Where will the difference be between “seeing” and “believing that one sees”? If one answers that the sane man only judges according to sufficient signs and upon a total subject, this must be because there is a difference between the motivated judgment of true perception and the empty judgment of false perception. And since the difference is not in the form of the judgment, but rather in the sensible text that it articulates, to perceive in the full sense of the word (as the antithesis of imagining) is not to judge, but rather to grasp, prior to all judgment, a sense immanent in the sensible. The phenomenon of true perception thus offers a signification that is inherent in the signs and of which the judgment is but the optional expression.

Phenomenology of Perception, “Attention” and “Judgment” – Maurice Merleau-Ponty