


The modern era is profoundly marked by the idea of a subjective consciousness. This idea remains fundamental, not only in Descartes, but in all currents of thought using the distinction between the subjective and the objective — even if it is not always recognized as such. There is, however, a diVerence between perception and apperception which remained unclear in the Cartesian conception of consciousness, but which was articulated by Leibniz and beca- me a major theme of philosophical psychology in the 18th and 19th century. From the beginning of the 19th century the discussion was also complicated by the concept of the unconscious, which in a way means a rediscovery of the Aristotelian psyche.What should we understand by apperception: a self–consciousness, a consciousness of second degree, a retroactive awareness or reflection, a stream of consciousness or perhaps something rather like insight? Which is the relation between sensation, perception and apperception and in which sense are these irreducibly psychic functions? The article suggests some possibilities for describing the ontological status of experience.



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                                                            trópos • anno X • numero 1 • 2017 – ISBN 978-88-255-0482-8
                                                                DOI 10.4399/97888255048284 – pag. 53-67 (giugno 2017)




                                           Apperception and Experience
                                                          Some Ontological Perspectives
                                                                                   Jan–Ivar LindÈn⇤




    abstract: The modern era is profoundly marked by the idea of a subjective con-
       sciousness. This idea remains fundamental, not only in Descartes, but in all
       currents of thought using the distinction between the subjective and the objec-
       tive — even if it is not always recognized as such. There is, however, a diVerence
       between perception and apperception which remained unclear in the Cartesian
       conception of consciousness, but which was articulated by Leibniz and beca-
       me a major theme of philosophical psychology in the 18th and 19th century.
       From the beginning of the 19th century the discussion was also complicated
       by the concept of the unconscious, which in a way means a rediscovery of the
       Aristotelian psyche.
           What should we understand by apperception: a self–consciousness, a con-
       sciousness of second degree, a retroactive awareness or reflection, a stream
       of consciousness or perhaps something rather like insight? Which is the rela-
       tion between sensation, perception and apperception and in which sense are
       these irreducibly psychic functions? The article suggests some possibilities for
       describing the ontological status of experience.

    keywords: Apperception; pattern; quality; presence; appearance.




1. Definitions (in progress)

Stipulating definitions at the beginning of a text can seem quite artificial,
especially if one adheres to the conception of language as a medium of
thought, which has to be respected as a source of often unexpected insights.
While I still wish to begin in this way, it should be stressed that the defini-
tions below are at the same time preliminary and resultative; preliminary
insofar as they allow modifications and results to the extent that they ex-
press the current state of a philosophical interrogation. Thus they articulate
central issues in my own struggles with the problem of apperception and
experience in order to render the following text more accessible.
    ⇤
      Curator of the Centre for Historical Ontology and docent at the universities of Heidelberg and
Helsinki (curator@svst.eu).


                                                                                                                  53
54      Jan—Ivar Lindén


     — Quality (ontological quality) = qualified content which can appear as
       (qua) something (even when it does not appear). From an ontological
       point of view qualities are not properties of objects, but conditions of
       experience, i.e. of our exposition in and to reality.
     — Pattern (ontological pattern) = dynamic determinate structure; relati-
       vely stable organisation, which exists even if not always actual.
     — Presence = the actuality of what happens.
     — Feeling = presence in experience.
     — Sensation = feeling through sensually exposed qualities.
     — Perception = intentional qualification of experience through varia-
       tion of contents in order to deal with patterns (stressing orientation
       through discernment of the distinct).
     — Intention = meaningful direction of experience.
     — Apperception = awareness of own experience; experience with strong
       qualitative resonance.
     — Qualitative resonance = felt presence of qualities.
     — Experience = process lived as potentially or actually important.


