In Hegel’s Phenomenology of Spirit, he discusses how the senses do not provide the most reliable truth about reality. Our senses feel, to us, as though they are providing the most accurate view of the world, but in actuality, they limit our ability to accurately perceive the world. Our senses can tell us one thing, while reality can tell us another. The distinctions between senses and the truth of reality can be found in the ways that our brain gets tricked by optical illusions.
Hegel states “The concrete content of sensuous-certainty permits itself to appear immediately as the richest cognition, indeed, as a knowing of an infinite wealth for which no limit is to be found, whether we venture out into the reaches of space and time as the place where that wealth extends itself, or when we take a piece out of this plenitude, divide it, and thereby delve into it. In addition, it appears as the most veritable, for it has not omitted anything from its object, but rather, has its object in its complete entirety before itself. However, this certainty in fact yields the most abstract and the very poorest truth.”
This means that sense-certainty seems to appear to us as the highest cognition but it is actually untruthful.
In the optical illusion created by Mario Ponzo titled “Ponzo Illusion”, there are two horizontal lines drawn at different points in two converging lines. It appears as though the line that sits closer to the top of the converging lines is larger than the line father down below. In reality, both of these lines are the exact same length. This illusion highlight the differences in our perception of something versus the reality of that thing. Our senses cannot be trusted to provide the most accurate truth.
Hi Samara, I think this was an interesting example. It reminds me of the Zöllner illusion that I once learned about. This concept makes me wonder whether anything that we perceive using sense-certainty is ever accurate?
The Ponzo illusion is great and I really like that you use it rather than the Muller-Lyer illusion or the moon illusion that’s often used to illustrate similar points. I’d like you to look closer at the three characteristics of sense-certain truth that Hegel focuses on: immediacy, richness, truth. Clearly, your post focuses on the last–truth. So, let’s focus on that. Hegel, in the quote, says that sense-certain truths are so truthful because the whole object is before you in its entirety, without leaving anything out. Say a little about what that means for a sensory illusion.
This may or may not lead to consideration of the truth that the illusion presumably undermines, roughly, that ‘the lines are the same length.’ So, in an illusion, the point is really that sensory information is actively promoting falsehood. That seems stronger than Hegel’s point in sensuous-certainty that sensory information is not as truthful as we thought.
So, does the example of optical and other illusions make a stronger or even a different point than Hegel in sense-certainty?