The Structure of Behavior Maurice Merleau-Ponty INTRODUCTION: The problem of the relations of consciousness and nature.....................3 {1} ONE. Reflex Behavior I. Introduction 1. The definition of objectivity in physiology and the classical conception of the reflex. The methods of realistic analysis and causal explanation...............................................................................................7 {5} II. The Classical Conception of the Reflex and its Auxiliary Hypotheses 2. The “stimulus” ..................................................................................................10 {8} 3. The place of the excitation ..............................................................................15 {14} 4. The reflex circuit .............................................................................................16 {15} – Chemical, secretory and vegetative conditions of the reflex – Cerebral and cerebellar conditions; the notions of inhibition and control, of coordination and integration; a hierarchical conception of the nervous system – Dependence of the reflex with regard to simultaneous reactions – Dependence with regard to preceding reactions: irradiation, reflex reversal, Weber’s law and the notion of threshold 5. The reaction.....................................................................................................28 {28} – Resumé: the problem of order; anatomical order and physiological order III. The Interpretation of the Reflex in Gestalt Theory 6. The ocular fixation reflex; the relations of the excitations with each other and with the reaction .............................................................................33 {33} 7. Consequences ..................................................................................................35 {35} 8. Verification of these consequences: functional reorganizations and substitutions particularly in hemianopsia .......................................................38 {39} 9. The biological signification of the reflex.........................................................43 {44} IV. Conclusion 10. The category of “form”...................................................................................46 {48} 11. Is it superfluous and, in a sufficiently developed physiology, is nerve functioning reducible to an intersecting of relations of the physical type? ................................................................................................................47 {50} 12. Form and finality. Order as a descriptive category........................................49 {52} Pagination: English (Duquesne 2006) followed by French (PUF 2006) in curly brackets. Translated by Noah Moss Brender. TWO. Higher Forms of Behavior I. Pavlov’s Reflexology and its Postulates 13. It presupposes a description of behavior. Physico-chemical analysis and the analysis of behavior in psychology. ...................................................52 {55} II. The “Central Sector” of Behavior and the Problem of Localizations 14. Generally accepted results in the problem of localizations ............................60 {64} – The analysis of sickness, disorders of structure – Global functioning and mosaic functioning – Mixed conception of localizations and functional parallelism 15. Interpretation of these results: is the notion of coordination sufficient to account for them? ........................................................................76 {84} – Coordination in spatial perception and the “disparity of images” – Coordination in chromatic perception; the “chromatic level” – Coordination in the physiology of language – Equivocity of the notion of coordination 16. Conclusion.......................................................................................................88 {97} – Against empiricism and intellectualism in physiology. Form in central phenomena. But what is a form? III. The Structures of Behavior 17. Learning cannot be interpreted as an association of mutually external nerve events. ....................................................................................93 {102} 18. Description of the structures of behavior: ..................................................103 {113} – A) instinct and the syncretic forms....................................................104 {114} – B) “amovable forms”: the signal; spatial and temporal relations; mechanical and static relations ..........................................105 {115} – C) symbolic forms .............................................................................120 {130} IV. Conclusion 19. The signification of the conditioned reflex: pathological phenomenon or higher activity. Behavior and existence. ...........................124 {133} Pagination: English (Duquesne 2006) followed by French (PUF 2006) in curly brackets. Translated by Noah Moss Brender. THREE. The Physical Order; The Vital Order; The Human Order I. Introduction 20. Gestalt theory attempts to go beyond the antinomies of substantialism—lacking a philosophical analysis of form, it is in reality reducible to them .............................................................................129 {139} II. Structure in Physics 21. In what sense it is true to say, against positivism, that the physical world includes structures ............................................................................137 {147} 22. But they are not in a nature .........................................................................140 {151} 23. Structure is for consciousness .....................................................................143 {155} III. Vital Structures 24. The originality of vital forms with respect to physical systems—the organism and its milieu as the terms of a new dialectic .............................145 {157} 25. The organism as “idea”..............................................................................151 {164} 26. The unity of signification, in the organism, beyond the mechanistvitalist antinomy ..........................................................................................153 {166} IV. The Human Order 27. The life of consciousness .............................................................................160 {174} – The relation of consciousness and action remains external in contemporary thinkers: the consequences concerning the theory of perception...........................................................................162 {176} – The characteristics of nascent perception: it is attached to human intentions rather than to objects and it experiences realities rather than knowing truths ...................................................169 {183} – The consequences concerning the structure of consciousness: several kinds of intentions; the consciousness of reality ...................173 {187} 28. Properly human consciousness ...................................................................175 {189} 29. Against causal thinking in psychology: interpretation of the Freudian system in terms of structure.........................................................176 {191} 30. The “mental” and the mind are not substances but dialectics or forms of unity. How to go beyond the alternative of “mentalism” and “materialism.” The mental as structure of behavior ...........................180 {195} V. Conclusion 31. The double meaning of the preceding analyses; do they admit of a conclusion in accord with critical thought?................................................184 {199} Pagination: English (Duquesne 2006) followed by French (PUF 2006) in curly brackets. Translated by Noah Moss Brender. FOUR. The Relation of the Soul and the Body and the Problem of Perceptual Consciousness I. The Classical Solutions 32. Naïve consciousness and its empirical realism...........................................185 {200} 33. Philosophical realism of the sensible..........................................................189 {204} 34. The pseudo-Cartesianism of science ...........................................................192 {207} 35. Cartesian analyses and perceptual consciousness......................................195 {210} 36. The critical idea. The problem of the relations of the soul and the body resolved by an intellectualist theory of perception.............................197 {213} II. Is There Not a Truth of Naturalism? 37. In what sense the preceding chapters lead to the transcendental attitude. Matter, life and mind defined as three orders of signification.................................................................................................201 {217} 38. But our conclusion is not that of critical thought........................................206 {222} 39. Consciousness, as place of significations, and consciousness, as flux of the lived, must be distinguished ..............................................................211 {228} – A) External perception, the phenomenon of the thing; the phenomenon of the body proper; the return to the perceptual field as to an original experience; realism as a well-founded error....................................................................................................211 {228} – B) Error; the psychological and social structures ..............................221 {237} III. Conclusion 40. Structure and signification: the problem of perceptual consciousness.......224 {240} Pagination: English (Duquesne 2006) followed by French (PUF 2006) in curly brackets. Translated by Noah Moss Brender.