2. Initial Remark

Apperception is not only an issue in philosophy, but in psychology, psychiatry
and several other fields as well. One aspect often seems to create problems
in interdisciplinary contexts: reality. It is diYcult to conceive a philosophy
without questions of reality, knowledge and experience. These areas of so
called theoretical philosophy also imply statements concerning the role
and scope of sciences, which is sometimes regarded almost as an intrusion.
Philosophy, however, rarely has the ambition to give advice of how to
practice diVerent sciences. Its major concern is to point out something quite
specific to its own approach, and if this is relevant to other sciences, it is for
them to integrate it, exactly as philosophy necessarily must be acquainted
with diVerent fields of human culture, science included, in order to have
something to reflect upon. When it comes to questions of what is real, and
what is not, how something is real and how it is not, to questions of being,
experience and knowledge, it is obvious that no other area of research would
gain anything at all if philosophy would give up its ontological ambition
— and I add, this ambition necessarily involves claims about fundamental
dimensions of reality.
    Philosophy has a perspective of its own. One should for example not
expect a physicalist cosmology from a philosophical theory of being. Neither
should one take an ontological hierarchy of perspectives for granted, as is
often the case in more or less ideological popularizations of science, which
                                                 Apperception and Experience   55


tend to reduce reality to a scientific object. Reality shows itself in many ways
and the tension between diVerent approaches is, one could say, precisely
the primum movens of interdisciplinary discussions. For a philosopher it is
natural to refer to several major figures of the history of philosophy and
presume that they still have something important to tell us. He treats the
classics as thematically relevant voices in contemporary discussions. Due
to the cumulative and future–oriented character of modern experimental
science, ancient research does not have the same status in this domain.
Philosophy, on the contrary, is heavily concerned with presuppositions,
and it is thus no coincidence that the older tradition maintains a central
position in philosophical research. Conceptual, logical, philological and
etymological questions also belong to this reflective strategy. Nothing is
thus more natural than to begin with a linguistic remark, closely related to
central questions in the philosophy of mind.


3. Choosing Words

A problem for every researcher using language, especially when the langua-
ge is not artificial, is to find the most adequate expressions. In contemporary
theory of perception, the English term “representation” is common and
it suggests something like a second presentation of what has already on-
ce been presented. In order to evince this sense, one sometimes uses the
simple expression “presentation” to indicate an activity which shows so-
mething in a particularly perceptible way. In German the word Vorstellung
directly bears this sense of something being “put forth” and “presentation”
could be a good English translation — if it would not stress the aspect of
rendering present too much and neglect the ideal content of the Vorstellung.
The third possible translation of this notion would be precisely idea. As the
quite autonomous and dynamic sphere of imagery and ideal contents will
be important in what follows, I hesitate which word to use. There would
be some good reasons for “idea", even if a semantic tradition in the 20th
century has often wanted to disqualify ideas, especially in the form they
had in early modern philosophy. No need to mention that the concept is
older and has a diVerent meaning in Plato. This does not bother me as I
have no problem with the platonic assumption that there exist both innate
and acquired ideal contents. What I want to stress is however a qualitative
dimension which is important when something appears. As the platonic ideas,
these qualities are not pure presentations, but express a dimension, which
exists in its own right and plays a decisive role in every appearance and
experience. They are not, however, models for things in the platonic sense.
On the contrary, I would like to stress the diVerence between qualitative
56      Jan—Ivar Lindén


contents on the one hand and models or patterns on the other — and accord
a fundamental importance to the modifications the original dimension of
qualities can acquire through experience when it is confronted with patterns.
I will also be careful not to follow the subjective interpretation Descartes
gave to ideas. The purpose is instead to describe experience as an essential
mode of reality and suggest what this could mean for apperception and its
hermeneutic corollary (understanding, Verstehen).


