Cartesian Theory Of Judgement

In his seminal work, Phenomenology of Perception, MP heavily invokes an entirely different notion of judgement than the Cartesian notion. If this intellectual judgement is not necessary in order to demonstrate perception, than the necessity of the universal subject, and the reduction of perception to representations for this subject can be called into question. Judgement for MP is something that greatly differs from the Cartesian notion. Specifically, MP's notion of judgment in ordinary experience is a form of position taking; we aim for something valid across all of my experience and across the experience of all others.16 This notion of judgement is still found within sensation rather than external to and serving as the condition of possibility …show more content…
Reflection, is a perception like any other and does not know from where it comes from. Yet for Descartes, the reflection precedes the unreflected, and we can only know the intelligible structure of the wax through reflection's access to the absolute truth. It is precisely by moving beyond objective thought and the necessary dichotomic categories imposed on perception by reflection that we can attain an accurate phenomenological reduction.27 This reflection is not transparent to itself, and perception does not need reflection in order validate itself. Human thought does not need absolute …show more content…
The first reason is the rigidity between the figure and background. The figure and background relationship is much more complex. Not only does it posses the given qualities or characteristics. There are "contours" that are "separate " from the background and stick out, such as a smudge on a whiteboard. The smudge is stable and dense, while the whiteboard extends to the edges of my peripheral vision, and remains of a vague colour in contrast to the smudge. The relationship of the smudge to the rest of the whiteboard, especially the parts that come closest to the whiteboard, has a certain sense that extends beyond an abstract reduction to one particular shade (black) contrasted with another particular shade (white) (13).32 The problem with Gestalt psychology is that ends up as a descriptive, second-order reflection precisely by assuming the fixedness of the background, reifies the background and is thus not a proper account of lived experience. Only by accounting for the movement of the body within the background can we truly account for a phenomenological analysis of