The Politics of the Gaze: Between Foucault and Merleau-PontyAuthor(s): Nick CrossleyReviewed work(s):Source: Human Studies, Vol. 16, No. 4 (1993), pp. 399-419Published by: SpringerStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/20011017 .Accessed: 30/08/2012 02:22

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Human Studies 16: 399-419, 1993. ? 1993 Kluwer Academic Publishers. Printed in the Netherlands.

The politics of the gaze: Between Foucault and

Merleau-Ponty*

NICK CROSSLEY

Department of Sociological Studies, University of Sheffield, Sheffield S10, United

Kingdom

Introduction

The work of Maurice Merleau-Ponty (1908-1961) is beginning, once again, to find its way into debates in social and political theory/philosophy.1 This

resurgence of interest is indicated by the recent publication of a number of

texts which are devoted to a reappraisal of this French existentialist's major

(and minor) works (e.g., Dillon, 1991; Johnson and Smith, 1990; Kruks,

1990; Daunhauer, 1986; and Whiteside, 1989). Two common concerns

manifest, to a greater or lesser extent, within these texts. On the one hand, there is a concern to dissociate Merleau-Ponty's existential-phenomeology from the popular straw models of phenomenology and existentialism which

have been and still are attacked and repeatedly discredited in philosophical and sociological circles: e.g., Merleau-Ponty was not a philosopher of

consciousness, he was a critic of such philosophies; he did not advocate a

notion of the transcendental ego, he criticised it; he did not 'centre' the

subject in either philosophical or sociological terms, he decentred it; he was

not an individualist in either ontological or political terms; and although he

was a political humanist, he was critical of bourgeois liberal humanism in

terms of both its political-ethical implications, and in terms of its search for

the 'inner' nature or essence of humanity. His was a sophisticated humanism which does not disintegrate in the face of the en vogue anti

humanist rhetoric of the post-structuralists.

* An earlier version of this paper was presented at the Theory and Society semi? nars, University of Sheffield, England, on 7th February 1992. Thanks are due to all

participants for their helpful comments, especially Nick Stevenson. Thanks also to Maurice Roche and Mich?le Davies for their help and comments.

400

The second common theme in the above-mentioned texts is the com?

plementarity between Merleau-Ponty's work and that of the more popular thinkers and themes of contemporary theory and philosophy, and (in some

cases at least) the ability of his philosophy to surpass and add "new" insight to these contemporary themes and thinkers. Amongst the thinkers with

whom Merleau-Ponty has been critically compared and contrasted are

Foucault,2 Habermas (Levin, 1989), Derrida (Dillon, 1991; Madison, 1991;

Silverman, 1990; and Flynn, 1984), Kristeva (Silverman, 1991), Lacan

(Levin, 1991; and O'Neill, 1986), Rawls and Walzer (Whiteside, 1989). These comparative analyses are far from comprehensive. Often they only deal with one or two out of a great many possible issues. Nevertheless they serve to make the point that Merleau-Ponty's philosophy should not be

relegated to the history of "interesting but now defunct" ideas. They situate

this work in relationship to the concerns of the contemporary theory

agenda.

In this paper I rejoin these theoretical stirrings by considering the

relevance and value of Merleau-Ponty's work for a theoretical understand?

ing of the politics of the gaze, and more specifically, the Panoptic mode of

power described by Foucault (1974, 1979, 1980a) in his Discipline and

Punish, and related papers. I begin by outlining Foucault's account of the Panopticon and Panoptic

power. Then I criticise this account, pointing to its deficiencies. Finally I

show how Merleau-Ponty's philosophy allows us to overcome these

deficiencies, and how it deepens our understanding of the Panopticon and

Panopticism in the process.

During this analysis I will briefly consider Sartre's (1969: 252-302)

theorisation of "the look" and its value in terms of an understanding of

Panopticism. There are two reasons for this. In the first instance, the

relationship or possible relationship between Sartre's "look" and Foucault's

"Panopticon" has been asserted elsewhere but it has not been discussed; Jay

(1986: 190-194), for example, stresses the fundamental similarities be?

tween the two but only as an aside, whilst Kruks (1990: 187-189), again in

a brief note, suggests that Sartre's 'look' functions as a necessary supple? ment to the notion of Panopticism. I take up the idea of this possible

conceptual relationship but, contra both Jay and Kruks, I stress the fun?

damental differences and incompatibility between "the look" and "the

Panopticon". I conclude that Sartre has a minor contribution to make to our

understanding of Panopticism but that the incommensurability of his "look"

with the concept of the Panopticon precludes any possibility of mutual

reinforcement or synthesis between the concepts. The second reason for

discussing Sartre's "look" is that it was both a starting place and a target of

criticism in Merleau-Ponty's understanding of gaze politics. In this respect

401

it has contextual relevance.

Foucault and the Panopticon

One of the central themes of Foucault's Discipline and Punish is the

historical reversal of what he calls the orders of 'visibility and invisibility' within the operation of penal power. The use of the terms "visible" and

"invisible" in this and other of Foucault's texts (e.g., 1970, 1973) is

interesting in terms of this paper because it is these terms which Merleau

Ponty (1968a) uses to denote the conditions pertaining to vision in his later

philosophical analysis of the issue. Merleau-Ponty (1968a) rejects the term

"perception" because of its connotation of consciousness, and he replaces the term with the terms "the visible" and "the invisible". Given that

Foucault was a student of Merleau-Ponty and that he too was concerned to

challenge the philosophy of consciousness, one might speculate that his

frequent use of these terms constitutes a deliberate theoretical appropria? tion. But this is just speculation. Suffice it to say that for Foucault, as for

Merleau-Ponty, 'the visible' or the order of visibility is what is seen, and

the invisible is the processes and the practices involved in the making' visible of the visible which are not themselves visible. This definition will

be clarified through a consideration of the historical reversal of the orders

of visibility and invisibility, to which I have just referred.

