Page 77 - Contribution To Phenomenology

70 OSBORNE WIGGINS

perceived as gestalt-wholes (Lakoff, p. 47). At this level what is recognized
is the overall shape of the object and the functional interrelationships
among the object's parts. Gurwitsch and Merleau-Ponty described
perceived objects as Gestalt-wholes (Gurwitsch, 1964; Merleau-Ponty,
1962). Here Gurwitsch, Merleau-Ponty, and Lakoff agree entirely.
Lakoff claims, moreover, that at the level of basic categories we
possess distinctive schemas of bodily action for using and manipulating
the objects. Lakoff writes.

Our knowledge at the basic level is mainly organized around part-whole
divisions. The reason is that the way an object is divided into parts
determines many things. First, parts are usually correlated with functions,
and hence our knowledge about functions is usually associated with
knowledge about parts. Second, parts determine shape, and hence the
way that an object will be perceived and imaged. Third, we usually
interact with things via their parts, and hence part-whole divisions play
a major role in determining what motor programs we can use to interact
with an object. Thus, a handle is not just long and thin, but it can be
grasped by the human hand. As Tversky and Hemenway say, "We sit
on the seat of a chair and lean against the back, we remove the peel
of a banana and eat the pulp'' (p. 47).

This third aspect of basic level categories is illuminating from a
phenomenological point of view. Gurwitsch and Merleau-Ponty contended
that we perceive objects as Gestalt-wholes and that, as thus intended,
they present to us the sense they have as objects for a distinctive
practical use (Gurwitsch, 1979, pp. 66-84; Merleau-Ponty, 1962). To take
one of E. Rosch's examples to make the phenomenological point, the
table is perceived as a Gestalt-whole and as "something to eat on"
(Lakoff, p. 51). Lakoff maintains that these two constitutive features of
basic level objects are interdependent A chair, for instance, is intended
as an object with two dependent parts, a seat and a back. The reason
why I perceive the object as a whole composed of these two dependent
parts is that I sit on the seat and I lean against the back. In other
words, there is a bodily action, sitting and leaning, that I typically
perform with such objects, and this typical action is also a Gestalt-whole
composed of two dependent parts. Correlated with the typical sense of the
object, then, is a typical bodily action. My mental life constituted this
typical sense of the object precisely by my bodily use of the object in this
activity. When I perceive the object now, those of its Gestalt-constituents