The Phenomenology of MindIndependence added 10/11/2008

I shall defend the view that the experience of resistance gives us a direct phenomenal access to the mind-independence of perceptual objects. In the first part, I address an objection against the very possibility of experiencing mind-independence. The possibility of an experience of mind-independence being secured, I argue in the second part that the experience of resistance is the kind of experience by which we access mind-independence. 1. Is a phenomenology of reality possible? 1.1. Two different questions Two questions arise concerning the connection between appearances and reality. First: are appearances real? Second: is reality apparent? When we ask about the reality of appearances, we try to understand whether the objects presented to us in experience exist independently of this experience. When we ask about the appearance of reality we try to know whether the objects of our experience are presented to us as independent of our experience. Historically, the first question is the most important one: do the direct objects of our perceptual experiences exist independently of their perception? Direct realism answers yes, while indirect realism and phenomenalism answer no, claiming that the immediate objects of our perceptual acts are mind-dependent sense-data. I shall address the second question, which concerns the phenomenology of reality: do the direct objects of our perceptions appear as mind-independent? Can we experience the very “moment of reality”1 of perceptual objects? Let us call the positive answer to this question the thesis of the phenomenality of independence (PI). (PI) The mind-independence of perceptual objects can be experienced. Hume clearly rejects PI: 1 The expression is from M. Scheler. As to the independency of our perceptions on ourselves, this can never be an object of the senses. Treatise, 1.4.2. I shall try, contra Hume, to defend PI