In the ancient regime, Foucault notes, power functioned through its

visibility. The operation of power constituted a spectacle to be observed by the largely anonymous and (individually) invisible masses. Ceremonies of

public execution and torture provide the proof and the illustration of this.

Such ceremonies, Foucault notes, effect a power relation through the fear

which their spectacular displays instil into the observing but unobserved

masses. The immediate victims of such ceremonies (i.e., the tortured and

executed) are, of course, made visible in this process; but, according to

Foucault, their visibility is only instrumental to the process of making power visible. Moreover, when they are not being used to display the

excesses of power, these victims are (literally) hidden away. A dark and

secluded dungeon secures their invisibility. This ordering of the visible and the invisible, within the power relation,

no longer holds in the modern era according to Foucault - or at least not in

relationship to penal power. In the modern era it is power which is invisible

and anonymous, and it is those who are subjected to it who are visible.

Power functions, in part, by making people visible. It involves a complex ensemble of practices which individualise persons and which constitute

those individuals within a field of visibility, such that they can be observed

402

and kept under surveillance.

The functional value of such surveillance, within modern power com?

plexes, is by no means unified or homogenous according to Foucault's

analysis however. Surveillance techniques are identified as having at least

four functions in Discipline and Punish. In the first instance, they effect a

certainty of capture and punishment amongst potential deviants and are

thereby instrumental in achieving what we might term, a deterrent effect.

Secondly, they service the observational exigencies effected by the

"correctional techniques" which Foucault discusses in Discipline and

Punish: i.e., correctional techniques, if they are to work, require a careful

and meticulous observation and examination of subjects, and surveillance

techniques provide for this. Thirdly (and particularly in the form of examina?

tion techniques) they provide a basis for the creation of knowledge about

human subjects. Finally, Foucault appears to identify an intrinsic power effect within the surveillance relationship itself. This effect, which is to be

the central concern in this paper, is most directly discussed in Foucault's

description of the Panopticon. It is to this description that I will now turn.

The Panopticon is an architectural plan for a prison, which was produced in 1791 by the philosopher and prison reformer, Jeremy Bentham. Foucault

is interested in it for two reasons. In the first instance he identifies the

extent of its influence. The Panopticon was never actually built but as an

architectural plan it had considerable influence upon the architecture of late

eighteenth and early nineteenth century public buildings (Foucault, 1980a). Foucault is interested in "the Panopticon" as a historical force then. In the

second instance, Foucault understands the Panopticon as an ideal or perfect model of the surveillance relations involved in modern technologies of

penal power. In this sense the Panopticon is an important heuristic device

for understanding the modern functioning of power. It is this second

dimension of Foucault's interest with which I am concerned in this paper. At the most basic level, the Panopticon consists of a circular arrangement

of cells, all of which open onto a central v/atchtower. From this watchtower

it is possible to observe any prisoner, at any time. The lighting arrangement in the cells prevents the possibility of blind spots through which a prisoner

might render him or herself invisible to the watchtower occupant. And the

side walls of the cell make prisoners (largely) invisible to each other and

certainly prevent any straightforward communication between them.

Furthermore, the architectural arrangement of the watchtower and the use of

Venetian blinds on its windows ensures that the watchtower occupant is

invisible to the prisoner. The prisoner then is, "...seen but he does not see;

he is the object of information, never a subject in communication" (1979:

200).

Power, in this sense, is "visible but unverifiable" (ibid., p. 201). The

403

visibility of the tower and its windows informs the prisoner of the pos?

sibility that they are being watched but the blinds and structure of the tower

prevent the prisoner from ascertaining whether or not this actually is the

case. The result of this, according to Foucault, is that the prisoner ex?

periences a feeling of constant surveillance. And this is the very basis of

Panoptic power. Panoptic power is the effect achieved through the realisa?

tion that one is subjected to the gaze. It is important to stress at this point that, for Foucault, power functions

automatically in the Panopticon. Human beings are the vehicles of power relations. They do not hold it nor constitute its source. Thus, the complex

arrangement of bricks, lights and spaces, and the relays and relations of

visibility and invisibility which these effect, actually intervene into human

relations, structuring them and rendering them asymmetrical:

The Panopticon is a machine for dissociating the see/being seen dyad: in the peripheral ring, one is totally seen, without ever seeing; in the central

tower, one sees everything without ever being seen (Foucault, 1979:

202).

And the effect of this is to create a situation wherein the surveyed subjects

subjects him or herself to the power effect, through their very awareness or

knowledge of the possibility that they could be being watched:

He who is subjected to the field of visibility, and who knows it, assumes

responsibility for the constraints of power; he makes them play spon? taneously upon himself; he inscribes in himself the power relation in

which he simultaneously plays both roles; he becomes the principle of his own subjection (Foucault, 1979: 202-203).

It does not matter, in thise sense, who occupies the watchtower. It does not

matter "what motive animates him" (ibid.) Indeed the more numerous and

temporary these anonymous spectators, the greater the prisoner's "anxious awareness of being observed" (ibid.). Moreover, it does not matter if the

prisoner is actually being watched or not. Occupancy of the watchtower and

the apparition of a surveyor which this effects, alone, are sufficient to

secure the panoptic effect.

