2
" It is the function which permits us to understand the organism. Thus, when they are inborn, anatomical structures should be considered as topographical conditions of the original functional development, modifiable by the function itself and thus comparable to the electrode which governs the phenomenon of electrolysis but is altered by it in return; when they are acquired, they should be considered the result of the most habitual functioning; thus anatomy should be considered as a stage in the development of physiology. Finally, if it were established that the nerve processes in each situation always tend to re-establish certain states of preferred equilibrium, these latter would represent the objective values of the organism and one would have the right to classify behavior as ordered or disordered, significant or insignificant, with respect to them. These denominations, far from being extrinsic and anthropomorphic, would belong in the living being as such. "
― Maurice Merleau-Ponty , The Structure of Behavior
5
" Perspective does not appear to me to be a subjective deformation of things but, on the contrary, to be one of their properties, perhaps their essential property. It is precisely because of it that the perceived possesses in itself a hidden and inexhaustible richness, that it is a 'thing'...Far from introducing a coefficient of subjectivity into perception, it provides us with the assurance of communicating with a world which is richer than what we know of it, that is, of communicating with a real world...The perceived is grasped in an indivisible manner as an 'in-itself,' that is, as gifted with an interior which I will never have finished exploring; and as 'for-me,' that is, as given 'in person' through its momentary aspects. Neither this metallic spot which moves while I glance toward it, nor even the geometric and shiny mass which emerges from it when I look at it, nor finally, the ensemble of perspectival images which I have been able to have of it are the ashtray; they do not exhaust the meaning of the 'this' by which I designate it; and, nevertheless, it is the ashtray which appears in all of them...Thus, to do justice to our direct experience of things it would be necessary to maintain at the same time, against empiricism, that they are beyond their sensible manifestations and, against intellectualism, that they are not unities in the order of judgment, that they are embodied in their apparitions. The 'things' in naive experience are evident as perspectival beings ...I grasp in a perspectival appearance, which I know is only one of its possible aspects, the thing itself which transcends it. A transcendence which is nevertheless open to my knowledge--this is the very definition of a thing as it is intended by naive consciousness. "
― Maurice Merleau-Ponty , The Structure of Behavior
6
" It is not a question of risking one hypothesis among others, but of introducing a new category, the category of "form," which, having its application in the inorganic as well as the organic domain, would permit bringing to light the "transverse functions" in the nervous system of which Wertheimer speaks and whose existence is confirmed by experience without a vitalist hypothesis. For the "forms," and in particular the physical systems, are defined as total processes whose properties are not the sum of those which the isolated parts would possess. More precisely they are defined as total processes which may be indiscernable from each other while their "parts," compared to each other, differ in absolute size; in other words the systems are defined as transposable wholes. We will say that there is form whenever the properties of a system are modified by every change brought about in a single one of its parts and, on the contrary, are conserved when they all change while maintaining the same relationship among themselves. "
― Maurice Merleau-Ponty , The Structure of Behavior
12
" The notion of form which was imposed upon us by the facts was defined like that of a physical system, that is, as an ensemble of forces in a state of equilibrium or of constant change such that no law is formulable for each part taken separately and such that each vector is determined in size and direction by all the others. Thus, each local change in a form will be translated by a redistribution of forces which assures the constancy of their relation; it is this internal circulation which is the system as a physical reality. And it is no more composed of parts which can be distinguished in it than a melody (always transposable) is made of the particular notes which are its momentary expression. Possessing internal unity inscribed in a segment of space and resisting deformation from external influences by its circular causality, the physical form is an individual. It can happen that, submitted to external forces which
increase and decrease in a continuous manner, the system, beyond a certain threshold, redistributes its own forces in a qualitatively different order which is nevertheless only another expression of its
