What about synesthesia? A phenomenological analysis of a perceptual phenomenon

Abstract

Synesthesia is occasionally offered as a challenge to Husserl's claims that the sense fields are necessarily distinct. This article demonstrates how synesthesia can be approached through phenomenology. We begin with a review of synesthesia and a brief discussion of how a phenomenological analysis of synesthesia could be productive both for those who experience synesthesia and for phenomenologists. We then shift to analyses of synesthesia through Husserl's notions of association and affectivity, and in light of intersubjective communication. While synesthesia might lead us to think that our individual experiences are unbridgeable, we will find instead that such autonomous experiences are relational and, further, that our different—even incommensurable—experiences are necessarily part of a shared lifeworld.