A final point which should be noted in this respect is that the watchtower

occupant, as well as being a vehicle of Panoptic power, is also subject to it.

Prisons can be subject to frequent, irregular and unannounced inspections

by an external body (this was Bentham's plan at least) and the field of

visibility effected through the architecture of the Panopticon ensures that

nothing can be hidden from any such inspector. Within minutes of her/his

arrival, an inspector could observe the whole of the prison and everything that is happening within it. Bad or cruel management, like the deviance of

404

the prisoner, has no hiding place in the Panopticon.

Foucault criticised

Foucault's analysis is open to many criticisms and objections. His sweeping and rhetorical style, for example, whilst a powerful communicative aid, often conceals an inattention to historical and logical detail. The notion of a

literal reversal in the orders of visibility and invisibility within the power

relationship, for example, is both historically and logically insustainable. It

could be argued that power in the ancient regime must have utilised the

visibility of subjects and must have involved some means of achieving this

visibility, otherwise nobody would have ever been punished because they would never be identified for deviance. The Frankpledge system would be a

possible contender for such ancient surveillance systems. Moreover, with

respect to the modern era, it could be argued on logical grounds that "the

eye of power" cannot be completely invisible because if it is then it has no

means of securing its effect: people can't be affected by it if they are not

aware of its presence. Foucault's own identification of the "visible but

unverifiable" presence of the surveyor in the Panopticon is the historical

example of this. In this sense, it would be more accurate, though undoub?

tedly less literary and less evocative, to refer to a shift in the balance of

visible-invisible relations within power practices, rather than referring to a

complete reversal.

Of more concern to me in this paper however, is Foucault's analysis of

the internal working of the Panopticon, and particularly his assertion that

the prisoner becomes "the principle of his own subjection" by making the

effects of power "play upon himself. This statement is problematic, in

relationship to Foucault's philosophy, in two respects. In the first instance there is a problem of inconsistency, incoherency and

aporia. Foucault's analysis of the Panopticon, as I will show in a moment,

presupposes the prisoner to be a subject and posits human subjectivity as

prior to and necessary for the exercise of power, when Foucault, at the time

of writing Discipline and Punish, claimed not to presuppose any substantial

notion of the subject, and in fact claimed that subjectivity could be ex?

plained in terms of the effects of power. Foucault presupposes and relies

upon that which he claims to explain then. Moreover, the subject which is

presupposed in this analysis remains fundamentally unelaborated, unex?

plained and inexplicable in terms of Foucault's philosophy. In particular, Foucault presupposes two stable aspects of subjectivity.

In the first instance he presupposes the subject as sentient and as capable of visual meaning. This point requires explanation:

-

405

The Panoptical effect, according to Foucault's analysis, is achieved, in

the first instance, through the prisoner's awareness that s/he is being watched, and this awareness is in turn achieved through the visibility of the

central watchtower and its windows. In this sense then it is presupposed that

the subject is capable of sight. Moreover, "sight", in this context, must

amount to more than a mere sense impression. It must amount to a meaning? ful experience. The prisoner must see the watchtower as a watchtower, as

'the point from which I can be seen'. Foucault effectively presupposes a

phenomenology of perception here then, and he constitutes the prisoner as

the subject of such a perceptual phenomenology. The issue of the sentient subject, the subject of visual perception, it

should be noted, is not explicitly dealt with in any of Foucault's works.

Whilst he does analyse the constitution of a new field of visibility and a

structuring of the gaze in The Birth of the Clinic (Foucault, 1973), this

analysis does not account for the possibility of sentience or meaningful vision. As Deleuze (1988: 13) notes, it simply presupposes a unitary subject of perception. Foucault's presupposition of the sentient subject in the

analysis of the Panopticon not only constitutes an incoherency in his

account then, it raises questions and issues which Foucault's philosophy is

unable to address.

In the second instance, Foucault presupposes intersubjectivity and the

subject of intersubjectivity. Again this point needs to be explained: -

In his analysis of Foucault's relationship to French "anti-ocular dis?

course", Martin Jay (1986) stresses that Foucault's "gaze" is objectifying and not intersubjective. I want to suggest that, with respect to the Panop? ticon, the reverse is in fact the case; i.e., that the Panopticon presupposes an

intersubjective rather than an objectifying gaze. This argument has two

steps. Firstly, it must be noted that the gaze which operationalises the

Panoptic effect is not the gaze of the surveyor but is, in fact, the gaze of the

surveyed. The Panopticon does not require that the prisoner is actually being looked at but only that s/he feels that s/he is, and this feeling, as I have said above, is secured through the prisoner's own perception. This does not rule out the possibility that a given prisoner, at a given moment in

time, may be objectified in the gaze of the watchtower occupant, but it rules that such objectification is neither necessary nor sufficient for the Panop? ticon to be effective.

Now if we are concerned with the gaze of the surveyed, of the prisoner, then it is clear that we cannot be dealing with an objectifying gaze. The

prisoner, to reiterate, is aware that s/he is being watched, and to be aware of this is to be aware of the presence of another subject, not of an object. If the

gaze of the prisoner were an objectifying gaze, if it constituted the watchtower ocucpant as an object, then there could be no awareness of

406

being watched because objects are not capable of watching and are not

capable of meaning. Only subjects are capable of watching and of meaning and to experience onself as 'being watched' therefore, is to experience the

existence of other subjects. It is to exist within an intersubjective relation?

ship.

