Susan Bredlau: The Other in Perception: A Phenomenological Account of our Experience of Other Persons

Abstract

In <i>The Other in Perception: A Phenomenologi.cal Account of our Experience of Other Persons</i>, Susan Bredlau argues that, beginning in infant-caregiver relations, others are integral to the form of our experience of them, and claims that this gives rise to interpersonal trust as "the condition of healthy perceptual development". The major contribution of her study, Bredlau claims, is the phenomenological analysis, or "the concrete working out" of how, beginning in infancy, our experiences of other people are formative of our existence as subjects and of our experience of dwelling in the world. While this might seem to be a well-discussed point central to phenomenology, Bredlau takes this discussion further. She develops a comparison between the formative experiences of early childhood subject development, where we emerge from what might be considered a complete and unchosen vulnerability to the existence of others, into a world that "demands our adherence to what has already been established", and the voluntary high stakes vulnerability of our subjecthood in adult sexual relationships.