M. Doyon, Phenomenology and the Norms of Perception (Oxford: OUP, 2024)
Kristjan Laasik
The New Yearbook for Phenomenology and Phenomenological Philosophy October 21, 2026 DOI: 10.4324/9781042011384-25 (opens in new tab)
Study at a glance
AI-extracted from the abstract| Characteristics | Commentary Peer reviewed |
|---|---|
| Topics | Philosophy of mind |
| Key points | Argues, via Doyon's book, that perception is governed by norms immanent to its own structure—concordance (coherence) and optimality—rather than by narrowly epistemic standards. Concordance is presented as a constitutive norm and optimality as an evaluative norm that belongs to every perceptual horizon because anything perceived can arouse interest. |
Abstract
“Perception is governed by norms that I call perceptual , that is, immanent to its own structure”—so argues Maxime Doyon in his excellent new book, Phenomenology and the Norms of Perception (Doyon 2024, p. xv). Eschewing a more traditional emphasis on narrowly epistemic standards, Doyon builds on the insights of Husserl and Merleau-Ponty, arguing that “perception has its own standards, its own conditions of possibility”, being governed by the two “basic norms” of concordance (or coherence, Einstimmigkeit ) and optimality ( Optimalitä t) ( Doyon 2024 , p. xv). Roughly, in Husserlian terms, the former has to do with success or failure in terms of fulfillment or disappointment, and the latter, with whether one’s fulfillments suffice to satisfy one’s interests or inclinations. Concordance is a constitutive norm of perception, while optimality is an evaluative norm, but since anything that one perceives can, in principle, arouse one’s interest, “optimality constitutively belongs to every perceptual horizon” ( Doyon 2024 , xvi). Doyon’s aim is “to analyse the phenomenology of perception in these two dominant senses, that is, to spell out how perception involves normative assessments with respect to coherence and optimality that are first-personally lived through by perceivers” ( Doyon 2024 , p. xvii).