Philosophy & Phenomenological Research. Vol. XXXI, No.

2, December, 1970, 243-26

4.
THE PHENOMENOLOGY OF SOCIAL ENCOUNTER: THE GAZE
John Heron
There are many different aspects to the encounter between two human beings. Thes
e include bodily contact, physical proximity, physical position, bodily posture,
bodily orientation, gestures, facial expression (changes in disposition of the
eyes, brows, mouth, combined with posture of the head), eye movements, paralingu
istic emotional tone of the voice, speech. In only two cases does simultaneous r
eciprocal interaction between qualitatively similar processes occur: in the case
when two people touch each other, make bodily contact; and in the case when two
people look into each other's eyes, make eye contact. By virtue of their recipr
ocal nature these are undoubtedly the two most intimate modes of interpersonal e
ncounter. In the strict sense of the term actual encounter occurs only in mutual
touching and mutual gazing, for it is only in these instances that each meets t
he other meeting him. In mutual touching as in mutual gazing, each person both g
ives and receives in the same act, and receives moreover what the other person i
s giving. This can never be the case with the act of speaking or listening, for
speaking is exclusively an act of giving and listening is exclusively an act of
receiving. Even where two persons give voice simultaneously as in a duet the pro
jecting and receiving functions for each are divided as between the voice and th
e ears respectively: there is only actual meeting so far as there is mutual look
ing. And conversation between two persons is necessarily a serial exchange of sp
eech, it cannot be a simultaneous interchange: again, actual encounter occurs on
ly so far as conversation is interspersed with mutual looking or touching. There
is thus an important distinction between (a) mutual gazing and mutual touching,
and (b) verbal communication and nonverbal communication exclusive of bodily an
d eye contact (that is, communication by gesturing, posture, facial movements, p
aralinguistic tone of voice). Both are complementary and interacting aspects of
interpersonal behaviour, but the former are more basic and primary since it is h
ere alone that encounter or meeting in the strict sense occurs. In this strict s
ense, a blind person who has never engaged in mutual touching has never actually
encountered another person of course this is virtually a practical impossibilit
y for the congenially blind. And while we normally include both (a) and (b) as a
spects of an encounter or meeting in the wider sense of these terms, it is impor
tant not to overlook the primary relational significance of bodily contact and e
ye contact. Two persons shaking each other's hand and simultaneously looking eac
h other in the eye is the paradigm case of meeting. Of course, intimacy between
two persons is enhanced by certain facial movements and other gestures, by certa
in topics of speech and by a certain tone of voice, but this intimacy is only fu
lly realized by the concurrent mutual razing or touching. Meeting (in the strict
sense) by bodily contact, where mutual touching is involved, has a very restric
ted application outside familial and erotic relationships, and is largely confin
ed in our culture to handshaking at the beginning and end of meetings (in the wi
der sense). But meeting (in the strict sense) by eye contact, where reciprocal g
azing is involved, plays a basic and primary role throughout all meetings (in th
e wider sense). And while the complementary role of speech and its concomitants
cannot be underestimated, there is an epistemological sense in which it is secon
dary: to this point I shall return at a later stage. Here it suffices to say tha
t verbal communication just a such (for example, two persons talking in the dark
or when both are wearing dark glasses) is not strictly encounter. The most fund
amental primary mode of interpersonal encounter is the interaction between two p
airs of eyes and what is mediated by this interaction. For it is mainly here, th
roughout the wide ranges of social encounter, that people actually meet (in the
strict sense).
To do justice to the nature of eye contact between two persons, it is necessary
to distinguish between the physical and psychological dimensions involved. The s
ituation may be described in purely physical terms, in both physical and psychol
ogical, or in purely psychological terms; but however it is done, both categorie
s arc always mutually entailed. Thus I may say that one pair of eyes was focused
on another pair which in turn was focused on the former pair (where 'focused' r
efers to purely optical properties of the eyes concerned); or that he looked at
her eyes; or that they held each other's gaze. Words like 'look' and 'gaze' are
purely psychological terms, but of course whenever they are used they always ent
ail implicitly some physical statements about the eyes. Conversely, in any situa
tion of conscious human activity, any purely physical statement about how the op
en eyes are functioning entails implicitly some psychological statement to do wi
th perceiving, looking, staring. The only exceptions are descriptive accounts of
the eye qua physical object (its colour, texture, dimensions, etc.), or of its
involuntary movements in some pathological state.
For phenomenological inspection, the most important distinction that arises in t
he case of eye contact between two persons is that between perceiving the other'
s eyes as such (that is, as purely physical objects) and perceiving his gaze, wh
ere 'gaze' is the psychological term for what his eyes mediate. [A notorious acc
ount of this distinction is to be found in Sartre's Being and Nothingness (Pan 3
, Chapter 1. Section 4. p. 258); however the use to which he puts it is so bizar
re that 1 do not propose to give a detailed discussion of his treatment here.] A
nyone can test out this distinction, and it is most effectively done with someon
e you know well. You seat yourself at close range to the other, and while he gaz
es at you, you look exclusively at his eyes qua eyes, observing only their prope
rties and deliberately excluding the quality of the gaze that they mediate; then
at a certain point return from his eyes as purely physical entities to take up
his gaze, and note the sense of reciprocal entry, contact and widening out, the
experience, in short, of actual meeting (in the strict sense). This phenomenolog
ical test is quite irreducible, and provides the fundamental datum from which an
y discussion in this area must proceed; otherwise any analysis is going to be sh
ot through with unreality from the start. A somewhat less dramatic but no less d
istinctive experience may be had with a doctor or ophthalmologist. Notice how, w
hen he looks into your eye without instruments, he deliberately excludes from hi
s gaze any contact with your gaze; he is ignoring your gaze, looking through it,
so to speak, at your eyes. Note also how he withdraws to resume contact with yo
ur gaze from an appropriate distance in order to convey to you the results of hi
s examination. Reverting to the original experiment, two people can together sys
tematically investigate the transition from perceiving the ga2e to perceiving th
e eyes, and vice versa: they start with mutual gazing and at a prearranged perio
dic signal change to mutual eye inspection, at the next signal back to mutual ga
zing, and so on. Or one person can change from one mode of perception to the oth
er, while the person being perceived can signal when he or she notices that the
perceiver has made the transition.