4. Apperception, Consciousness, Subjectivity

Descartes’ ambition was to find a new starting point for scientific metho-
dology through a reinterpretation of the soul as consciousness. This new
cogito diVers from the Aristotelian psyche, which is a principle of life with
strong sentient components. As Cartesian consciousness, the soul loses
its disturbing natural and historical incarnation and takes the shape of an
“archimedic point”1 outside the natural and historical world, gets rid of
prejudices and confuse ideas and thus — so is the intention — renders
truly objective science possible. Kant later spoke of a pure consciousness as
“the condition of possibility” of experience and knowledge and in this way
drew the “critical” consequences of Descartes’ methodological turn. Where
Descartes struggled to establish a new method of research, Kant already
took the new scientific approach for a settled matter and only wanted to
find out how it could be the case that such a successful research strategy was
possible. In the same vein Kant explicitly stresses that the epistemologically
important self–consciousness is not a contingent self–awareness, not an
“empirical apperception”, but a transcendental apperception, i.e. a necessary
condition, which conveys unity to experience. Without the transcendental
apperception we would not be able to combine experiences and perceive
unity in the world.2
    I will not speak about this Kantian solution that presupposes what De-
scartes meant to have shown: the existence of a pure I beyond natural and
historical influence which is able to regard nature as a completely exter-
nal world and thus to objectify this nature, to which the subject does not

     1. AT VII, 24. French version: AT IX, 19.
     2. For Kant there is no conflict between perceptive and apperceptive consciousness and a certain
kind of apperception is a direct condition of perception. It is in order to stress the necessary cha-
racter of this condition that Kant distinguishes between empirical and transcendental apperception.
Empirical apperception stands for passing awareness (there is “no standing and staying Ego”, “kein
stehendes oder bleibendes Selbst”) and is close to imagination, whereas transcendental apperception
means “the ’I think’, which must be able to accompany all my representations”, the “’ich denke’,
daß alle meine Vorstellungen muß begleiten können” and is thus a principle of unity, which must be
presupposed in every experience. Kant 1990, A107 & B131–2.
                                                                 Apperception and Experience            57


belong anymore (as the Aristotelian thinking animal, the zôon logon echon
did). Descartes himself was not quite clear about how the cogito should
be understood and his descriptions vary: when it comes to undeniable
evidence of existence he seems to mean a self–consciousness, but when
he defends a new scientific paradigm, he rather stresses something like
consciousness of objects. Leibniz was quite aware of this and explicitly
introduced the distinction between perception and apperception, which
Kant later diVerentiated. I quote from Leibniz’ Principles Concerning Nature
and Grace: “It is good to make the distinction between Perception, i.e. the
internal state of the Monad representing external things, and the Apper-
ception, i.e. the Consciousness or the reflective knowledge of this internal
state, which is not given to all Souls, and not given to the same Soul all
the time.”3 The monad as the unified essence of a being can thus perceive
things and it can perceive itself, but not all monads (or souls) are capable of
perceiving themselves and even a monad capable of this, cannot apperceive
all the time. Apperception is only occasional. This was exactly the reason
for Kant to make the distinction between an empirical and a transcendental
apperception. A purely occasional awareness can hardly be a condition of
possibility of experience (Bedingung der Möglichkeit der Erfahrung). Leibniz’
view is not the Kantian. This must not necessarily mean that Leibniz lacks
a diVerentiation, which Kant later oVered. Like Aristotle and the Scholastics,
Leibniz refuses to accord a foundational role to self–consciousness and
strongly defends what he calls les petites perceptions, the small perceptions,
of which we are not aware and which are closely related to appetites, drives.
Despite the metaphysical idea of a pre–established harmony and the rationa-
list tendency to link apperception to reason, the description of elementary
“small” perceptions remains interesting, and it suggests an influence from
the Aristotelian theory of aisthesis and orexis (striving) — even if Leibniz
has a peculiar idea of a fundamental correspondence between particular
experience and the totality of what exists.
    It is diYcult to settle the meaning of apperception, awareness of one’s own
experience, without deciding how to understand imagination, perception,
sensation and intellection (which is a kind of conceptual perception) in
relation to one another. Sensation is often understood as a direct perception
in which the senses (sight, hearing, touch, taste and smell, possibly others)
are involved, but it is not quite clear that we should call sensation perception
at all as perceiving seems to imply that we perceive something quite distinct,
whereas sensation alone furnishes little of such a determinate character.
     3. “Ainsi il est bon de faire la distinction entre la Perception qui est l’état interieur de la Monade
representant les choses externes, et l’Apperception qui est la Conscience, ou la connoissance reflexive de
cet état interieur, laquelle n’est point donnée à toute les Ames, ny toujours à la même Ame.” Leibniz
2013, Principes de la nature et de la grace 4.
58      Jan—Ivar Lindén


