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Cont Philos Rev (2011) 44:241–246

DOI 10.1007/s11007-011-9177-6

Edward S. Casey: The World at a Glance


Indiana University Press, Bloomington, IN, 2007, 520 pp, ISBN
978-0253218971

Susan M. Bredlau

Published online: 1 May 2011


 Springer Science+Business Media B.V. 2011

In The World at a Glance, Edward S. Casey argues that the glance is a critical, and
yet often overlooked, aspect of perception. We are constantly glancing, and when
we begin to examine these glances, we discover that they are not as simple as we
might think. Indeed, we quickly discover that our glances do not consist of one
single act that is constantly repeated. Rather, our glances consist of a seemingly
infinite variety of uniquely different acts; as Casey insists, there is no such thing as
the glance. Our glances cannot be subsumed into the logic of the universal and the
particular, and Casey is careful to always qualify the glances he describes with
specific adjectives. Moreover, while we usually associate the glance with visual
perception, the glance is not even strictly limited to vision (437). Casey, while
focusing on the visual glance, observes that touch and hearing can also be enacted in
a glance. The glance’s resistance to summation and definition is, if we have thought
of the glance as needing no explanation, quite unexpected and demonstrates that we
do, in fact, need to account for the glance.
Casey’s study of the glance is divided into four parts. In Part One, he offers
descriptions of the glance that, if not expressly phenomenological are, Casey writes,
‘‘…phenomenological in spirit’’ (22). Starting with the experiences of sitting in a
cafe and walking along a city street, Casey notes the many kinds of glancing that
permeate these experiences; there are abstracted glances (31), glances of just
looking around (31), inquisitive glances (39), glances away (45), and so forth. As
Casey remarks, these glances, though they may seem dispensable, are actually quite
essential; these glances already enact particular ways of being-with-others (35).
Thus even in these preliminary reports on the glance, we can begin to discern what
Casey calls the ‘‘strange logic’’ of the glance, whereby ‘‘something quite exiguous,
seemingly trivial, shows itself to be immensely significant in its scope and effect’’
(41).

S. M. Bredlau (&)
Department of Philosophy, P.O. Box 6011, Flagstaff, AZ 86011-6011, USA
e-mail: susan.bredlau@nau.edu

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After revealing the glance’s pervasiveness, Casey then explores how we glance,
first, by focusing on the source of the glance, and second, by focusing on what is
glanced at. Although the eyes are the primary origin of the glance, Casey argues that
the glance implicates the body as a whole. It is characteristic of the glance, however,
to be directed away from the body and toward ‘‘the various surfaces of the
surrounding world’’ (55). The object of the glance, in other words, is not an object at
all; the glance deals with the surfaces of things and people. Yet although the glance
is engaged with surfaces, it is not, so to speak, superficial. The glance sees these
surfaces both in terms of the depths that they cover (65) and the larger wholes of
which they are a part (67). The glance, then, is particularly adept at establishing our
orientation toward the world (92). That is, our first sense of the world around us—of
the world as unknown or known, familiar or unfamiliar—is achieved by the glance.
Casey concludes Part One by contrasting the glance and the gaze. Philosophy,
Casey argues, has traditionally treated the gaze as the primary, if not sole, form of
visual perception. Yet the glance cannot be understood as just a shorter or smaller
version of the gaze; the gaze’s character is very different than that of the glance.
The gaze, Casey writes, deals with ‘‘on phenomena in their very discreteness’’ (142)
and grasps things as a whole; the object of the gaze, in other words, is an object.
Casey describes the gaze, therefore, as tending toward sobriety, that is, toward a
steady focus a single thing. The gaze, in its investment in what is before it, does not
recognize its own ‘‘concrete implacement in space and time’’ (147). The glance, by
contrast, is subversive, never lingering in any place long enough for the serious
preoccupation characteristic of the gaze. Moreover, the glance subverts not only
established settings but also the glancer herself. The one who glances is affected by
her glance, while the one who gazes is, or at least takes herself to be, unaffected by
her gazing. Yet while the glance must be distinguished from the gaze, the two are
not opposed to one another. Rather, Casey argues, the glance and the gaze are often
interlaced (162); the glance, Casey writes, ‘‘is the force of becoming in the field of
vision….Even if it does not triumph over the gaze, the glance manages to precede it
and pervade it’’ (164).
In Part Two of The World at a Glance, Casey offers two historical accounts of
the glance, comparing the glance as it functioned in ancient Athens with the glance
as it functioned in late nineteenth century Paris. Glancing, Casey writes, is not
simply a personal act. Our ways of glancing are also ‘‘collective in character,’’ (167)
reflecting the habits of a shared history and culture. In ancient Athens, Casey argues,
glancing was informed by the agora with its vistas opening out onto the Parthenon
and the surrounding countryside; the glances of an Athenian established his place
among his fellow citizens in the political life of the city. Yet although the Greeks
had a ‘‘rich repetoire’’ (181) of words for glancing, and for seeing in general, Casey
argues that the Greek’s philosophical accounts of vision, particularly the accounts of
Plato, sowed ‘‘the seeds…for the increasing primacy of the gaze in theoretical
accounts of vision’’ (206). In contrast to the glancing of fifth century Athens, the
glancing of nineteenth century Paris was informed, not by the agora, but by the
arcades, the interior passages between rows of shops. Drawing on Walter
Benjamin’s Arcades Project, Casey explores the glancing of the flaneur; the
flaneur’s glancing, Casey argues, is particularly capable of appreciating the history

