is bound to provoke.