Much has been written on the problematic idea of sense data and many
philosophers tend to agree, that pure sensation cannot furnish any basis for
how the world is perceived. Perception involves meaning and meaning is not
constituted out of sense data. Sensation seems to be an aspect of perception,
but not its basis.4 What is then exactly the contribution of sensation? Taking
into account that datum means the given, could one perhaps understand
the sense datum without any positivist assumptions of a sensitive and at the
same time informational foundation of knowledge?


5. Sensation, Perception, Apperception

The relation between sensation and perception became a major theme of
philosophical psychology in the aftermath of Cartesian philosophy of mind.
In 18th century France, not least through the discovery and translation of the
writings of John Locke, empiricism became increasingly popular and even
turned into a radical sensualism, represented mainly by Condillac, who in
his well–known book, Traité des sensations, wanted to extract all ideas from
sensual impressions.5 This provocation gave rise to the movement of the so
called ideologists (les idéologues), whose main concern was to understand
the essence and especially the genesis of ideas. From this current of thought
springs one of the major figures of early 19th century theory of apperception,
Maine de Biran. In his important book on the problematic triad sensation,
perception and apperception and in other earlier texts,6 Maine de Biran
describes sensations as purely receptive and incapable of acquiring greater
distinction in the course of an experiential act (even if they can create needs
through habituation). Perceptions on the other hand demand an activity
of the perceiver, a capacity which can evolve to a more distinct grasp of
phenomena. Biran speaks of a double and contrary influence of habit
on sensations and perceptions. In the case of purely receptive sensations,
there is no active capacity and thus no experiential skill to improve. What
happens through continuous or repeated sensations is that the sensation
becomes increasingly dull. In the case of perception on the other hand,
repetition and ongoing experience has a contrary influence which renders
perceptions particularly valuable from an epistemological point of view:
through habituation we acquire skills to discern.

    4. Concerning sense data, a good survey is still: Perceiving, Sensing and Knowing, Swartz 1965.
See especially the contribution “Sensation” by Gilbert Ryle.
    5. Condillac 1984. An extremely good overview of the empiricist influence in France before
Condillac is found in Ross Hutchisons book Locke in France 1688–1734, Hutchison 1991.
    6. Maine de Biran 1995 and also Maine de Biran 1987.
                                                  Apperception and Experience   59


    It is almost as if sensation would diminish when perception increases.
How then should one understand apperception: as a passive faculty (which
risks to become dull like repeated sensation) or as an activity with the same
benefit for knowledge as perception?
    Maine de Biran preferred the second answer, but was unable to solve
the inherent problem concerning apperception. If we perceive the world
through a capacity to discern more or less distinct objects, it seems that
the capacities — and we as agents behind these capacities — are not what
the perception is focusing on. When we see something in the world, we
don’t see our own seeing. In the case of reflection this is evident. Reflection
is not the same thing as perception and it seems that apperception — if
it is reflective in character — is primarily a matter neither of discerning
nor of objectifying something. But regardless of the reflective character,
apperception suggests a particular kind of experiential presence which
seems to be something else than perception. What does this mean?
    Could it be that apperception — like Damasio and Friedrich Schleier-
macher long before him have suggested — is more like a feeling of what
happens?7 Two questions then arise. There is the just mentioned one, if
apperception — like sensation — follows the logic of becoming increasingly
dull through the lapse of time and there is the question about qualities
in apperception. How much content is implied if apperception is under-
stood as a feeling? If apperception would be only such a presence, it is not
clear how apperception would diVer from aVection. If we are not to regard
self–awareness only as an aVective state, apperception must be something
more specific than presence as such. I will propose a version in which
apperception is something instantaneously happening, but rich in content,
because of a relatively strong qualitative resonance, which does not, like in
the case of sensation, assume influence, and not, like in perception, deal with
patterns, but interrogates the qualitative content involved.


