"To explore our existence as such a "third genus," Merleau-Ponty begins from our perception of the sensible world, or the "natural world." He initially suspends, or "brackets," its social qualities, but he does so only later to reveal the impossibility of doing so. Perception is not, as empiricist theory would have it, merely a passive reception of external stimuli. But neither is it, as Cartesianism or other forms of intellectualism would hold, an act of judgment (PP, 9). Rather, perception itself (and sensation more generally) is what he calls a "third" or intermediate experience. In our everyday perceptual experience of the world, perceiver and perceived are not a subject and an object. Blurring, they form a kind of "gestalt" or a "system" in which each calls the other into being (PP, 238-39)."