Moreover, and this might properly be regarded as a third presupposition of Foucault's analysis, this intersubjective relationship must involve a clear

experiential differentiation between self and other. It does not suffice, to

secure the Panoptic effect, that the gaze of the surveyed subject is non

objectifying; to experience my-self as being watched by another is to be

capable of a distinction between self and other.

It may be objected here that my argument concerning intersubjectivity can be challenged through reference to the practical invisibility of the

watchtower occupant and the fact that s/he may not be watching or in

anyway engaging with the prisoner. To argue this would be to miss the

point however. Although the prisoner may never see the watchtower

occupant, the presence of this occupant is indicated (either truly or falsely)

through the watchtower qua WATCHtower. The watchtower is an index of

human presence. Whilst Foucault may maintain that the prisoner is "an

object of information and never a subject of communication", it is clear that

the watchtower clearly does communicate to the prisoner (if it is to be

effective). It communicates to the prisoner that s/he is under surveillance,

that s/he is an 'object of information'. Without this substructure of intersub?

jective meaning, which the Panopticon feeds off and manipulates, the

building would be nothing more than a collection of bricks. The power which is effected within it is effected precisely through the interhuman

meanings which it embodies and communicates.

As with the issue of the sentient subject, it must be noted that Foucault's

philosophy cannot provide for an explanation of the possibility of intersub?

jectivity or of the subject of intersubjectivity. Again then, his presupposi? tions are not only incoherent in terms of his philosophy, they are inex?

plicable also.

In pointing to Foucault's presuppositions of subjectivity, I am not

denying that aspects of subjectivity may be transformed, affected or

effected through Panoptic power. I have no objection to this point. Foucault

(1980a) seems to suggest, for example, that Panoptic relations may effect an

internal policing mechanism (a super ego?):

There is no need for arms, physical violence, material constraints. Just a

gaze. An inspecting gaze which each individual under its weight will end

interiorising to the point that he is his own overseer, eachindividual thus

exercising this surveillance over, and against himself (Foucault, 1980a:

155).

407

and there is no reason, in terms of my critique, why this should not be the

case. But it would have to be recognised that in describing this

'subjectification', Foucault actually presupposes the subject who can

experience an-other gaze, and who can experience it as "inspecting". In

other words, the subject whom I have just described.

To return to my first central point then, Foucault's understanding of the

Panopticon is inconsistent because it presupposes a subject when Foucault

claims not to presuppose a subject and, in fact, to explain the subject as an

effect of power. It is clear, moreover, that this presupposition constitutes an

aporia in Foucault's account: it raises the question of a subject which his

own philosophical framework cannot account for: namely, the subject of

(non-objectifying but meaningful) perception, and the subject of intersubjec?

tivity. I will return to the question of this subject shortly. Before I do so

however, the second major problem with Foucault's account of Panopticism should be discussed.

The second major problem with Foucault's analysis of the Panopticon is

that it raises but fails to answer the question of why "being looked at"

should be experienced anxiously or as controlling. Foucault's analysis of

the Panopticon quite clearly posits the "anxious awareness of being ob?

served" or "knowing" that one is subject to "the field of visibility" as the

very central principle of power. It is precisely in this way that the prisoner is said to make power play upon him/herself and thus become "the principle of his own subjection". And yet Foucault never explains why such

knowledge or awareness should have this effect. Why should knowing or

being aware that one is being looked at have a controlling effect? What is

the effect being described here? How is it achieved? Again Foucault's work

raises questions for which it does not, and perhaps cannot, provide answers.

In relationship to the question of the "weight"of the gaze, or its controll?

ing effect, Sonia Kruks (1990: 184-189) has suggested that Foucault's

analysis could be supplemented or informed by Sartre's (1969: 252-302) detailed analysis of "the look". This point should be considered.

Sartre's look

Sartre describes, quite vividly, the anxiety and tension which can be

effected through the awareness that one is being looked at. Moreover, like

Foucault, he is clear that one need not be able to see one's surveyor to be

subject to this effect. He cites the breaking of a branch or the sight of an

unobfuscated window as possible indices of human presence which could secure the effect, but it could quite easily be the Panopticon watchtower

408

which he describes. All that is important, for Sartre, is that one is presented with an indication that one is being watched.

The effect of the look is described by Sartre in terms of alienation. To

experience "the look" is to experience oneself as no longer belonging to

oneself but as belonging, as an object, in the project of the other. This

involves a change in our very structure. We are not normally objects of our

own awareness, in Sartre's view. We "do" and live our life and actions, rather than having them as objects of our thought. The look of the other

tears us away from this however. Through it we come to experience our

selves as objects of our own contemplation and awareness. We are divided

and estranged. Moreover, we are aware that our actions and experiences have a meaning and a significance, in the project of the other, which we can

neither control (at least not completely) nor necessarily have access to. We

experience our being as not belonging to us therefore. We belong, in part, in

the project of the other, as an object of his/her thought and designs. We are

possessed by the other. And we are thereby (again) estranged. Sartre finds a literary illustration and elaboration of this effect in the

novels of Kafka (1953, 1957). Kafka's novels describe and utilise this very notion of alienation. The actions and experiences of Joseph K. in The Trial, and of the Land Surveyor in The Castle, Sartre notes, have meaning for

those protagonists, but the protagonists are also aware that they are objects in the eyes of others, and that their actions have a different meaning and

different significance for these anonymous surveyors, which they them?

selves do not and cannot know. They experience their life and actions,

therefore, as not completely belonging to them. They feel estranged in

relationship to their actions and experiences because they do not understand

or know the meaning of those actions and experiences as they exist for the

anonymous other. This secures the alienation (which Kafka describes) of

the characters.

