Actuality and possibility

on the complementarity of two registers in the bodily constitution of experience

Gunnar Declerck

Olivier Gapenne

pp. 285-305

in: Dorothée Legrand, Thor Grünbaum, Joel Krueger (eds), Dimensions of bodily subjectivity, Phenomenology and the cognitive sciences 8 (3), 2009.

Abstract

The purpose of this paper is to demonstrate the usefulness of the concept of possibility, and not merely that of actuality, for an inquiry into the bodily constitution of experience. The paper will study how the possibilities of action that may (or may not) be available to the subject help to shape the meaning attributed to perceived objects and to the situation occupied by the subject within her environment. This view will be supported by reference to empirical evidence provided by recent and current research on the perceptual estimation of distances and the effects brought about by the use of a tool on the organisation of our perceived immediate space.