The sense of space, an essay on spatial perception and embodiment in the spirit of Merleau-Ponty's Phenomenology of perception

grantor: University of TorontoOur sense of space depends on our embodiment, specifically on a topology of the lived body. Spatial perception does not recover static spatial dimensions that are specified outside perception, as some traditional theories claim. Chapter one shows this through studies that criticise Descartes's and Berkeley's accounts of depth perception, and trace their continuing influence. A study of The Phenomenology of Perception shows how Merleau-Ponty's phenomenology demands a new account that conceives depth and spatial perception as phenomena motivated by our embodiment. Chapter two develops this new account. Merleau-Ponty's phenomenology and results in psychology show that there is a body schema, and that it shapes perception. A study that begins with binocular vision shows how the body schema shapes depth perception, given that perception depends on a place that supports our motor-perceptual relations to things. Another study shows that the body schema is a primordial habit. This means that the body schema--and hence spatial perception--can be labile, developmental, continuous with a world of human meaning, and that exterior places can be incorporated into our lived bodies and into our sense of space. Chapter three conceives webs of relations between parts of the lived body, things, others and places as topologies of the lived body that are specified in the body schema, and that give sense to spatial perception. A study of orientation perception in weightlessness reveals a topology that gives sense to orientation perception. Another study suggests a topology that gives sense to distance perception. These studies show how such topologies: are motivated by facts about the lived body that acquire meaning within the body schema, express a perceptual concern for our embodied being in the world, and relate us to place. In the conclusion, I suggest that spatial perception crucially reflects our relation to others, since the body schema, and hence the topology of the lived body, are rooted in habit, and develop through our embodiment within a social and cultural world. This suggests a program of future research, and that a phenomenological account of spatial perception is integral to existential understandings of our relations to others.Ph.D