ABSTRACTThe aim of this narrow-focused text is to argue against the claim that the appresentation of unperceived features of objects that is implied in perceptual intentionality presupposes a reference to perceptions other subjects could have of these objects. This claim, as it has been defended by Dan Zahavi, rests upon an erroneous supposition about the modal status of the perceptual possibilities to which the perceived object refers, which shall not be interpreted as effectively realizable but as mere de jure possibilities, (...) perceptions that could have been realized in principle, but that are maybe beyond one’s reach considering one’s concrete factual powers and opportunities. Horizontal intentionality is better accounted for in terms of perceptions that one could have had because of one’s embodied character and the always open possibility of occupying another position with respect to the object. This modal ubiquity which is inherent to one’s being-in-space is what supports the field of de jure possibil... (shrink)

My main objective in this article will be to compare Heidegger’s description of the way we perceive our environment in everyday coping – which is based on the concept of equipment (Zeug) – and James Gibson’s theory of affordance perception. More precisely, I will discuss whether equipment and affordance can be equated. In contrast to some interpretations, I will defend that they cannot: equipment and affordances refer to different ontological kinds and the perceptual or cognitive processes that are implied in (...) each case have nothing in common. In addition, I will defend that distinguishing equipment and affordances is a key step towards a more comprehensive account of the way we perceive and deal with the possibilities offered by our environment, and that Heidegger’s and Gibson’s accounts, far from being mutually exclusive, complement each other. Some work has however to be done in order to articulate them in a coherent theoretical framework. (shrink)

The purpose of this paper is to demonstrate the usefulness of the concept of possibility , and not merely that of actuality , for an inquiry into the bodily constitution of experience. The paper will study how the possibilities of action that may (or may not) be available to the subject help to shape the meaning attributed to perceived objects and to the situation occupied by the subject within her environment. This view will be supported by reference to empirical evidence (...) provided by recent and current research on the perceptual estimation of distances and the effects brought about by the use of a tool on the organisation of our perceived immediate space. (shrink)

For Husserl, kinaesthetic capability is a key piece of the process of perception. By ensuring the junction between the actual and the potential, it allows the exhibition of an object that is always more than what appears. Kinaesthetic capability preserves the transcendence of the object by preventing the phenomenon from being confined to pure actuality. This idea, however, poses significant challenges when one questions the nature of the possibilities that are at stake here. Especially, the perceived seems to enjoy a (...) kind of emancipation from these capabilities as they actually are. How can one justify that the structures of the perceived world are the intentional correlate of the kinaesthetic skills of the subject if such structures continue to regulate the sense of the appearing objects when those skills are neutralized? We will see that only a genetic perspective, assuming the intrinsically historical character of the subject, provides a satisfactory answer to this question, and that this perspective leads to placing into question the actualist position that Husserl sometimes tends to adopt. (shrink)

Alva Noë’s strategy to solve the puzzle of perceptual presence entirely relies on the principle of presence as access. Unaccessed or unattended parts or details of objects are perceptually present insofar as they are accessible, and they are accessible insofar as one possesses sensorimotor skills that can secure their access. In this paper, I consider several arguments that can be opposed to this claim and that are chiefly related to the modal status of action, i.e. the fact that the action (...) that would secure access to the absent aspects is a possibility, something that can be done. The main difficulty Noë’s account must face is –as several situations demonstrate– that the action that should be performed for the absent aspects to be actually accessed does not have to be itself available for these aspects to be perceptually present. What matters for the absent aspects to be present is not their de facto accessibility, but their de jure accessibility. To overcome those difficulties, I propose to rely on a ternary model of the role of action possibilities in perceptual awareness. This model builds on Husserl’s analysis of the role of perceptual circumstances in perception and connection between sense registering and horizontal intentionality. (shrink)

The ordinary space is continuously cluttered with bodies and constantly, when we move, we must maneuver, push and shove, walk around, make space. The awareness of having to operate in a limited space, where the places are always already occupied, is sustained by a special mode of appearing of ordinary space: the occupancy field. A phenomenological analysis of the occupancy field demonstrates that: the format in which space presents itself in ordinary perception is marked by our awareness of occupying space (...) with our body and having to squeeze it somewhere each time we move; bodies and space are co-dependent on an intentional level: ordinary space has, by a sense of vacuum, a mode of appearing which is indissociable from the phenomenological structure of bodies; the presentation of space is dependent on an anticipation of possibilities: it is because the situation is considered from the opportunities and constraints on the possible set up by our body that a space presents itself to us. We could not experience space if our perceptual apparatus took a mere snapshot of the current states of aff airs, if through it we had only access to the state in which the environment is at time t. To experience space means fundamentally to be ahead of one’s time, consider the present not from the future, but from the possible. (shrink)

What is space? Why is there space rather than nothing? Nowadays Physics claims to answer these questions without making any reference to the phenomenal space of the subject, and thus in total rupture with respect to its phenomenological meaning. We defend the idea that this elusion, al­though traditional in natural sciences, condemns in advance any attempt to explain space. And we will show that perceptual space is structured by a con­nection to possibilities. Spatialization is an operation affording us to under­stand (...) the beings by embodying in the structure of the world the opportunities we can rely on. (shrink)