When perception moves from the eyes as such to the gaze, the objects of percepti
on clearly belong to quite different types or categories; and in each case a dif
ferent mode or dimension of perception is involved. But it is necessary to note
first of all that there is a fairly obvious difference in the physical movements
in each case. When you look exclusively at someone's eyes, examining details of
color, form and texture, you have inevitably to look for some appreciable perio
d at one eye at a time. When, however, you perceive his gaze, then your own eyes
may be directed in one of two ways: either their fixation point is oscillating
rapidly to and fro, from one of his eyes to the other and back again; or their f
ixation point is centred in between his eyes at the root of his nose, while both
his eyes are included in the immediate visual field around this point. But the
difference between looking at the eyes of another as physical objects and percei
ving his gaze cannot simply be reduced to this purely physical distinction betwe
en what the observer's eyes are doing in the two cases. For there is the further
crucial distinction between what the observer is attending to in one case and w
hat he is attending to in the other.
In the case of perceiving someone else's eyes as physical objects, the observer
is attending to what his eyes are focused on; that is, the centre of attention i
s identical with the point of fixation. When perceiving the other's gaze, the ob
server is attending to what is conveyed by what his eyes are focused on (in the
case of fixation oscillating to and fro) or to what is conveyed by what is in th
e immediate visual field laterally adjacent to where his eyes are focused (in th
e case of central fixation). To put it simply, in the former case the observer i
s attending to the physical features of the other's eyes, in the latter to their
psychical features.
It is worthwhile to take a further look at the relation between the physical and
psychological components of perceiving the other's gaze. I have suggested that
the observer's eyes are cither rapidly shifting their fixation from one to the o
ther of the other's eyes, or are fixated centrally between the others eyes. Both
of these physical phenomena seem to occur, alternating with each other or with
shifts of fixation to other parts of the observed person's face. Self-observatio
n can confirm these facts, although their varying incidence could only be quanti
fied with any degree of precision b> the appropriate extroperceptive technique.
Self-observation also suggests that the case in which the observer's eyes are fi
xated centrally between die other's eyes seems to offer the most effective neces
sary physical condition of perceiving the other's gaze. In this condition, the o
bserver is not, psychologically, attending to or noticing the point on which his
eyes are. physically, focused or fixated. What utterly beguiles his attention i
s the quality of the gaze that breaks through the other's eyes, which are in the
visual field to either side of the fixation point; and he is so much caught up
by the quality of the gaze he is perceiving, that ho may never actually realize
that he is not attending to the physical area his eyes are fixating. Automatical
ly, perhaps, when we really wish that our gaze should mutually interact with the
gaze of another, we adopt this fixation point with our eyes and spread our atte
ntion simultaneously to cither side of this point, so that the one light from th
e eyes of the other, his gaze, breaks in upon us. It is precisely because, when
we spread our attention simultaneously like this, we cannot look at the eyes of
the other just qua eyes (to do this we have to look at one eye at a time), that
we find ourselves attending to the gaze of the other. It is also true, of course
, that we not only take in the eyes adjacent to the fixation point, but also the
facial expression as a whole, especially the disposition of the mouth and the b
rows. And there is an important sense in which the qualitative meanings of the g
aze are read not just in the gaze as such but in the whole facial expression inc
luding the gaze. To the significance of this obvious but important distinction b
etween the gaze as such and the look of the face as a whole I shall return at a
later stage. The point here is that it is only in the gaze as such that one stri
ctly encounters the other, however necessary the ancillary contribution of nonoc
ular facial expression may be.
In perceiving a painting there is a somewhat analogous experience to that of per
ceiving the gaze and the encompassing facial expression of another through centr
al fixation. For one way fully to register and appreciate the aesthetic signific
ance and impact of a painting is to fixate with the eyes some central or other p
oint (depending on the composition) and simultaneously embrace in one global act
of attention the whole of the surrounding canvas. The observer is now attending
simultaneously to the impact of the whole of the visual field around the fixati
on point, endeavouring to register at one go the totality of interrelated forms
and colours. To the extent that he achieves this and to the extent that the pain
ting is a good painting, what he actually finds himself attending to is what the
painting is "saying" through its visible features; he is certainly not attendin
g to these features just as such.
It is clear that while exclusive attention to the eyes as such will necessarily
involve losing sight of the gaze, to perceive the gaze of another necessarily in
cludes or subsumes perception of the eyes to some degree. In the former case, on
e may say that the physical properties of the eyes become an opaque terminus (ot
perception, while in the latter case they become a transparent gateway, they re
veal the gaze and this very transparency tends to reduce the extent to which the
y make an independent impact on the observer. One does not, in mutual gazing, no
tice closely such physical details as the dilation and constriction of the pupil
, often not even the precise color of the eyes of the other, nor the kind and de
gree of granulation of the iris, and so on. This is related to the fact, in the
case of central fixation, that the observer has a slightly blurred visual image
of each of the other's eyes.
I would like now to reinforce this distinction between the eyes and the gaze by
an appeal to ordinary language and to a paradigm case. But first it is necessary
to note two different major uses to which the gaze may be put in social interac
tion. Its use may be largely determined by the content of verbal communication b
etween two persons; that is, one may look at the other in a way that synchronize
s with a primary interest in the views being expressed here the gaze appears lar
gely as an ancillary to the processes of speaking and listening, to a preoccupat
ion with the meanings of verbal interchange. But its use may also reflect not so
much the observer's concern with what the other is talking about but with what
he is, with the other as a person. Here we no longer have the shorter glances us
ually associated with verbal interchange as such, but the somewhat more prolonge
d gazing which acknowledges much more of the other person than the mere intellig
ibility of his speech. These two uses represent two extremes: from the case of f
ormal conversation where the exchange of glances is closely related to the struc
ture, logical content and timing of the dialogue, to the case of personal intima
cy and encounter where mutual gazing may transcend and perhaps temporarily annul
the significance of dialogue. These uses are not necessarily mutually exclusive
, for they may alternate with each other or even coincide in certain types of me
eting. Nor is reciprocity of use necessarily involved: the gaze of one person in
the dialogue may reflect mainly linguistic concern, the gaze of the other mainl
y paralinguistic concern. But it is in the latter use that the full significance
of the gaze comes to the fore, and therefore it is this use which must be exemp
lified in the paradigm case.
