I am also asking the reader to suppose that the concept of space has nothing to do with perception. Geometrical space is a pure abstraction. Outer space can be visualized but cannot be seen. The cues for depth refer only to paintings, nothing more. The visual third dimension is a misapplication of Descartes’s notion of three axes for a coordinate system. The doctrine that we could not perceive the world around us unless we already had the concept of space is nonsense. It is quite the other way around: We could not conceive of empty space unless we could see the ground under our feet and the sky above. Space is a myth, a ghost, a fiction for geometers. All that sounds very strange, no doubt, but I urge the reader to entertain the hypothesis. For if you agree to abandon the dogma that “percepts without concepts are blind,” as Kant put it, a deep theoretical mess, a genuine quagmire, will dry up. [1]
James J. Gibson, The Ecological Approach to Visual Perception
Instead of calling it a space it would be better to call it a world. The conception of an empty space of three dimensions was a conception of philosophers and physicists. It was appropriate for the analysis of the abstract world of events defined by Newton. It was and still is of enormous value for analysis in the physical sciences. But the fact that it simplifies such problems does not make it the best starting point for the problem of visual perception. Space, time, points, and instants are useful terms, but not the terms with which to start the analysis of how we see, for no one has ever seen them. The world with a ground under it… is the prototype of the world in which we all live [2]
James J. Gibson, The Perception of the Visual World
At RSaP—Rethinking Space and Place, that ‘world’, which is inclusive of the totality of perceptual and kinetic fields through which people move within the physical environment, is what I call ‘place’. In this sense, no ‘space’ truly exists in nature: there are only places within places, nested in an endless series. The totality of such places constitutes a world. To construe such a world as ‘space’ is, I argue, a misleading abstraction—one that veils (‘it simplifies…’, Gibson says) many of the fundamental processes that occur in reality (on this point, see also the article The Treachery of Space).
Gibson’s scepticism regarding both the actual nature of space and the so-called ‘perception of space’ is thematized in the book The Senses Considered as Perceptual Systems. Across the entire book, the author employs the term ‘perception’ nearly 400 times, yet uses the expressions ‘perception of space’ or ‘space perception’ fewer than ten—these are the most relevant: ‘…we will consider the simplest kind of orientation, to the direction up-down and to the plane of the ground. Along with this goes a basic type of perception on which other perceptions depend, that is, the detection of the stable permanent framework of the environment. This is, sometimes, called the perception of “space” but that term implies something abstract and intellectual, whereas what is meant is something concrete and primitive – a dim, underlying, and ceaseless awareness of what is permanent in the world’; [3] after some pages, we read: ‘The perception of external space, the dimensions of the vertical and horizontal and the third dimension, distance, is an accompaniment of the fact of body posture and equilibrium – that is, of orientation to the constants of the earth that have existed over millions of years of life’;[4] yet, Gibson’s scepticism concerning ‘the reality of space’ and the ‘perception of space’ is especially evident in the following passage on the haptic system: ‘The question involves the perceiving of both the general layout of environmental surfaces and the particular layout of the surfaces of an object being manipulated. The question is clearly related to that of so-called space perception. I have argued that the perception of the layout of surfaces is the perception of space (…). Completely empty space is unperceivable. There are dimensions or axes of empty space, to be sure, but they are embodied in a solid environment having a north-south, an east-west, and an up-down. This is the space to which an individual is oriented, with respect to which the posture and equilibrium of his body is maintained. The body itself, with its main axes of right-left, front-back, and head-foot, must never be confused with it. I called this a “vector space” on an earlier page, but it is not really a space’.[5]
Taken together, these passages illustrate Gibson’s deep suspicion toward space as a reified entity. For him, what we perceive are not empty geometrical abstractions veiled behind the term ‘space’ but concrete layouts of surfaces and enduring frameworks of the world. In this respect, his position resonates strongly with my own insistence that the place-world—not space—is the primary category of lived and perceptual reality.
Notes
[1] James J. Gibson, The Ecological Approach to Visual Perception (New York: Psychology Press Classic Editions, 2015), xv-xvi.
[2] James J. Gibson, The Perception of the Visual World (Cambridge: The Riverside Press, 1950), 60.
[3] James J. Gibson, The Senses Considered as Perceptual Systems (London: George Allen & Unwin Ltd., 1966), 59
[4] Ibid., 72.
[5] Ibid., 112-113.
Works Cited
Gibson, James J. The Perception of the Visual World. Cambridge: The Riverside Press, 1950.
Gibson, James J. The Senses Considered as Perceptual Systems. London: George Allen & Unwin Ltd., 1966.
Gibson, James J. The Ecological Approach to Visual Perception. New York: Psychology Press Classic Editions, 2015.
Image Credits
Featured Image: The change of the optic array brought about by a locomotor movement of the observer, in James J. Gibson, The Perception of the Visual World (Cambridge: The Riverside Press, 1950), 65.
2 Comments
JWS
Of all the interrogatives, one stands supreme.
Who bows to its seeming indifference?
What materializes the essence.
When heralds with dawning anticipation.
Where provides a fleeting glimpse.
Its ultimate expression creates awareness, or in some cases, veils reality from the ignorant.
A wise man once witnessed the chance meeting of the Moirai with this supreme Questor on a narrow, deserted road. Clotho fumbled, Lachesis became stifled and Atropos waxed indecisive.
All three fates simply vanished.
Firmly within its grasp is the truth of existence.
The King of Seekers is its moniker.
Judgment springs forth from its echoing aulos.
A penultimate query that lays bare all enigmas.
Pray tell us why you puzzle over its reality?
Alessandro Calvi Rollino
Searching for the how – which, I’d dare to say, is a missing part in that suggestive picture – I’ve discovered that we often mistake ‘a fleeting glimpse’ for ‘the essence’. Where – the fleeting glimpse – for What – the essence: a question of space, place and matter. If we, human beings, make plans without fully realizing the limits or extension of their applicability, what can we expect? Limits, extension: a question of space, place and matter. Typically, we act in space (an abstract concept, ‘a fleeting glimpse’) believing it is ‘the essence’ of reality (a concrete place, to begin with). In this metaphorical short-circuit, which we often and unwittingly transform into a logical error — the fallacy of misplaced concreteness —, we may trace the origin of our fatal relationship with Nature, i.e., the self-creating and orderly structure of reality. There is much at stake behind the concepts of space, place, and matter: not just beautiful buildings… Finally, I’ve also discovered what’s behind the name Moira.