Sartre's account fills something of the gap in Foucault's work. It at least

gives a name and a more detailed description to that "anxious awareness of

being observed", which Foucault refers to but never elaborates upon. I

would therefore accept and take this name and this description as a useful

supplement to Foucault's analysis. There are problems with Sartre's

account however.

In the first instance it rests, ultimately, upon a problematic ontology. This

ontology has been the subject of much critique, not least by Sartre's

sometime friend and colleague, Maurice Merleau-Ponty (1962: pt. 3, ch. 3;

1968a: ch. 2; 1973: ch. 5). I do not have the space to consider these ontologi? cal problems here. One point which is important however, is that Sartre's

ontology is an anti-social ontology which reduces 'the look', and interper? sonal conflict and objectification more generally, to the basic constitution of

409

the human condition. What Sartre describes in "the look" is what he

understands to be an inevitable feature of human relations and not an effect

secured through the particularities of an interactional encounter, such as is

provided for in the Panopticon. The specificities of the Panopticon, and

indeed the machine itself, would be largely irrelevant in Sartre's terms then.

There is an incompatibility here between Sartre and Foucault because

Foucault quite clearly regards the "anxious awareness of being looked at"

as being induced by the particularities of the Panoptic mechanism: i.e., "the

dissociation of the see/being seen dyad" and consequent situation of the

prisoner as "an object of information" but never a "subject in communica?

tion". Thus whilst Sartre may provide for a better description of the Panop? tic effect, he does not allow us to understand the Panoptic mechanism.

It could of course be that Sartre is right and that the Panopticon is an

irrelevance because all human relations are estranging in any case. I will

work on the assumption, supported in Merleau-Ponty's various critiques of

him, that he is wrong, and that "the look" is secured through a specific ensemble of practices and relations, of which the Panopticon is our ex?

ample.

Merleau-Ponty and the gaze

Hitherto in this paper I have been engaged in a critique of Foucault's

account of the Panopticon. My criticisms have fallen into two categories. In

the first instance I have examined the presuppositions which Foucault's

account of the Panopticon involves. I noted that he presupposed a subject of

meaningful perception, that he presupposed a subject of intersubjectivity and communication, and that he presupposed a subject with the capability of self/other distinction (and the reciprocity of perspectives which goes with this -

i.e., recognising 'other' as subject). These presuppositions were

deemed problematic for two reasons. In the first instance, with the possible exception of the issues of self, Foucault's philosophy cannot account for

these presuppositions. It cannot elaborate upon them. In the second in?

stance, Foucault uses this subject qua prisoner, with all that this presup?

poses, to account for the operation of power, when, according to his

perspective, at the time of the analysis of the Panopticon, power is supposed to constitute and explain subjectivity. Foucault actually presupposes that

which he claims to explain therefore; he presupposes a stable subject (of sorts). Foucault is therefore logically incoherent.

The second problem of Foucault's account was that it failed to explain why being looked at should be anxiety producing, or controlling (such as he

says that it is). He is criticised here then, for not fulling exploring the

410

mechanics of Panoptic power. Sartre's theory of "the look" was examined as a possible solution to this problem but whilst his description of "the

look" was said to elaborate upon our description of the Panoptic effect in a

useful manner (one might say that it provided for a phenomenology of the

Panoptic experience), his ontology was deemed unsuitable for an analysis of the Panopticon.

In this section I will show how Maurice Merleau-Ponty's existential

phenomenology allows us to overcome the problems of Foucault's account,

and thus strengthen and deepen our understanding of Panopticism. As a

brief prefatory remark here, it should be noted that Merleau-Ponty's

analysis of the gaze was not conducted in terms of the Panopticon, nor do

his political philosophy and political sociology involve such a notion. In

fact his understanding of power is extremely weak and his politics seldom

moves beyond a consideration of basic capital-labour relations.3 I am not

arguing that Merleau-Ponty provides for a new means of political analysis then. He does not and cannot. I am arguing that his analysis might

strengthen an account that we already have: viz. that of Foucault. With this

said I will begin. That Merleau-Ponty can account for meaningful perception and the

sentient subject, for intersubjectivity and the inter subjective subject, and for

the experience of self and other, is not an issue which I can fully address

here. These are principal themes of his philosophy and I would suggest that

he deals with them adequately but a proper account of the manner in which

Merleau-Ponty understands and theorises these issues would require much

more space than I have here. A few brief points on these issues must be

made however.

Phenomenology is often charged, by Foucault (1983: 196; 1980a: 117;

1980b: 176) amongst others, with positing the notion of a constituting

consciousness; and it is suggested, by Foucault in particular (e.g., 1989: 46), that we might do better to examine the practices through which

meaning and the subject are produced. In relationship to Merleau-Ponty, this criticism is misdirected and the accompanying corrective amounts to

"teaching your grandmother how to suck eggs". Merleau-Ponty does not

presuppose a constituting consciousness in any of his analyses (e.g., of

perception, of linguistic meaning etc.), nor does he presuppose a transcen?

dental ego/subject or a Cartesian consciousness/subject. In his early work

(1962) he criticises the philosophy of consciousness and surpasses it,

although he maintains some of its language, and in his later work (1968a) he radicalises his project, deepens it, and rejects the very language of the

philosophy of consciousness (n.b. the above dates indicate the English

publication4). There is sentience, i.e., there is vision, touch etc., according to Merleau-Ponty but such sentience does not amount to a substantive

411

notion of consciousness and neither does it presupose or involve either

thought or a thinking subject. In particular, any notionof a mind/body dualism is rejected. Sentience is identified as a property of the body (qua

"flesh"5). The body consists in reversibilities of sensible-sentience; it sees

and can be seen, touches and can be touched, hears and can be heard etc.