Let us consider, then, one of the more dramatic moments of personal encounter wh
en a father, say, wishes to ensure that his son discusses the issues at stake in
the full reality of a face to face meeting. He does not say to the boy "Look at
my eyes," where this imperative would mean that the boy should look at the phys
ical objects in his father's eye-sockets; rather, what he docs tend to say is "L
ook into my eyes" or "Look me in the eye." Now the distinction between "Look at
ray eyes" and "Look into my eyes" is crucial. The former is usually an invitatio
n to the spectator to observe some physical property of the eyes of the speaker,
whereas the latter is an invitation or a challenge to the other to find somethi
ng which is not a physical property in and through the eyes of the speaker. Thus
in the paradigm case, the father says "Look into my eyes'' so that the boy may
directly encounter some personal quality of the father in so doing, or so that t
he father may directly encounter some personal quality of the son. when one gaze
is raised to meet the other. To reflect on this paradigm case is, I think, to s
ec that "Look into my eyes" is equivalent to "Meet me in my gaze," with the coro
llary "And let me meet you in yours." Although "Look into my eyes" and "Look me
in the eye" are possibly interchangeable, the former is perhaps more naturally u
sed where the other person is invited to sec the speaker stand revealed in his g
aze, while the latter is more typically a challenge to the other to stand reveal
ed in his gaze before the speaker. Perhaps the simplest phrase of all, "Look at
me," does service for both intentions.
Any good novelist who is sensitive to the realities of human encounter will find
the distinction between the eyes and the gaze both indispensable and irreducibl
e: to attempt to avoid it would lead to a catastrophic failure in accuracy and d
escriptive power. And it is particularly in portraying the intimacies of human e
ncounter that the distinction is so invaluable. Let me give an example from the
novel, "A Severed Head" by Iris Murdoch. Martin Lynch-Gibbon is describing an af
ternoon meeting with his mistress, Georgic. "For some lime we held each other's
gaze. This sort of quiet gazing, which was like a feeding of the heart, was some
thing which I had not experienced with any other woman- Antonia and I never look
ed at each other like that. Antonia would not have sustained such a steady gaze
for so long: warm, possessive, and coquettish, she would not so have exposed her
self." Novelists are also sensitive to the dynamic properties of the gaze. Thus
in Graham Greene's "The Heart of the Matter," when Fellowes is talking to Wilson
about Mrs. Rolt, "Scobie was immediately aware of Wilson's gaze speculatively t
urned upon him." Literary examples could be multiplied endlessly. The point of t
hem is that if one enters imaginatively into the situations depicted, their effe
ctiveness in evoking similar kinds of real-life situations suggests that the ter
m 'gaze* has a unique experiential referent, points to a distinct and irreducibl
e phenomenal element of our experience.
The distinction between the eyes and the gaze is also, I think, relevant to clar
ifying that nature of the difference between a good photograph and a good portra
it of the same subject. The photograph, one may suggest, merely mechanically rep
roduces the physical form of the subject's features, and in this process the gaz
e is subtly filtered out. Even the best photograph is an unreal simulacrum like
a mask whence real presence is fled however evocative the appearance which it ca
ptures: it gives the external fallout of a presence, the sign or signature of wh
at is absent. But the good portrait is the result of the dynamic incarnation of
a presence, for the artist has impressed ink) his media a sign of his awareness
of the reality of the subject's gaze and of the whole look in which the gaze is
central. Anyone who has painted a portrait may perhaps acknowledge that there is
some truth in the idea that the good portrait painter is always looking from th
e eyes to the gaze of the subject, and from the gaze to the eyes, taking in also
the form and look of the face as a whole; and that his success stems in part fr
om the fact that while he is looking at the subject's eyes as such, and painting
them, ho has in his mind his recollection of his immediately past perception of
the subject's gaze and of the meanings of the look it embraces. Speaking of the
portrait painter, Brophy (1963) writes: "Occasionally, looking at eyes and int
o eyes (the most profound and intense, as well as the most primitive, method of
communication available to human beings) he may be drawn into a relationship, br
ief or lasting, which becomes a major experience in his life. It is not unlikely
'bat those faces depicted in art which have the strongest effect on us are each
the product of some such experience, not necessarily sexual but beyond the rang
e of the conscious, the rational, the explicable, a kind of person to person pol
arity which releases power in brief but violent discharges." This is a useful su
ggestion, but I doubt whether the experience referred to need necessarily be reg
arded as beyond the range of either the conscious, or the rational or the explic
able.
I have so far made out only a tentative prima facie case for the gaze as a uniqu
e phenomenal category, but I would repeat again that my appeal is not primarily
to argument but to experience and a careful analysis of it. Those who doubt the
legitimacy and irreducibility of the concept I would exhort to go and have an op
en look, that is, try the test I suggested earlier, preferably with someone well
-known to the experimenter, such as a wife, lover, long-standing friend or bank
manager. The point about choosing a subject well-known to the experimenter altho
ugh this is by no means necessary is that the test will reveal dramatically the
impact of acknowledging consciously the previously conceptually unidentified but
long-established reality of the interacting gazes. My case for the unique pheno
menal reality of the gaze rests on such an appeal to our more intensely lived in
terpersonal experiences. However, certain objections may well be raised in advan
ce of any such test being carried out, and it may therefore be as well to deal w
ith them before analyzing in more detail the nature of the gaze.
In the first place it may be objected (hat the proposed test itself represents a
disreputable backward step in psychological method, akin to introspectionism. a
nd likely to lead to some controversy as fruitless as the imageless thought cont
roversy. This objection is clearly misplaced. For the proposed test has nothing
to do with introspection but involves extrospection of another person. Furthermo
re, there are a variety of attendant psychological and physiological variables t
he relation of which to the experience in question can be systematically explore
d. The issue is pre-eminently an empirical issue, since the phenomenal reality t
o be investigated depends on the public situation of a face to face meeting. The
fact that the emotional attitude of each person to the other in the test situat
ion may effect the intensity of the experience in question does not detract from
the empirical nature of the case, it merely extends the empirical into the real
m of the significant and truly human, and introduces variables which cannot prop
erly be ignored in any attempt to do full justice to the psychology of interpers
onal encounter. It is therefore more to the point to suggest that the proposed t
est should be developed systematically far beyond the informal conditions which
1 have outlined.