6. Presence, Patterns and Contents

By pattern I mean, as one can see from the definitions, a dynamic deter-
minate structure, which exists even if it is not always actual. It is natural
for us to think that patterns exist, even when they have no manifestation.
We are able to do many things without actually executing them. In fact,
such behavioural dispositions are embedded in deeper organized layers and
reflect ontological patterns which play an important role in the discovery of
regularities in nature. A behavioural pattern exists even if it is not manifest at

   7. Damasio 1999.
60     Jan—Ivar Lindén


every moment. We should not think diVerently, when it comes to qualities.
There is an ideal dimension of qualities, somehow linked to memory, which
can come into play occasionally — like patterns can occasionally produce
ordered processes.
    Experience manifests the different aspects of interplay between patterns,
presence and qualities. Patterns would be doomed to eternal latency without
(potentially modifying) moments and they would lack experiential value
without qualitative importance. In a similar way qualities need present actua-
lization and patterns in order to impose themselves. One can also suppose
that presence is somehow stimulated by the dynamics created by qualities and
patterns. If qualitative contents deepen presence in apperception, perception on
the contrary aims rather at a successful insertion in and mastering of patterns.
This perceptual tendency cannot however be isolated into a purely episte-
mological relation. No distinct aspect of things would be perceived, if only
determinate characters were there. A distinct thing is perceived if and only if it
is presented in its distinction. Presence is thus a necessary condition of every
perception and time is involved, because the present happens right now. This is
what conducted thinkers like Saint Augustine to stress the ontological primacy
of presence. Even Descartes retained this, when he gave his own interpretation
to the Augustinian si fallor, sum (if I err, I exist). Evidence of existence springs
from the cogito only as long as the cogito is actually thinking or doubting.8 Not
only perception, but apperception, too, is instantaneous, and the Cartesian
case is interesting, because it shows how presence is something extremely
important even when the project is to create a rationalist methodology for
modern sciences.
    What presence is remains enigmatic though. The Greek word parousia
is directly linked to being and can be understood as being which appears
(phainesthai). Appearance was however already in ancient philosophy un-
derstood in diVerent ways, Plato often stressing the illusory character of
experience and Aristotle on the contrary insisting on the necessary role of
phantasmata in all thinking. An ontology of experience must take this se-
riously. Illusion is then one aspect of appearance, which as such is quite real.
(Nobody would contest that illusions exist.) The point of view of Augustine
is diVerent. In his famous theory of time — which is in fact also a theory of
consciousness — presence (praesentia) has a central onto–theological role.
The non–being of the past (which is not anymore) and of the forthcoming
(which is not yet) is saved by the presence, by acts of remembering and
foresight, which of course do not occur in the past and in the future even
if they concern the past and the future. For the finite human being this