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of a city, a history that, as aura, is visible on the very surfaces of the urban
environment. Yet while the styles of glancing in fifth century Athens may have
differed quite markedly with the styles of glancing in nineteenth century Paris, in
both cases the glance itself was never simply contained by these styles; glancing,
while it ‘‘incorporates the specific historical milieu from which it springs, remains
free to move and to rove in its own idiosyncratic way’’ (209).
In Part Three, Casey shifts his focus from what might be thought of as the
exterior aspects of the glance, its cultural and historical contexts, to three interior
aspects of the glance; the first chapter explores the glance’s ability to present the
natural world and human beings in their singularity. The glance presents one, for
example, with the green of the leaf of the plant sitting on a desk as just this green
and no other (258), as a green that is ‘‘incomparably itself’’ (256). The second
chapter examines the unique temporality of the glance, a temporality that, Casey
argues, should be characterized as ‘‘a leap that loops back’’ (288). The glance is
neither determined by the past that has happened before it nor utterly independent of
this past. Instead, the glance is a constant refiguring of this past. In the third chapter,
Casey analyzes the relation between the glance and attention; the glance, Casey
writes, is ‘‘at the vanguard of attention,’’ (309) and plays as critical role in our
internally directed attention to our own minds as it does in our outwardly directed
attention to the physical world. Yet there is also a kind of glancing that cannot be
categorized as either internally or externally directed. Eugene Gendlin’s technique
of ‘‘focusing’’ (318), Casey argues, involves an attentiveness to one’s felt sense of
the world (319), a sense that is not strictly located in either the physical world or the
mental world.
Part Four of The World at a Glance, explores the implications of the glance for
both ethical and artistic life. As Casey’s discussion of the interpersonal character of
the glance in Part One already suggested, the glance is the most basic instantiation
of our being-with-others. Through our glances, we are already engaged with others,
responding to them in very particular ways. Thus the glance, Casey argues, has a
privileged place in ethics; not only is the glance itself an ethical action, the glance is
also the ground of further ethical action. Yet beyond being the basis of our ethical
engagement with other people, Casey argues that the glance is also implicated in
ethical action involving the natural world. With respect to the environment, Casey
writes that the main question to be addressed is ‘‘…where is the source of the moral
imperative, that is, the place where we first find the call that moves us to ethical
action?’’ (364). Casey argues that it is a landscape to which we find ourselves, in a
glance, already responding. ‘‘A glance suffices,’’ Casey writes, ‘‘not just to see
distress and disorder [in the environment]. It also picks up the imperative to do
something about these dissonances’’ (374). Casey concludes Part Four by exploring
the role of the glance in the visual arts, specifically, painting and photography.
In contrast to the relationship between the glance and the gaze in ethical action,
where, Casey asserts, the glance takes priority, in visual arts the glance and the gaze
are more equal partners. While the glance draws the artist to her subject and the
spectator to the artwork, the gaze is also critical to the artist’s creation and the
spectator’s appreciation of an artwork.

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In The World at a Glance, Casey makes a significant contribution to the ongoing


phenomenological project of describing perceptual experience. Following the work
of Husserl, Heidegger, Merleau-Ponty and others, Casey argues that we should not
take what we perceive for granted. What we perceive does not first exist prior to and
independently of perception. Rather, what we perceive is the accomplishment of
perception. Perception does not re-present an already given world; perception is the
very presentation of our world. Perception is a creative act; it grants the world its
meaning, a meaning that is manifest in what we perceive and how we perceive it.
Yet while contributing to the phenomenological project of describing perceptual
experience, Casey also questions whether the terms of this project have really been
adequate to perception itself. That is, Casey exhorts us not to take what we perceive
for granted in two further ways. First, while granting that perception is a creative
act, we should not simultaneously assume that it is a single act, the gaze, whose
creations consist solely of objects. As Casey reveals, the gaze’s perception of
objects has the glance’s perception of surfaces as a condition of its possibility. The
glance, though it often goes unnoticed, establishes a foundation for the gaze.
Second, while acknowledging the glance’s distinctive role of establishing a
foundation upon which the perception of objects is then possible, we should not
assume that this is the glance’s only role. The glance, Casey asserts, always holds
the potential of surprising us, and may, therefore, actually undermine the very
foundation it initially establishes.
The World at a Glance is, therefore, a challenging book, in every positive sense
of the word. Casey’s patient and uncompromising descriptions of both the glance
and gaze convincingly demonstrate that we must be much more sensitive to the
sheer variety and complexity of our perceptual experiences. The book’s analyses are
simultaneously wide-ranging and incredibly detailed, reflecting, no doubt inten-
tionally, the very diversity and singularity of its subject matter. The depth of
Casey’s knowledge of the history of philosophy is remarkable, and his commen-
taries on the writings of Benjamin, Heidegger, Levinas, Merleau-Ponty, and
Derrida, to name just a few, are subtle and illuminating. Moreover, Casey’s work is
effortlessly interdisciplinary, drawing on and responding to ideas from psychology,
ecology, and art history. Yet while Casey’s thinking is always informed by that of
others, he develops a truly original line of inquiry.
Casey argues that our visual perception of objects, a perception accomplished by
the gaze, is only possible on the basis of another kind of perception, that of the
glance. The glance, Casey emphasizes, deals with surfaces, and these surfaces are
not phenomena but, instead, periphenomena; that is, they are situated ‘‘around the
perceptual field, on its margins or in its crevices’’ (438). Moreover, the surfaces at
which we, in any particular situation, glance are always seen together, as parts of a
larger whole; the glance, in other words, presents us with the very background of
perception. We must recognize, therefore, that what we see is not simply objects
but, rather, objects within a world, figures against a ground, or, to emphasize the
meaningful character of perception, things within a context. Others have, of course,
recognized that what we perceive always has a figure/ground structure. Casey,
however, goes far beyond the recognition of this figure/ground structure to explore
how it is achieved. He reveals that this structure of perception is accomplished