Secondly, it may be objected that it is more appropriate for a truly scientific
psychology to study objectively how people other than the experimenter use their
eyes in interpersonal behaviour. Thus the psychologist will record in a variety
of ways how his subjects look at each other under a variety of conditions, and
can test out different hypotheses about the point and purpose of eye contact bet
ween two persons. Undoubtedly this is an important area of investigation for soc
ial psychology, and significant work has already been achieved in this field. Bu
t this work really presupposes the distinct phenomenal reality of the gaze witho
ut doing anything to substantiate, elucidate or explore its significance which c
an only be achieved by the method I have proposed. Thus Argyle (1967) uses inter
mittently such phrases as 'eye-contact,' 'direction of the gaze,' 'their glances
meet,' 'look each other in the eye,' 'impassive gaze,' and so on, in writing ab
out systematic studies of mutual looking between persons other than the observer
; but he does not specify what kind of experiential referent we are to attribute
to such phrases. However it seems clear from the context and particularly from
the intentional interpretations which he writes into his account of interpersona
l looking, that the gaze has the status of an irreducible phenomenal reality. Bu
t that it has this status and what kind and degree of significance can be attach
ed to it, can only be properly determined by the observer himself gazing at the
gaze of another and categorizing carefully what he finds. My point would be that
only phenomenological description by socially sensitive observers can establish
the basic phenomenal characteristics of interpersonal experience. Such basic ph
enomenal categories may be re graded as sufficiently well established to be gene
rally accepted when the conditions under which their experiential referents occu
r can be specified and passed on in such a way that other persons con consistent
ly identify these characteristics in their own experience. But this is a specifi
c task for a phenomenologically based social psychology. Any attempt to bypass i
t will only result in the unacknowledged intrusion of categories whose status an
d significance is uncertain, ambiguous and unclarified.
I now come to the central theme of this paper, which concerns the nature of the
gaze, what I actually encounter when I perceive the gaze of another. Basically t
his involves a phenomenological description which seeks to bring out the unique
and distinctive appearance of the other's gaze. But since I am also an agent in
gazing, this description may be supplemented by categories of analysis derived f
rom my own experience of directing the gaze. We thus have two accounts each of w
hich complements the other, but neither of which can be reduced to the other. I
will deal with the descriptive account first.
I may perceive the gaze of the other when he is attending to what he is gazing a
t and when he is not attending to what he is gazing at. When he is not attending
to what he is looking at, then he is inwardly preoccupied with some mood, rever
ie, memory or train of thought. There arc occasions here when the gaze may becom
e an object of particular interest: for example, in the case of a musician or wr
iter seized by an idea an instance to which I shall refer later. The point is th
at when the other is not attending to what he is gazing at, then the nature of h
is ga2e is not in any way significantly determined by its actual external object
. This of course is not the case when he is attending to what he is gazing at, a
nd here there are three significant conditions under which I may perceive his ga
ze: when he is gazing at some nonhuman object, when he is gazing at a person oth
er than myself, and when he is gazing at me. There are some important variants o
f the second of these conditions, for when the other is gazing at a third person
, then that third person is cither returning the gaze or he is. not, and if the
third person is not returning the gaze, then either he knows he is being gazed a
t or he does not know it. The most interesting of these variants is the case of
two others engaged in mutual gazing; and we need socially sensitive phenomenal d
escriptions of this phase of encounter between two other persons that is, sensit
ive descriptions of what seems to be the case with respect to the reality of the
actual gazing itself. But here I am mainly concerned with perceiving the gaze o
f the other under the last of the three conditions under which he is attending t
o what he is gazing at, namely, the condition when he is gazing at me. Again the
re are variants (which also apply, of course, to either of two others engaged in
mutual gazing): he may be gazing at parts of my body other than my eyes, he may
be gazing at my eyes qua eyes, or he may be gazing at what my eyes refract, tha
t is, at my gaze. The variant which I particularly wish to consider is that in w
hich in the same moment of time I am gazing at the other's gaze and he is gazing
at my gaze. It is important to stress this, especially the simultaneity, since
there may often be moments in mutual gazing with the other when I am gazing at h
is eyes mainly as aspects of his purely physical appearance, and similarly with
respect to his gazing at me. Equally, however, there arc moments when gaze meets
gaze. There are then three striking features of the gaze which I thus meet: its
luminosity, its streaming quality and its meaning. In conversation and encounte
r with friends and relatives, with colleagues or acquaintances, these three feat
ures may be presented only in brief and fleeting episodes, and their impact and
significance may only be subliminally noted. Furthermore, they vary in intensity
according to the kind of relationship and to its internal and external conditio
ns. But perhaps there are certain favourable psychological conditions which can
be specified: firstly, the emotional openness of each, the attitude of love from
each to each, or at least strong mutual respect for each other's intrinsic wort
h; secondly, the active intelligent interest of each in matters of mutual concer
n; thirdly, of course, the gaze-to-gaze contact which will tend to occur us a fu
nction of the first two conditions. However, the first two conditions are clearl
y not necessary conditions for noting the three features of the gaze since these
features may also be encountered under conditions of mutual hate, where they oc
cur in a strikingly negative form. Perhaps, more generally, one may say that fea
tures of the gaze come noticeably to the fore in interpersonal relations under c
onditions of emotional arousal, whether sympathetic or antipathetic.
The luminosity of the gaze or the gaze-light of the other is a distinct phenomen
al reality which is transphysical, although supervenient upon and mediated by ph
ysical phenomena: that is to say, it cannot be reduced to any purely physical lu
minosity of the eyes, to physical light reflected from the moistened and translu
cent surface of the cornea although this may be a necessary physical condition f
or its optimal occurrence. In a sense, the gaze of the other just is this transp
hysical luminosity about his eyes, an extra phenomenal dimension refracted by th
eir physical proper-tics. One might object that it is only as if his eyes had th
is transphysical luminosity, which is really an illusory appearance which I proj
ect on to his eyes by virtue of my state of emotional arousal, or by virtue of m
y inference that he is in some particular mental state. This objection might see
m to be crucial. But when faced with the reality of an intensely lived moment of
 mutual gazing it seems silly. Furthermore, mutual gazing is, as we have seen, t
he primary mode of actual meeting of the other in the strict sense of meeting. N
ow if, in the moment of such a meeting when the presence of the other seems to b
e revealed to me, I am really presented only with a pair of eyes carrying my pri
vate illusions, how do I ever come to know that there is another person there to
meet? I do not know that he is there unless I meet him, and I do not meet him b
y meeting his eyes and making inferences about him. It might then be objected th
at I do not meet him by meeting the transphysical luminosity of his gaze cither.