   8. AT VII, 25. French version: AT IX, 19. Augustine has several versions of the argument: the
mentioned “si [. . . ] fallor sum” figures in De civitate dei XI.26.
                                                              Apperception and Experience         61


presence is decisive as it represents an internal access to divine omnipre-
sence. As for Augustine, God remains omnipresent also in the medieval
tradition and Aquinas defines God as pure actuality (actus purus).9 It is not
necessary, however, to argue in this onto–theological way in order to point
out the crucial ontological role of presence. Without presence nothing could
happen and as Kierkegaard, Heidegger and others have pointed out, the
now can also be a decisive moment, an øjeblikk.10 Any instant can become
decisive, and it can be decisive, even if it is not recognized as such. Plato had
similar thoughts about kairos. When the instant appears in its importance,
we become troubled, we have to decide, choose our way, take responsibility
of how the past is going to influence the future. The moment then beco-
mes particularly intense. For many existential philosophers the intensity is
however not so much apperceptive as rather decisive and Heidegger has —
rightly, as it seems to me — even been accused of a certain “decisionism”.11
In this way the conflict between active orientation towards the future on the
one hand and apperceptive awareness of how the past is actually working
towards something determinate on the other hand risks being forgotten.
I would here prefer to defend the tradition of Reflexionsphilosophie and its
roots in Greek conceptions of theoria, contemplation.


7. Appearing Reality

How is it, that there can be appearances? Pure presence is not sufficient and
neither is the organizing capacity of patterns. One could suggest: through
qualitative contents with specific relations to patterns the present moment
becomes important and demands reactions through behaviour. If this is
appearance, it does not imply any behaviouristic reduction of the psyche.
On the contrary, it would show how intimate the relationship is between
qualitative experience and behaviour — and how both depend on felt presence.
I summarize: we would have three fundamental aspects of experience, closely
working together: 1) ontological patterns, which are particularly familiar to
us as dispositions, 2) qualitative contents which render appearances important
and finally 3) the presence, necessary for the actualization of both patterns and
qualities. An actual situation — the here and now — is somehow what can
stimulate both patterns and qualitative contents.

     9. Concerning Augustine’s theory of time, see Confessiones XI. For more references, see Lindén
2011–2012.
    10. Concerning the Augenblick in Heidegger; the notion appears in several contexts, but of course
also in the descriptions of temporality in Sein und Zeit, Heidegger 1967. Concerning Kierkegaard, see
Begrebet Angest, in English Kierkegaard 1980.
    11. I here refer to Löwith 1984, especially p. 61–71.
62      Jan—Ivar Lindén


     Appearance is what turns reality into experience, gives it situational
importance. The qualitative contents in the appearances seem to be relati-
vely independent and consist of thematic variations around a primordial
dimension. I have chosen to say quality instead of idea or meaning for this
dimension in order not to overstress intentionality that has often been taken
as a criterion of the mental. Intending something is closely connected with
a teleological directedness and it would be all too hasty to conceive all qua-
litative contents as something teleological. End–oriented meanings without
doubt exist in perception and even hold an important position, but they
seem to presuppose the kind of contents I have preferred to call qualities.
     Imagination is probably still a helpful concept, if one remembers its
philosophical history, often attributing to it a fundamental role not only in
fantasies and illusions, but in actual sense perception, too. For Aristotle all
activity of the sensitive psychic function (the aisthetikon) and even of the
more intellectual noetikon involves such “images” (phantasmata).12 Imaginatio
remains a central term in the medieval and in the later Latin tradition. Kant
speaks of a productive imagination (produktive Einbildungskraft), fundamen-
tal to experience, which constitutes phenomena.13 Henri Bergson and other
philosophers of a similar bent describe perception as an interested selection
of images, which Bergson understands as essential aspects of reality itself.14
In all these cases there is the enigmatic question of how something can
appear and the above mentioned philosophers in their own way want to
give interpretations, which do not reduce appearance to the contrary term
it is in the conceptual couple appearance and reality. The tendency is rather
to stress that appearance is the way of reality to show itself.15


8. Empirical Exposition

How should we then relate qualitative contents to sensations? Taking into
account that sensations presuppose exposition of the senses, one possibility is
to attribute an exposing capacity to the qualities. Through these contents we
become receptive for those aspects of the world, which have some bearing
in a certain actual situation. (It would then be no coincidence that among
the several meanings of the world sense we count both sensual faculty and
meaning.) When we expose contents the world imposes ways to react