Moreover, Merleau-Ponty is keen to stress that perception is effected

through habituated body practices. It is a socio-cultural practice. It is

"done".

The result of the practices of perception, for Merleau-Ponty, is visual

meaning and a subject of perception. The subject of perception does not

predate perception but is effected through it. This subject's perception does

not amount to thought or "thought about perception", however, and it

involves neither objectification nor the cogito. Perception is a realisation of

the visible. It is a separation (?cart) or opening within Being, which effects

a seer and a seen. The subject of perception, who is effected through

perception, is haunted by an anonymous visual meaning but this meaning is

'physiognomic'. It is not a reflective or thought-out meaning. It is only

through linguistic praxis (or practices) that a subject of thought may be

grafted to this experience - and this subject of thought, in turn, must be

distinguished from an experience of self, since the language of young children indicates that they do not distinguish between self and other

(Merleau-Ponty, 1979). This account of perception provides for the first stage of Merleau

Ponty's understanding of intersubjectivity. The most fundamental level of

our encounter with others, for Merleau-Ponty is perceptual. And his

rejection of the notion of perception as objectifying, as thought, or as

thought of perception, precludes the possibility that the primordial en?

counter can consist in alterity being objectified or in its being in some way reducible to thought. Perception is an opening and thus myself and the other

open onto each other and onto the same world. Each of us is, in relation to

the other, a visible-seer, audible-listener, tangible-toucher. Merleau-Ponty (1968a) refers to this relationship as "intercorporeal" or (1964: 159-181) as

"carnal intersubjectivity". This carnal bond, the sensible-sentient reversibility which holds between

subjects, affords access to the other. When one sees the other, in Merleau

Ponty's terms, one sees meaningful behaviour. And this meaningful behaviour is, in effect, access to the other, it is important to stress here that the carnal bond is not, in Merleau-Ponty's terms, a front behind which

minds (or "true" subjects) might be lurking. He quite explicitly (1962: 352) rejects the notion that 'access' to the other is achieved by analogy for

example: i.e., he rejects the notion that I am a mind with a body and that on

the basis of seeing bodies which look and act like mine I assume that they

412

too must contain minds. Two points distance Merleau-Ponty from this view.

In the first instance, by his rejection of a distinction between body and

mind, Merleau-Ponty does not accept that behaviour is an outer

representation of an inner state. He maintains that behaviour is what we are, it is subjectivity:

We must reject the prejudice which makes "inner realities" out of love, hate or anger, leaving them accessible to one single witness: the person who feels them. Anger, shame, hate and love are not psychic facts hidden at the bottom of another's consciousness: they are types of behaviour or

styles of conduct which are visible from the outside. They exist on this face or in those gestures, not hidden behind them. Psychology did ot

begin to develop until the day it gave up the distinction between mind and body... (Merleau-Ponty, 1971: 52-53).

The comparison here with such thinkers as Wittgenstein (1953) and Ryle

(1949) is quite apparent. But that is another issue. What is important is that

subjects have immediate access to each other (as subjects) because subjec?

tivity does not consist in inner states but rather in perceptible "styles of

conduct". The second point which Merleau-Ponty (1962) wants to make in

relationship to this issue is that the behaviour or conduct of the other effects

a (physiognomic) meaning for me. The behaviour or conduct of the other,

Merleau-Ponty maintains, is experienced (in the natural attitude) as im?

mediately meaningful, or at least it is insofar as it assumes a commonly held cultural form. One does not first experience the behaviour of the other

and then, by some secondary action, attribute meaning to it. The other is not

reduced then, ? la Descartes, to (my) thought of him/her.

The existence of language, as a public institution, is crucial for both

subjectivity and intersubjectivity in this respect. Language is an interworld, in Merleau-Ponty's terms. It consists in cultural rules and resources which

are shared by a community. And it is through participation in this inter?

world, through application of linguistic rules nad utilisation of linguistic

resources, that the thinking subject is born, and that its thoughts can be

known both to its self and to the other. Language is not simply the clothing of thought or a tool for thought, in Merleau-Ponty's (1962) philosophy.

Neither is it an external force or subject which determines thought from

without. Language is the very means, the very mode of structured praxis,

through which thought is achieved. And thought, therefore, is always 'social' in character.