But the phenomenal reality of the gaze-light of the other is such that it is co
ntinuous with him: he is revealed in it, it discloses him, he is the presence of
it. He may never be fully present in it, he may only be partially disclosed in
it, he may seek to posture and counterfeit within it; the point is that this gaz
e-light unmistakably reveals that he is there, presenting himself to me. The pur
ely physical properties of the eyes of the other are not continuous with him in
the way that the luminosity of his gaze is; it is only when we attend to what hi
s eyes refract that we meet him in his gaze-light. Thus the eyes refract a trans
physical luminosity in which the other stands revealed as present to me. The int
ensity of this luminosity may wax and wane as a function of differences in socia
l conditions and states of internal arousal; and the observer's sensitivity to i
t may similarly wax and wane. Yet it is always minimally present in the eyes of
the other, and subliminally detectable in the most transient and uncommitted ins
tances of exchanged glances. It is the unacknowledged interpersonal reality that
tells us all the time that we are meeting other persons. Of course, the blind m
ust rely on mutual touching as the bedrock of actual meeting. And one may note i
n passing that there is a transphysical sensation involved in touching the other
, as in shaking hands: I do not just register the degree of warmth and moisture
of the other's hand, the texture of the skin, the strength of the counter-grip;
for these physical properties mediate sensations of something trans-physical whi
ch is far more pervasive, and which seems to be somehow continuous with the very
person himself. Thus the touch and the eyes of the other can mediate transphysi
cal properties of the other in which he is immediately disclosed, although by no
means in his entirety; and for the seeing, it is the eyes which have the primar
y role in this respect.
If the luminosity of the gaze of the other is a transphysical reality supervenie
nt upon the physical properties of his eyes, then it follows that it is not perc
eived by me in terms of any purely physical that is, retinal and cortical proces
ses: there is a transphysical as well as a physical activity involved in my perc
eption of the gaze-light of the other. In so far as we perceive the gaze of anot
her, we are all minimally clairvoyant: that is to say, we encounter the other in
a mode in which physical and transphysical perception closely interact. However
embarrassing these sorts of notions may be in a climate of thought committed to
purely physicalist accounts of perception, I believe that the categories I have
introduced are necessary to do justice to the full nature of the realities of i
nterpersonal meeting. The concept of the transphysical may be regarded as having
reference to a dimension of reality which is neither mental nor physical in the
old Cartesian sense of these terms, but has some of the properties of both: tha
t is to say that on the one hand it may have spatial location in interpenetratio
n with physical phenomena, yet on the other hand it may be very closely interfus
ed with the most intimate activities of consciousness itself. Thus the eyes of t
he other refract the transphysical luminosity in which the active presence of hi
s consciousness is disclosed.
That the intensity of this luminosity is coterminous with the activity of consci
ousness itself, is evidenced not only by the increased intensity of luminosity t
hat accompanies the heightened consciousness induced by powerfully sympathetic p
ersonal encounter with another; but also by the increased luminosity that accomp
anies a purely internally aroused heightened activity of consciousness. Many exa
mples come to mind from the more ordinary reaches of experience, but striking in
stances are provided by eyewitness accounts of musicians and writers at the heig
ht of the creative process. Flashing eyes are frequently referred to; and Schind
ler writes of Beethoven that in moments of sudden inspiration 'his whole outward
appearance would . .. undergo a startling transformation' the full account migh
t be construed as a transfiguration of the physical by the transphysical. Such u
nusual examples throw into sharp relief the everyday flickering interplay betwee
n the transphysical and the physical that occurs in the region of the eyes, and
to whose minor nuances we are so accustomed that they have rarely seemed an appr
opriate subject for analysis. Another distinctive feature of the gaze of the oth
er which I encounter in moments of mutual gazing, and which is closely associate
d with its luminosity, is its streaming quality. For this term I am indebted to
Martin Buber (1937: 97) who refers to "the streaming human glance in the total r
eality of its power to enter into relation." Under optimal conditions of interpe
rsonal encounter, the gaze of the other may be experienced as streaming into my
whole being I am filled out and irradiated by it. Furthermore, there is a sense
in which the inward streaming of the gaze of the other as received by me constit
utes at that time the reality of my being: the gaze received openly and without
fear can yield for mc a profound awareness of my body-mind unity. In this situat
ion the gaze of the other may illuminate mc as a unitive being with no awareness
of body-mind distinction. Similarly, I apprehend the other as a unitive presenc
e revealed before me. But each of these unitive states is secondary to the uniti
ve reality constituted by the relation of mutual gazing itself. The transphysica
l streaming of the gaze of the other interfuses my whole being, the transphysica
l streaming of my gaze interfuses the whole being of the other; but in each case
this only occurs by virtue of the thorough interpenetration of the mutual strea
ming which constitutes the dramatic elan of true encounter between persons. It i
s the interaction of the twofold gazing which is a necessary condition of the ir
radiation of each by each being. This interpenetration, then, is a transphysical
unitive reality or field which is also a unitive field of consciousness with tw
o poles. the irradiated being of each. Within this unitive field, my awareness o
f myself is in part constituted by my awareness of his awareness of mc, and my a
wareness of him is in part constituted by my awareness of his awareness of mc; t
hat is to say, my awareness of his awareness of me both reveals me to myself and
reveals him to me, and his simultaneous awareness of my awareness of him both r
eveals him to himself and reveals me to him. But further, in my awareness of his
awareness of my awareness, whether of myself or of him, I reveal myself to him;
and in his awareness of my awareness of his awareness, whether of himself or me
, he reveals himself to me. Thus in the unitivc field of consciousness establish
ed through the interfused transphysical streaming of mutual gazing, each is, rev
ealed to himself, each is revealed to the other, and each reveals himself to the
other. Because the gaze of each in part constitutes the being of the other only
by virtue of the reciprocal interaction, there is a sense in which each is copr
csent at the opposite pole; that is to say, each has internal perception both of
his own unitivc being and of the unitive being of the other to some degree, yet
each retains his own sense of identity by virtue of his external perception of
the body of the other and of his inaccessibly private kinesthetic sensations of
his own body. Thus in mutual gazing, self-awareness and other-awareness arc corr
elative elements in a dipolar reality. And while it is only under optimal condit
ions of personal involvement and commitment of each to the other that such a dip
olarity is fully evident, yet it operates subliminally and to a degree in all fa
ce-to-face encounters.