   12. De anima III 431a – 432a.
    13. Kant 1990, B 152.
   14. Bergson 2008, chapter 1, for example p. 12.
    15. Since perceptual experience seems to be heavily dependent on imagination — which is thus
presupposed in experience —, it would also be diYcult to regard ideal contents of experience only as
reproductions of former perceptions.
                                                               Apperception and Experience          63


through specific senses, whose major raison d’être is their aptness to feel the
world in relation to certain qualities — and diVerent senses are stimulated
in diVerent ways just as diVerent organisms with their diVerent organs
are diVerently disposed for the stimuli. In this way qualitative significance
contributes to the exposition of the senses. This ekthetic16 character of
experience has been blurred by a long history of regarding the senses
as purely receiving functions: passive and not active, receptive and not
spontaneous, in short, as impressions without corresponding expressivity.
The position I here have tried to sketch, would ascribe a crucial role to
expression as a means of exposing contents and sensual experience would
be more like assuming the tension through exposition, not like receiving
pure impressions.


9. Apperception and Understanding

What then about apperception? The distinction between empirical and
transcendental apperception, which in a certain sense saves the Cartesian
conception of a pure consciousness in charge of experience and knowledge,
loses its importance in this context. There is something convincing in the
older idea that awareness only occurs occasionally, quite often so, but
without being a continuous stream of thought, grounding all experience.17
From this point of view apperception is occasional and dependent on a felt
presence, which stands in a certain conflict with the discerning ambitions
of perception. Our interested focus on the world of phenomena necessitates
precision and active determination (— both in the diVerentiating and the
voluntarist sense —), but cannot simultaneously deepen its apperceptive
resources, which are closely related to a certain indeterminacy. Bergson
even tried to understand consciousness as something happening in a “zone
of indeterminacy” (zone d’indétermination) and he claimed that dreams
would be good examples of such apperceptive states.18 This certainly is an

    16. ekthesis, i.e. exposition.
    17. Consciousness would then be something momentaneous and discontinuous of the kind the
physicist and philosopher Palágyi proposed. Palágyi 1924, especially the second lecture. Palágyi does
not however distinguish clearly between consciousness and epistemic acts and accordingly does
not see any tension between consciousness and conceptual perception. His view is in this respect
contrary to the Bergsonian. Cf. Palágyis discussion of dreams, p. 34–37.
    18. Bergson 2008, p. 29–30. Indeterminacy is for Bergson also something enabling freedom of
will, but he does not identify indeterminacy and freedom in the way often criticized by philosophers
influenced by Kant and Hegel. A mnemic dimension announces its presence in the indeterminate
state and it is exactly this which leads Bergson to stress the close relationship between dreams, “pure
recollection” (souvenir pur) and consciousness. Without the mnemic component voluntary actions
would not be possible.
64    Jan—Ivar Lindén