Much of Merleau-Ponty's analysis of language (1971: ch. 7;

1964: 39-97) is based upon the work of Saussure. Indeed it was Merleau

Ponty who introduced the work of Saussure to the French philosophy circuit

(cf. Foucault, 1983: 198). Unlike many of the later disciples of Saussure

however, Merleau-Ponty placed considerable importance on 'parole' or

413

Speech. He understood language to be a structure, an intersubjective

structure, but, so as to avoid reification and objectification of that structure,

he stressed that it is created, recreated and modified through praxis, i.e.,

speech. Language qua structure is not a thing for Merleau-Ponty, it is a

regulated process. The speech community and speakers are of central

importance for Merleau-Ponty then. They create, recreate and modify both

themselves as thinking subjects and the structure of language as a social

institution, through their speech. It is in connection with the activity of speech, qua dialogue, that

Merleau-Ponty further develops his notion of intersubjectivity and inter

worlds. The thought of the other, as I have said, can occur to me as well as

to the other because language is the necessary means of thought. Moreover,

the speaker and the listener are both dependent upon the same source for

their access to the thought of the speaker (i.e., the spoken utterance), and as

such they may both find out "what the speaker thinks" in the same way and

at the same time. Furthermore, the thoughts of the speaker may summon

forth thoughts from the listener that s/he has never produced before (or that

"I did not know that I knew" to use a rather more mentalistic turn of

phrase). In this sense, dialogue can forge a strong inter subjective bond, an

interworld, which has a logic that is strictly irreducible to participants. And

participants can become wholly absorbed in this process.

Our perspectives merge into each other, and we exist through a common

world. In the present dialogue, I am freed from myself, for the other

persons thoughts are certainly his: they are not of my making, though I do grasp them the moment they come into being, or even anticipate them. And indeed, the objection which my interlocutor raises to what I say draws from me thought which I had no idea I possessed, so that at the same time that I lend him thoughts, he reciprocates by making me think too. It is only retrospectively, when I have withdrawn from the dialogue and am recalling it that I am able to reintegrate it into my life and make of it an episode in my private history... (1962: 254).

Such harmonious social relations are not inevitable and perhaps not even

common however. Intersubjective coexistence, and the social relations

which it involves, can be both conflictual and alienating. Merleau-Ponty

explores this possibility of conflict and alienation in two ways. In the first

instance, in his political writings (1964, 1969, 1971, 1973), he discusses the

manner in which subjects are objectified through the concrete social

relations and practices which are constitutive of capitalism and other forms

of economic-political domination. In the second instance he considers the

effect of "the look" or "the gaze". It is this second point which is of concern

in this paper.

Merleau-Ponty generally adopts Sartre's definition of the look in terms

414

of alienation, qua self-estrangement and "capture" in the perspective of the

other. His understanding of "the look" differs from that of Sartre however, and it is these differences which constitute the basis of his contribution to

the understanding of Panopticism. The problem of 'the look' and indeed the general problem of others, is

not a problem for the child, Merleau-Ponty argues (1962: 346-365; 1968b;

1979). Drawing generally upon the work of Piaget, and more specifically

upon Lacan's (1989) understanding of "the mirror stage", he notes that

others cannot be a problem for the child because children do not posit a

distinction between self and other. In terms of 'the look' then, the child can

neither feel estranged from self nor captured by the other because they do

not experience self-hood and alterity. In his various writings on this

phenomenon, Merleau-Ponty posits different 'moments' for the birth of the

possibility of self. Obviously language is important but, as I have already

noted, the egocentric language of the child suggests that young children,

qua linguistic beings, do not distinguish between self and other (cf.

Merleau-Ponty, 1979). In his most sustained and detailed consideration of

the issue however, Merleau-Ponty (1968b) posits the mirror stage as the

point of the birth of the "ideal, fictitious or imaginary me" (ibid., p. 136). Identification with the specular image of self in the mirror turns the perceiv?

ing subject back upon itself and gives it an image of self, a "fictitious me".

This concept of me, is further relationally developed, according to Merleau

Ponty, in relationship to others. But this self-other distinction prepares the

way for conflict:

... this alienation of the immediate me, its confiscation for the benefit of the me that is visible in the mirror, already outlines what will be the

"confiscation" of the subject by the others who look at him (Merleau

Ponty, 1968b: 137).

This point is perhaps the least relevant to the issue of Panopticism, and it

amounts, to some extent, to a simple reiteration of the point which I made

earlier: namely, that alienation through the gaze ("the look" or the Panop? ticon effect) is dependent upon a subject who distinguishes between self

and other. Merleau-Ponty can be seen to add to this however, by

considering the operations through which these self-other distinctions are

formed, and by linking these distinctions to the possibility of alienation

through "the look". He makes visible the prior operations through which

Panoptic power becomes a feasible possibility. Even after the mirror stage and the various other processes which

constitute the experience of self-hood however, the effect of the look is not

inevitable in Merleau-Ponty's view, and neither is it necessarily likely -

particularly if we are with those whom we know. The "moral" structure of

415

interhuman relations between subjects, in Merleau-Ponty's view, is

communicative and, as such, involves mutual recognition between subjects.

Subjects address or "hail" (as Althusser, 1976: 47), puts it) each other as

subjects: i.e., each regards the other as a communicative subject and this

regard both consists and is made available to the other in the form of verbal

and non-verbal gestures ("styles of conduct"). One does not experience the

other as inaccessible and "capturing" then.