The third distinctive feature of the gaze of the other is its meaning. The disti
nction here is between the gaze-light as a baseline disclosing the mere presence
of a person, with perhaps only minimal clues as to what sort of person. and the
gaze-light as a variable carrier of qualitative meanings of different strengths
and kinds. For the gaze can be the bearer of a wide range of meanings - intelle
ctual, emotive and conative, such as lucidity, joy and tenacity, respectively in
simple or complex combinations, with greater or lesser animation, in a changing
kaleidoscope of psychical revelations. These meanings arc read, of course, not
just in the gaze as such, but in the whole facial expression including the gaze;
 but whereas nonocular facial changes express or body forth, say, an emotional m
eaning, the gaze reveals this meaning. It is as though what is revealed through
the eyes is also shaping and moulding the face; the gaze 'takes up' the rest of
the features to bear physical witness to the distinctive emotional meaning which
qualifies it. Thus eventually we come to read emotional meaning in the facial e
xpression alone where we have no clear perception of the gaze itself. On the oth
er hand, a false reading of nonocular facial expression may sometimes be correct
ed by careful attention to the quality of the gaze.
I propose to introduce, for the sake of convenience, the term 'look' as synonymo
us for 'the whole facial expression including the gaze'. This is in accord with
ordinary usage, where we often speak of 'the look on his face.' Thus I have been
talking of the meaning of the look where this refers to the different psychical
qualities of a person as simultaneously revealed through his gaze and expressed
through his other facial features. As I have suggested, such meaning in any det
erminate mode may or may not be disclosed above and beyond the irreducible basel
ine of the gaze. Thus (here is a purely contingent connection between the meanin
g of the look and the inalienable presence of the gaze-light. But once we have s
pecified this notion of the meaning of the look, the question immediately arises
of the relation between the meaning of the look and the use of speech: of the r
elation, in short, between language and the look, between linguistic and paralin
guistic meanings.
This distinction between the look and language is closely parallel to the distin
ction which Thomas Reid (1764) makes between natural language and artificial lan
guage, and I propose briefly to outline his thesis and then develop it for my ow
n purposes. Reid defines language as "all those signs which mankind use in order
to communicate to others their thoughts and intentions, their purposes and desi
res." Artificial signs arc those whose meaning is affixed to them by compact amo
ng those who use them. Natural signs axe previous to all compact and have a mean
ing which every man understands by the principles of his nature. Reid argues tha
t a language of artificial signs presupposes a language of natural signs. For ar
tificial language supposes a compact to a/fix meaning to signs, so there must be
compacts or agreements before the use of artificial signs; but there cannot be
any compact without signs nor without language, so there must be a natural langu
age before any artificial language can be invented. This is a simple and uncompl
icated argument, but the force of it has not as yet. I think, been adequately ap
preciated. By the signs or elements of a natural language Reid means 'modulation
s of voice, gestures and features', which he regards as signs naturally expressi
ve of our thoughts. Such natural language, he says, is improved by the addition
of artificial language: the latter makes up for the deficiencies of the former.
But we should not lay aside natural language, since it is chiefly by natural sig
ns that we give force and energy to artificial language, which only expresses hu
man thought and sentiments by dull signs (sounds and characters). Artificial sig
ns, Reid argues, signify but do not express: they speak to the understanding, bu
t the passions, affections and the will hear them not: these "continue dormant a
nd inactive, till we speak to them in the language of nature, to which they arc
all attention and obedience." This natural language is still contemporaneous wit
h all artificial language. He refers to it as "this intercourse of human minds,
by which their thoughts and sentiments arc exchanged, and their souls mingle tog
ether," and as "common to the whole species from infancy".
I would agree with Reid that the meaning that is disclosed in the look is also a
nd often simultaneously disclosed in gesture and in 'modulations of the voice',
that is, in the actual quality of the sound a person produces. Further, that the
use of speech or artificial language picks out, points, refines and immeasurabl
y articulates our awareness of what is conveyed by the look as such; that is to
say, it confers on our perception of the look much greater acuity and discernmen
t. But I would also agree that the meaning of the look is irreducible, that it i
s presupposed by the convention of speech for the reason which he gives, and tha
t it is always concurrent with the use of speech riding speech like a mysterious
charioteer whose subtle presence can never be ignored or overlooked, and who en
livens speech the more consciously his actions arc brought into play. Finally, I
agree that the sort of knowledge involved in grasping the meaning of the look i
s immediate; that is to say. it is never in the first instance inferential. And
I think that it is in this area of the meaning of the look that we find preemine
ntly that kind of inherently meaningful perception that is prior to all explicit
predication. I would, however, develop Reid's thesis in the following ways. Fir
stly, I would suggest that, although there is a vital interrelation between the
use of language and the look such that each in a different way fructifies the ot
her, any excessive reliance on or recourse to the artifices of speech and the ca
tegorial structure built into it is likely to warp and disturb the capacity for
attending to the meanings of the look. Hence people can get entangled in what mi
ght be called states of linguistic alienation Particularly in our addiction to l
inguistically formulated theories and views we can cast over perception a catego
rial screen of too fine and systematic a mesh. Hence the need for many to return
to immediacy, to reawaken sensibility to the reality that meets us in extraling
uistic vision. to sec what all along has been present to us yet hardly noticed b
ehind the screen of language (Wahl, 1953). Secondly, I would make the gaze the c
entral feature in the range of what he calls natural signs, since as the most im
portant form of true meeting it is the core of that 'compact' which is a presupp
osition of the use of speech. Thirdly, while the meaning of the look is often pr
imarily emotional, in the sense that it speaks both of the kind and degree of af
fect in the subject, and to the 'passions, affections and will as Rcid says, this
is by no means exclusively so.