interesting point and is supported by the fact that imagination can intensify
experience without being particularly distinct. It does not however explain
the relation between apperception and reflection.
    Intense apperception does not of course imply a corresponding reflec-
tive understanding — but neither does it exclude or impede understanding.
In fact, understanding can be seen as a reflective state which occurs in
consciousness, when there was a suYciently convincing preparation by
qualitative contents and conceptual patterns. As in the case of other per-
ceptive diVerentiation, however, conceptual diVerentiation alone cannot
oVer any reflexive understanding. Understanding happens in apperception,
even if it certainly allows diVerent strategies and processes to bring it about.
Experience is constituted by an interplay of patterns, qualities and presence.
Depending on our orientation, diVerent aspects of the qualitative contents
are brought into play: in formal enterprises semiotically less connotated
ideas, in understanding something rather connotated, which is apt to suggest
as much inherent meaning as possible in the specific context.
    The traditional diVerence between explanatory and understanding expe-
riential strategies could then be seen as the diVerence between dealing with
and understanding phenomena — even if every form of human knowledge
certainly contains aspects of both. However, the emphasis is diVerent in the
two cases: dealing with phenomena means adjustment to or mastering of
real patterns, not deepening the apperceptive belonging to or dependence
on qualitative reality. Who deals with reality is attentive and interested in
new results, whereas the understanding stance has only a very moderate
interest in results and prefers to contemplate what is. In fact, this was exactly
how Aristotle conceived the contemplative life, the bios theoretikos.
    I close with a general question about the suggested tripartite scheme and
the corresponding defence of a strong ontological concept of experience.
What are its implications for the main tenor of transcendental philoso-
phy, i.e. the idea that everything known is known on the basis of diVerent
conditions of possibility? As far as I can see, the legacy of transcendental
arguments remains, but has to be separated from a long modern tradition of
mentalist philosophy (Bewußtseinsphilosophie). In a certain sense, the inten-
tion has been to oVer an alternative conception of conditions of possibility,
with ingredients both of Aristotelian and Augustinian psychology. Such a
suggestion, it seems to me, has the advantage of surmounting all too dualist
distinctions between the purely physical and the mental. With regard to the
initial remarks on interdisciplinary challenges, this conception also suggests
that the human sciences, the Geisteswissenschaften, are not confined to a
narrow field of human culture, but oVer a perspective on reality as it shows
itself — and has shown itself in history — and on the crucial role of quality
in the life of every incarnated being.
                                                 Apperception and Experience   65




                 Figure 1: Non–ecological scheme of experience.




10. Conclusion

As this text began with somewhat schematic definitions, I conclude in a
similar way with some claims:

   a) How something appears as something depends on qualities expres-
      sed.
   b) Ontological qualities must be distinguished from ontological patterns.
   c) The term “sensation” is ambiguous as it refers to both qualitative
      aspects and only presenting ones. In the case of qualities there is
      always a qua, i.e. an as, which stands for content. In order to distin-
      guish between these aspects, I propose the notion of feeling for the
      presenting function and sensation for a feeling with qualities expo-
      sed through senses. Sensation is understood as the feeling of what
      happens when expressed qualities are in a certain tension with the
      patterns they confront at a specific moment.
66      Jan—Ivar Lindén


     d) Without qualitative expressions experience has no content.
     e) As every experience, perception, too, needs expressed qualities and
         it even insists on these in order to deal with patterns. As intentional
         experience perception “tests” identical meanings and thus qualifies
         experience for better discernment and orientation.
     f ) Focusing on something through perception is in conflict with si-
         multaneous awareness of the qualitative implication in one’s own
         activity.
     g) As in the case of sensation and perception, apperception, too, is
         dependent on expressed qualitative contents, but it does not, like
         perception, aim at better dealing with patterns and neither does it,
         like sensation, only assume influence. Apperception contains an inter-
         rogation concerning qualities involved in an instantaneous experience
         (which can be both of a more sensual and of a more perceptive kind).
         It tends to a qualitative resonance, which only indirectly can improve
         orientation.
     h) Not only patterns, but also qualities and presence manifest reality.
      i) Illusions are real and illuminating.
      j) What is real, must not be correct in epistemic contexts.
     k) Through concepts (logoi) we have access to the interaction between
         patterns and qualified contents.
      l) Reflection is a conceptually guided apperception with the aim of
         better understanding what happens. It diVers from imagination in
         being conceptual and from diVerentiating perception through its
         backwards oriented and critical stance. (Re–flexio means to be bent
         backwards.)
     m) What has already happened, is given and lives forth in patterns,
         qualities and intermediary concepts.
     n) The given has a crucial status, when we want to understand reality.
     o) Foresight and discerning of relevant aspects are decisive in dealing
         with reality.
     p) The distinction of an ontological pattern alone can never render the
         pattern important. Importance presupposes the actuality of what
         happens and qualitative implication.



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