immanent law. Thus, with form, a principle of discontinuity is introduced and the conditions for a development by leaps or crises, for an event or for a history, are given. Let us say in other words that each form constitutes a field of forces characterized by a lawwhich has no meaning outside the limits of the dynamic structure considered, and which on the other hand assigns its properties to each internal point so much so that they will never be absolute properties, properties of this point. Taken in this sense, the notion of form seems scarcely assimilable for classical physics. "
― Maurice Merleau-Ponty , The Structure of Behavior
14
" In our image of the physical world, we are obliged to introduce partial totalities without which there would be no laws and which partial totalities are precisely what we understood above by form. The combined interplay of laws could withdraw existence from structures which had become stable and bring about the appearance of other structures, the properties of which are not predictable. Thus there is a flow of things which supports the laws and which
cannot be definitively resolved into them. To treat the physical world as if it were an intersecting of linear causal series in which each keeps its individuality, as if it were a world in which there
is no duration, is an illegitimate extrapolation; science must be linked to a history of the universe in which the development is discontinuous. We cannot even pretend to possess genuine "causal series," models of linear causality, in our established science. The notion of causal series can be considered a constitutive principle of the physical universe only if the law is separated from the process of verification which gives it objective value. The physical experiment is never the revelation of an isolated causal series: one verifies that the observed effect indeed obeys the presumed law by taking into account a series of conditions, such as temperature, atmospheric pressure, altitude, in brief, that is, a
certain number of laws which are independent of those which constitute the proper object of the
experiment.
Properly speaking, therefore, what one verifies is never a law but a system of complementary laws. There could be no question of supposing a point-for-point correspondence between the experiment and the physical laws; the truth of physics is not found in the laws taken one by one, but in their combinations.
Since the law cannot be detached from concrete events where it intersects with other laws and receives a truth value along with them, one cannot
speak of a linear causal action which would distinguish an effect from its cause; for in nature it is impossible to circumscribe the author, the one responsible as it were, of a given effect. Since we
nevertheless succeed in formulating laws, clearly all the parts of nature must not contribute equally in producing the observed effect. The only valid formulation of the principle of causality will be that which affirms, along with the solidarity of phenomena in the universe, a sort of lessening—proportional to the distance—of the influences exercised on a given phenomenon by prior and simultaneous phenomena. Thus laws and the linear relation of consequence to conditions refer us back to events in interaction, to "forms" from which they should not be abstracted. "
― Maurice Merleau-Ponty , The Structure of Behavior
15
" Just as I can be mistaken concerning myself and grasp only the apparent or ideal signification of my conduct, so I can be mistaken concerning another and know only the envelope of his behavior. The perception which I have of him is never, in the case of suffering or mourning, for example, the equivalent of the perception which he has of himself unless I am sufficiently close to him that our feelings constitute together a single 'form' and that our lives cease to flow separately. It is by this rare and difficult consent that I can be truly united with him, just as I can grasp my natural movements and know myself sincerely only by the decision to belong to myself. Thus I do not know myself because of my special position, but neither do I have the innate power of truly knowing another. I communicate with him by the signification of his conduct; but it is a question of attaining its structure, that is of attaining, beyond his words or even his actions, the region where they are prepared. "
― Maurice Merleau-Ponty , The Structure of Behavior
16
" The coordinated elements are not only coupled with each other, they constitute together, by their very union, a whole which has its proper law and which manifests it as soon as the first elements of excitation are given, just as the first notes of a melody assign a certain mode of resolution to the whole. While the notes taken separately have an equivocal signification, being capable of entering into an infinity of possible ensembles, in the melody each one is demanded by the context and contributes its part by expressing something which is not contained in any one of them and which binds them together internally. The same notes in two different melodies are not recognized as such. Inversely, the same melody can be played two times without the two versions having a single common element if it has been transposed. Coordination is now the creation of a unity of meaning which is expressed in the juxtaposed parts, the creation of certain relations, the creation of certain relations which owe nothing to the materiality of the terms which they unite. "
― Maurice Merleau-Ponty , The Structure of Behavior