There are at least four different dimensions to the qualitative meanings of the
look: the passional, emotional, intellectual and charismatic. In passional quali
ties of the look, physical desires speak through or appropriate the gaze. Here t
he gaze may provide an open window on to an inner sexual latency, frankly show t
he way in to states of desire, or it may burn with the intense low flames of des
ire: in either case a person may be deliberately using the gaze to refract the l
ight of desire, Love and hate provide paradigm instances of the emotional qualit
ies of the look. Hate is one of the most disturbing and potent reminders of the
direct qualitative impact of the gaze: the gaze of him who hates may become cons
umed by a discharge of corrosive and destructive light. These shooting arrow-lig
hts of hate arc familiar enough. By contrast, in the case of love, one may speak
of the luminous embrace of the gaze, the way it encompasses find surrounds the
other with delight. Quite distinct from such enfolding effulgence of love is the
intellectual quality of the !ixk: for example, the clear beam evident in the gaz
e of the person who is fully informed, articulate and caught up in a range of id
eas he is expounding. Finally, there may on rare occasions be a charismatic qual
ity evident in the look, and here the gaze is transfigured by meanings which tra
nscend those met with in the normal range of social interaction.
These different kinds of qualities are not necessarily mutually exclusive: they
may combine and interpenetrate, the various dimensions both overlapping and seri
ally alternating. But to a greater or lesser degree depending on the responsive
sensitivity of the perceiver, they provide direct non-inferential knowledge of w
hat may be termed the psychic state of the other. Thus the gaze-light as such re
veals the mere presence of the other as a distinctive centre of consciousness; t
he meanings it carries reveal his psychic states. That such knowledge of the psy
chic state of the other is direct is involved in the notion of a dipolar unitive
reality established wherever there is the conscious interaction of twofold gazi
ng: we have seen that the nature of this relation is such that apprehension of t
he state of either pole is not exclusive to cither. It is, no doubt, pre-eminent
ly in the state of mutual love, allied with wise understanding. that this dipola
r reality and mutual apprehension of the psychic state of the other may become m
ost fully established. The fact that in the rush and tumble of everyday life and
working relationships such apprehension is for most of us barely noticeable, or
 obscured, distorted or overlaid by categorial preconceptions, is merely a funct
ion of the relatively undeveloped state of human sensibility.
I wish now to turn to the second account of the nature of the gaze. in terms of
categories of analysis derived from experience of directing the gaze. The centra
l notion here is that of attending. If there is anything to be construed as the
immaterial act of the self, then it seems to me it is likely to be the act of at
tending, by which I mean the act of directing consciousness to something. There
is here essentially a threefold directedness. Firstly, one can direct awareness
from one whole area of experience to another, as when one turns from perception,
say, to memory, or from phantasy lo reflective thinking, or from prayer to prac
tical activity. Secondly, one can direct awareness to a particular object or con
tent within a distinct area of experience, as when one fastens on this particula
r recollection within the field of memory, perceives this particular tree within
the visual field, or communes with this particular deity within the sphere of w
orship, or turns to this particular problem within the sphere of reflective thin
king. Thirdly, one can direct awareness to a particular object or content within
a distinct arc of experience in a particular mode. Thus one may attend to a par
ticular deity reverentially or sceptically, to a particular memory descriptively
or evaluatively, and so on.
The first two of these kinds of directedness arc closely related, since to turn
to some area of experience such as perception is also at the same time necessari
ly to direct one s attention to, in this case to perceive, some particular conte
nt within it. And the distinction between the firs* two taken together and the t
hird is equivalent in some respects to the concept of double intentio or twofold
directedness introduced by Husserl in Section 37 of his Ideas. He characterizes
first what he calls "the directed mental glance," "a mental glance or glancing
ray of the pure Ego, its turning towards and away" which "belongs to the essence
of the cogito." He says further that "this glancing ray of the Ego towards some
thing is in harmony with the act involved, perceptive in perception, fanciful in
fancy . - . and so forth." But we must distinguish between plain consciousness
of a subject matter, a bare heeding of it, and "some further attitude towards
the subject matter." The mental glance, in acts such as those of appreciation an
d valuation, is not only directed at some subject matter, but directed at it in
a particular way, in the mode of appreciating or evaluating.
When I perceive the gaze of the other, I direct my attention, or, in the more st
riking language of Husserl, I turn my mental glance through my eyes to the perce
ptual realm and discriminate a particular content - the gaze of the other. What
I thus meet is the mental glance or consciousness of the other directed through
his eyes. This is the minimal base line of the gaze-light referred to earlier. A
nd what can develop here, as we have seen, is a unified field of consciousness t
hat is perceptually dipolar. But I may direct my attention to the gaze: of the o
ther in a particular mode: with affection or hostility, with scrutiny or an atti
tude of self-revelation, and so on. Here the gaze becomes the bearer of a meanin
g that is taken up also by the whole of the look. This kind of directedness cont
rols the option as to whether one will or will not reveal to the other one s psy
chical slate.
Hence there is a correspondence between the three categories that represent a de
scriptive account of the gaze of the other as it presents itself in the experien
ce of mutual gazing, and the three categories that represent the threefold direc
tedness of consciousness. Firstly, to the light of the gaze there corresponds th
e basic turning towards of the self, the directed mental glance always associa
ted with consciousness as such. Secondly, to the streaming quality of the gaze t
here corresponds that directedness that takes up a particular content of the per
ceptual field. Thirdly, to the meaning of the took and the gaze there correspond
s the directedness of attention in a particular mode. As I have indicated, the f
irst and second of these sets of categories are necessarily closely related, and
 in a situation of mutual gazing, characterized cither in terms of basic directe
dness or in terms of the gaze-light stream or ray, a minimal dipolar field of un
ified consciousness occurs. But such a field moves toward a consummation, that i
s to say each pole is to some degree unclothed, when each elects to direct his a
ttention to the gaze of the other in the particular mode of good will or love; a
situation in which each both reveals himself and in his unique appraisal of the
other gives the other to the other.
I must now deal in more detail with the standard objection to the thesis that th
e gaze represents a distinct and unique phenomenal category. This objection asse
rts that what is construed as a unique phenomenon, the gaze of the other, is in
fact a projection from the observer on to the eyes of the other. The eyes of the
other arc never or rarely seen in isolation; rather, they are seen as only one
of a whole range of behavioral effects, including speech, gesture, and the vario
us nonocular elements of facial expression. From a rapid appraisal of all these
behaviors, including physical eye movements, degree of closure or opening of the
eyelids, dilation or constriction of the pupil, we infer the inner attitude of
the other, and project this outward on to his eyes, asserting that we perceive t
he gaze of the other. Further, since we often know about the circumstances of th
e other and details of the context of his relationship with ourselves, we make c
ertain inferences from this knowledge about his attitude and likewise project th
is outward upon his eyes. Perceiving the gaze of the other is thus a species of
illusion or misperception in perceiving the eyes, precipitated by a transaction
between inferential judgment and incoming purely physical stimuli.
