Why Phenomenology Doesn't Need Disjunctivism: Merleau-Ponty on Intentionality and Transcendence

Abstract

Commentators have argued that disjunctivism, from a phenomenological perspective, is the most coherent response to certain skeptical concerns. They find two phenomenological beliefs in tension: that intentionality is transcendent and that perceptions and hallucinations have a similar intentional content. While not ruling out a disjunctivist phenomenology, I show that phenomenologists are not forced into disjunctivism in order to avoid skeptical problems posed by hallucination. Instead, Merleau-Ponty's approach to the horizonal structure of experience supports a novel nondisjunctivist solution: first, by distinguishing proximate from ultimate objects of experience; second, by showing how every experience “belongs” to the world.