The Color....red...

The Color ReD

Perhaps bastardizing Merleu-Ponty, I would argue that one of the major premises of the article The Intertwining- The chiasm is to question the primacy of the seer over the thing itself.  Those of us with sight see, and all of us are seen in turn.

               

Perhaps I have never questioned that which I can “see”.  Perhaps again, I have not paused (at least sense middle school) to consider what comprises—things.  Merleau-Ponty tells us that the flesh of a thing is that which is present in between the visible and a color (133).  He also informs that color is some-thing that resides on the fabric of the invisible and is set.

The Color Red.  Merleau-Ponty tells us that color is a variant in an/other dimension of variation.  A dimension that is understood by its surroundings.  The “Reds”  (or anything else for that matter) form a constellation that allows us to perceive something.  In order for something to stick out, something necessarily has to be repressed.  But, Does anything have to be repressed for color to appear.  Again, I reiterate that Merleau-Ponty mentions the presence of a flesh that resides between the visible and color.  Which leads me to believe that these thigns that we perceive to be a color have some sort of substance (which might be invisible?)

We experience and are experienced (and this is just one of “us”).  Think of all of the sense impressions to be impressed in a group of people…its is astounding. 

As Merleau-Ponty gets into the meat of his argument he questions where the limits of the body in the world and the body as the sensory device of the world lie.  At this point he seems to be suggesting that the world (of stuff) exits entirely as those things that we can sense, which necessarily (in most situations) limits our perceptions and questions the thinghood of our liver or spleen. 

Even if we can sense some things with some of our senses we cannot sense all things with all of our senses (or can we….?)  Some things (like the color red) necessarily limit those things that we can literally take from them.  But, like most symbols, humans are crafty and ever able to make meanings out of things that are not naturally occurring.  For instance, I often associate the color red with the smell of apples or of cinnamon (you know…like a candle…) , but there is nothing naturally occurring that should allow me to do that.  So, this is where I find justification for understanding that a thing can be more than a thing (in a material sense).

(an unrelated end note….if Nietzsche and Merleau-Ponty had drink’s together, I’d love to be a “gnat” on the wall [although Von Uexkull would have me know that my-self as a gnat would not be able to see or hear much])

…I wonder if Merleau-Ponty used hallucinogens…