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through two, very different, perceptual acts: the glance and the gaze. Perception
does not begin by focusing on discrete things but by skimming the surfaces of our
surroundings and establishing the ground upon which specific objects can then be
seen.
The glance, then, gives us our basic orientation toward the world. This
orientation is not simply an orientation within space; it does not consist of
perceiving one’s location, of knowing where one is on a map. Rather, this
orientation is an orientation to one’s place, a topic that Casey has explored
extensively in previous books. Being oriented to one’s place means perceiving the
significance of one’s surroundings, a significance that any account of these
surroundings only in terms of space can never grasp. To be oriented to one’s place is
to be drawn toward the world in a specific way, to have a certain sense of what this
world demands; it is to find certain aspects of the world as calling for one’s attention
while other aspects remain silent, to find certain avenues of approach compelling
and others not.
Thus it is within the basic orientation established by the glance, an orientation
that may take the specific form of un-orientation, that particular objects can then
appear. Without this orientation, the objects upon which we focus would not be the
objects that they are. The glance, in other words, governs not only what appears as
an object but how it appears as an object. It is the glance that establishes us, for
example, as on our familiar subway commute, and thus able to concentrate intently
on the book we are reading, or as on an unfamiliar train ride in a foreign country,
and thus needing to concentrate on the stations we pass through lest we miss our
stop.
The glance, therefore, reveals us as already engaged with the world, as already,
one could say, acting on its behalf. Moreover, in always establishing one particular
orientation toward the world rather than another, the glance is never neutral; even
when our orientation toward the world takes the form of merely observing it, this
orientation, like any other, reveals certain features of the world while leaving others
concealed. We can notice how the glance acts on behalf of the world particularly
clearly in situations involving other people. As Casey notes, it is with the glance that
our being-with-others is first realized concretely (35). In the specific way that we
glance at others, glancing toward them curiously or glancing away from them shyly,
glancing at them with interest or glancing past them in boredom, we give them
distinct forms of acknowledgement. Even in failing to glance at those around us, we
give them a form of acknowledgement, though in this case, we acknowledge them
as not deserving of our attention.
With a glance, we do something for those around us and, indeed, do something
that they cannot simply do for themselves. These others cannot be interesting or
boring, worthy or unworthy of our attention, unless another person does
acknowledge them in this way; as Casey writes, ‘‘Without the confirming glances
of others cast at me [in passing]…I would be less than myself: I would be adrift in a
Sargasso Sea of anonymous generality in which my very identity, as well as my
singularity, would be dissolved in a swirl of indifference’’ (351). The glance, then, is
already an ethical action; it is already a way of acting on behalf of others, and our
further engagement with them will depend on the particular possibilities opened up

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by the specific way we initially glanced at them. Of course, we may be in error


about who or what is worthy of our attention and how they deserve our attention.
Nonetheless, it is only in so far as we are already compelled to act on behalf of
others, a compulsion enacted by the glance, that ethical action is possible.
In everyday perceptual experience, the ground in the figure/ground composition
of our experience is precisely what we do not focus on. Yet, as Casey has
demonstrated, this ground, as our orientation to the world, governs what things and
people we do focus on and how we act on their behalf. We should not, therefore,
leave this ground unexamined. Moreover, we should recognize that the possibility
of criticizing our basic orientation toward the world is implicit in the glance. The
glance, Casey writes, holds us in readiness for surprise (75). It can abruptly confront
us with the unexpected and unfamiliar. Thus the glance, which holds the power of
establishing our orientation, also holds the power of drawing this very orientation
into question. With just a glance, our world can be transformed.

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