There are several answers to this objection. The first is a purely empirical one
. Arrange to have a complete stranger with features immobile placed behind a scr
een with a horizontal aperture in it so that only his eyes can be seen. Now pass
from perceiving his eyes as such to perceiving his gaze: the change in dimensio
n of perception is still clearly evident, yet any possible process of inferentia
l judgment and projection based on other behavioural clues has been excluded. Se
condly, we have already seen that the gaze-light as such, which bears witness si
mply to the conscious presence of the other, is to be distinguished from the dif
ferent kinds of qualitative meaning that it may carry. Hence we can meet and dis
cern the gaze of the other without necessarily concerning ourselves about his pr
ecise inner attitude or emotional state. Thirdly, it is false to suppose that pa
rticular emotions and attitudes arc read into the eyes after being inferred from
facial expression and other gestures and postures. This, 1 have suggested, is t
o put the matter the wrong way round; a certain type of gesture and facial expre
ssion is seen as having a certain emotional meaning because it is associated oft
en with a certain kind of emotional state as revealed by the eyes and their supe
rvenient gaze. Fourthly, we can often correct inferential misconceptions about t
he emotion and attitude of the other derived from observing his nonocular behavi
ours or from a knowledge of his situation, by attending carefully to the qualita
tive meanings that come with his gaze. Fifthly, if it is maintained that perceiv
ing the gaze is really a case of seeing-as-if, that is, seeing the eyes as if th
ey are bearers of some emotional content. where this seeing-as-if is the result
of a transaction between inferential judgment and perceived physical cues, then
this analysis must equally apply to perceiving the emotional content of nonocula
r facial expression or gesture or posture or sounds uttered. But if alt percepti
on of emotion in another is a matter of transactionalism, seeing-as-if, then the
re is no basis for the inference involved, no evidence in the other from which i
t is drawn, so that the thesis becomes incoherent. Perception of emotion as with
perception generally cannot be entirely a matter of inferential transaction, si
nce this would mean that the objects of perception would become things-in-themse
lves and we could know nothing about them. Seeing-as-if only has meaning in cont
rast with seeing. Unless there is some sense in which it is appropriate to say t
hat we perceive emotion in the other directly, then it makes no sense to ask how
we perceive the emotional attitudes of others. And the very notion that there a
re expressive movements in others to be interpreted already presupposes some dir
ect knowledge of other minds. Finally, if it is argued that the inferential judg
ment involved is a matter of analogical inference, that is, the basis of the inf
erence is our own private experience of our own emotional states and of the bodi
ly motions that go with them, then the answer must be that the bodily motions th
at we observe as the correlates of emotional states in ourselves are quite diffe
rent from those we observe in others and so provide no proper basis for the infe
rence. For our own bodily motions are almost exclusively perceived proprioceptiv
e!y as a function of kinesthetic feedback. The surprise at hearing one s own voi
ce played back from a recording for the first time is equalled only by the surpr
ise of catching oneself unawares in a mirror when spontaneous emotional arousal
is displayed in face and gesture: for this bizarre reflected image is so far rem
oved from what we experience of our bodily movements from within.
A somewhat similar objection asserts not that we project an inference onto the e
yes of the other, but that to look at the eyes of the other arouses in us an emo
tional reaction which we project onto his eyes and then mistakenly consider to b
e his gaze. In projecting our own emotional response it seems to us that his eye
s are illuminated by some trans-physical property. The answer to this objection
depends on a proper analysis of what is involved in an emotional response. An em
otion is a function of how one sees the world, that is, it is closely tied to so
me cognitive appraisal of the environment. If there is a distinctive emotional r
esponse to seeing the eyes of another, then since inference has been ruled out t
his can only be explained on the grounds that there has been perceptual cognitio
n of some distinctive quality that arouses the emotional response. It may be sug
gested that the physical properties of the eyes alone are sufficient to account
for the emotional reaction that is consequent upon their appraisal. But if so, t
his reaction should be enhanced when one attends exclusively to the physical pro
perties of the other s eyes; however, it is precisely then, as the crucial test
shows, that the special impact of perceiving the other disappears. The emotional
reaction is a function of perceiving the gaze; hence this objection has to assu
me what it purports to deny.
What are the wider philosophical implications of the thesis which I have advance
d in this paper? They arc perhaps threefold. Firstly, the intellectual problem o
f how we know that other minds exist starts from a false starting point, that of
reflective alienation from intensely lived experience. And in this state of ali
enation the problem presupposes a false assumption: that it is always and only o
ur own self and its experiences that arc given us in immediate and direct awaren
ess. Secondly, the point of such a formulation of the problem and of the impossi
bilities of resolving it in purely theoretical terms, lies in the fact that ulti
mately by its self-defeating nature it gives rise to that kind of philosophical
phenomenology which directs attention back to concreteness and essential experie
nces to find a set of empirically based categories which preclude the very forma
tion of the falsely posed intellectual problem which began the quest. For it is
found that in the phenomenon of mutual gazing there is one field of consciousnes
s with direct though not total access to two poles of experience. Thirdly, such
a movement of thought reveals how inevitably limited will be any science of man
or of human relations conceived in terms of a narrow logical empiricism, in whic
h the detached analytic intellect is set over against observed public objects o
ut there. But there can be a science of man or of human relations conceived in
terms of a much more radically constituted empiricism, in which the whole man as
both intellectual and sensitive being seeks to find the basic phenomenal catego
ries which do justice to his most intensely lived experiences and seeks also to
specify accurately the conditions under which such experiences occur. This still
meets, and more profoundly, the objectivity required by science, in terms of th
e general criterion of the repeatability of obtained relationships between speci
fied experience and specified internal and external conditions.
References
Argyle, M., The Psychology of Interpersonal Behaviour, London, 1967.
Brophy, J., The Face in Western Art, London, 1963.
Buber, M., I and Thou, Edinburgh, 1937.
Reid, T., Inquiry into the Human Mind, (1764).
Wahl, J., Traite de Metaphysique, Paris, 1953.