The effect of "the look" is achieved, for Merleau-Ponty, when this

mutual recognition is not realised; when we feel that we are individuated

and objectified in the gaze of the other, when we feel that our actions and

expressions are "not taken up and understood, but observed as if they were

an insect's" (1962: 361). The look "takes the place of a possible communica?

tion" (ibid.). One party to the encounter constitutes him or herself as

"inaccessible" or as an "inhuman gaze" (ibid.). They refuse to communi?

cate, although, of course, "The refusal to communicate is still a form of

communication" (ibid.). Such refusal is a "style of conduct", it belongs to

the world of the carnal-intersubjective, the intercorporeal, not to a mythical inner world, and it is only in this way that it can communicate to the

surveyed subject that they are not being recognised as a subject but are

being constituted as an object. It is only in this way, in other words, that the

surveyed subject can experience objectification, estrangement and capture. Furthermore, the refusal to communicate, and the objectification of an?

other, according to Merleau-Ponty involves the (surveying) subject

retreating into their "thinking being" (ibid.): i.e., it involves their involve? ment in the linguistic and more specifically reflective practices of their

culture qua intersubjective interworld. The necessary caveat to this point is that for Merleau-Ponty, as for Sartre and Foucault, there is no reason why "the look" cannot be secured through an indices of human presence rather than through an actual other.

For Merleau-Ponty then, the look, despite the fact that it involves the

experience of objectification, is intersubjectively situated. It is a cultural

practice, effected in the action of a surveyor and communicated (by virtue of its visible/cultural form) to a surveyed. It is not an absence of intersubjec? tivity but a tension or knot within the intersubjective fabric. Furthermore, in contrast to Sartre, Merleau-Ponty maintains that "the look" is constituted

within the particularity of a given situation. It is not an inevitable conse?

quence of a given state of the human condition.

Merleau-Ponty and the Panopticon

In pinning the effect of the look to such specific interactional cir

416

cumstances, Merleau-Ponty provides for a more suitable understanding of

what we might call the human infrastructure of the Panopticon, than Sartre.

Merleau-Ponty's illustration and understanding of "the look", in terms of

our encounters with strangers, is admittedly a far cry from the vastness of

the Panoptic machine, which individualises and houses hundreds of

prisoners. The Panopticon alienates and controls in a Fordist mass produc? tion fashion. But the specificities of "the look", as Merleau-Ponty describes

them, accord with those described by Foucault and Merleau-Ponty allows

us to understand them. The Panopticon systematically effects and then

subverts (or knots) an intersubjective relation. It places subjects within

seeing distance (the carnal-intersubjective) but then, as Foucault notes, the

"see/being seen dyad" is dissociated by the machine (Foucault, 1979: 202). Power is effected and stabilised here because the surveyor, qua surveyor, is

constituted, in Merleau-Ponty's terms, as an "inaccessible" and at the same

time "inhuman" gaze; the blinded window of the watchtower precisely constitutes and communicates an inaccessible surveyor, and assumes an

"inhuman" form. This effects a permanent6 negation of the possibility that

the surveyed-subject can be hailed or addressed as a subject of communica?

tion, and thus secures the conditions of a sustainable alienation of that

subject. As Foucault (1979: 200) notes, the surveyed is "the object of

information, never a subject in communication".

Conclusion

Foucault describes the Panopticon as a machine. He marvels (1979, 1981) at the manner in which it secures its effects independently of human

intention or will. In this paper, whilst not denying Foucault's claim, I have

argued that there is a human infrastructure to the Panopticon which

Foucault does not and cannot account for. I have suggested that we examine

the human relations which make the Panopticon a Panopticon and not a pile of bricks. And in particular I have called attention to the perceptual and

intersubjective-intercorporeal character of these relations and this infrastruc?

ture. Such notions are, to some extent at least, inconsistent with Foucault's

philosophy. Certainly his philosophy does not and cannot provide for an

understanding of them. Furthermore, I have argued that Foucault's

philosophy cannot actually account for the "anxious awareness" which it

refers to and depends upon. In respect of these problems, I have suggested that the philosophy of Merleau-Ponty provides for a rethinking and

recasting of our understanding of Panopticism. I would also add to this that

in facilitating a deepening and extension of our understanding of Panop?

ticism, Merleau-Ponty's philosophy provides for a deepening and extension

417

of our understanding of the politics of the gaze more generally.

Notes

1. My observations are limited to the field of Anglo-American publications. The

Belgian philosopher, Rudi Viskar, made similar observations with regard to

continental Europe however, at a recent seminar series (on the work of

Foucault and Merleau-Ponty), held in the department of philosophy at the

University of Essex, England. 2. My own present work concerns a comparative analysis of the work of Foucault

and Merleau-Ponty on the issue of "politics and subjectivity". Other brief

comparisons can be found in the following publications: Levin (1989, 1991), Kruks (1990), Whiteside (1989), Watson (1984), and Cohen (1984).

3. See my paper Merleau-Ponty, Humanism and Post-Marxism (forthcoming) for a critical analysis of this aspect of Merleau-Ponty's political philosophy.

4. The original date of (French) publication for The Phenomenology of Percep? tion is 1945. The Visible and the Invisible was first published in France,

posthumously, in 1964. 5. Merleau-Ponty is concerned, throughout his writings, that a rejction of

mind/body dualism should not dissolve into an objectivistic reduction of the human subject qua body. The rejection of mind/body dualism, he notes, not

only calls for a rethinking of those phenomena which are conventionally understood to be "mental", it also calls for a rethinking of the body. In his later work (1968), this rethinking takes the form of a theorisation of "the flesh". This concept posits an elemental Being which is neither material or ideal but which includes the dimensions conventionally associated with both sides of this coin. The body, with its reversible aspects of sensible and sentient, is

"flesh", as is language, with its reversibility of meaning, structure, and

embodiment.

6. This situation may, of course, be subverted if the watchtower occupant were to

break down the blinds on the window and communicate to the prisoner. The effect of the Panopticon is only permanent insofar as the architectural condi? tions of the Panopticon are sustained.

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