Ontology

Understanding Being

The Giveness of the Manifest World

Each of us is immersed in the perception of a world that is presented to us through immediate sensory giveness. We are submerged in our life-world. This world, given to us in the present, is the manifest reality composed of perceived and reproduced phenomena (or, in other terms, phenomena). The manifest world possesses an ultimate veracity of its existence: there can be no doubt about its giveness. It is absurd to question the reality of the pain you feel when you experience it. This giveness cannot be meaningfully denied. It simultaneously distinguishes individual objects and moments. It is undoubtedly mutable—diverse and flowing. The world is presented to us as an ordered flow of changes, and this is its primary fundamental characteristic.

At the same time, within every manifest giveness of an object, there exists something more. When I perceive something as manifest, I also perceive the very act of perception as my own experience of being present in the world of manifest givens. "I am" is as verifiable as the vision of anything. However, the "I," in contrast to the world, is given as identical to itself: each time I perceive myself, I perceive myself as the same, not as someone else. My knowledge, beliefs, and attentiveness may shift, different events in my life evoke various feelings within me, and I may assess my abilities and achievements differently, yet I remain always myself, irrespective of the role I play.

In consciousness, the world is given in unity with the I-subject, which becomes aware of itself in the act of perceiving something manifest, to which its attention is directed. Something exists manifestly if it is discerned by the I-subject. "Existence" here signifies this immediate giveness from which one cannot detach and cannot deny. It does not matter how we interpret this manifestation: whether it pertains to dreams, hallucinations, or a normal state of alertness. If I perceive something, this giveness activates my own awareness within it.

Thus, there are four aspects of existence that are fundamentally verifiable, the denial of which would lead me into self-contradiction. These are (1) the giveness of sensory experience of phenomena, (2) which are distinguished as ordered and reproducible images, (3) within the flow of changing events and the identity of the I-subject in these acts of perceiving the manifest world, which perceives itself within them.

What, then, can I doubt? For doubt to exist, there must be some alternative presented—something else against which I can negate the conceivable. Yet, as we have clarified, the primary giveness of the manifest world is without alternatives; it is pure positive giveness, which cannot be dismissed. Here, however, we must note another, fifth, verifiable giveness of experience, namely the possibility of perceiving potentials, which can, however, engender contradictions and doubts. In my imagination, guided by thought, I can conceive of objects that are not immediately imposed upon me by giveness (though this very imagination can become obsessive: I may involuntarily return time and again to my imagined world). My imagination seems to deconstruct experience into separate fragments, obscuring one and illuminating another, accentuating and combining what is given in various configurations. All these objects I can conceive as if they exist. Their existence as imagined objects is equally plausible: the act of imagining attests to their imaginative giveness. The only difference lies in the conscious aspect of this testimony: I understand that my activity corresponds to my status as the subject of this imagination. At the same time, the boundary between these two types of giveness is quite blurred: sometimes, upon waking, I cannot discern whether the dream has already ended or if it still persists; a spontaneously initiated dream I may continue to witness in my imagination as though in continuation of sleep; hallucinations, delusions, or perceptions of past events that supposedly occurred can be so vivid that a person may sometimes fail to grasp the difference between givens in ordinary perception and these. The involuntary experience of imagination scarcely differs from the experience of the direct giveness of an object.

Moreover, within the experience of the giveness of the world, there is another exceptionally intriguing aspect: this is the giveness of another bearer of the manifest world—other individuals who, within consciousness, are presented as sources of information regarding potential experiences that I have yet to encounter but am prepared to conceive of in my imagination after receiving such information. When someone tells you that it is raining outside (even though you have not yet felt it), your perception of the rain precedes the first drops you will feel if indeed it is raining. The experience of the giveness of manifest reality is ordered and characterized by the recognition of repeated phenomena in their manifestation. We perceive certain patterns, although concerning something unknown or unusual, we may be mistaken, initially confusing one thing for another. This definability can also be represented in a shared, distributed consciousness with others. Others convey to us the same details in the perceived object as those we observe ourselves. Yet it is precisely within such reciprocal perception that contradiction may arise (literally: the words of another against yours, your perception against someone else’s words).

Here, the layering of three types of experience—the possibilities of imagination, intersubjective agreement in the experiences of each individual, and the recognizability of the repeated in ordered experience—leads to the concept of objective reality, that is, the actual world of objects that exist independently of the act of their perception, not manifestly. It is noteworthy that the meaning of the expression "exists" is fundamentally altered in this context. Existence no longer signifies giveness in experience; rather, it indicates a certain ordering and giveness beyond the experienced presence of objects. This existence lacks self-evidence: it is problematic and hypothetical, though belief in it remains a steadfast conviction. Furthermore, I cannot directly assert anything about the characteristics of such non-manifest objects. Rather, they are conceived as independent causes that generate within my consciousness that persistent experience—the causes of its organization, which is beyond my control, imposing limits on my imagination and explaining why this experience may possess intersubjective significance. Kant referred to these objects as noumena (thought-givens), in contrast to phenomena (manifest givens).

In the conceptual definiteness of an object, the linkage verb "is" signifies the non-contradictory possibility of something. However, the thought of being gives rise to difficulties. Is this thought a proof of the necessary existence of a real object?