Ecological Psychology and Enactivism both challenge representationist cognitive science, but the two approaches have only begun to engage in dialogue. Further conceptual clarification is required in which differences are as important as common ground. This paper enters the dialogue by focusing on important differences. After a brief account of the parallel histories of Ecological Psychology and Enactivism, we cover incompatibility between them regarding their theories of sensation and perception. First, we show how and why in ecological theory perception is, crucially, (...) not based on sensation. We elucidate this idea by examining the biological roots of work in the two fields, concentrating on Gibson and Varela and Maturana. We expound an ecological critique of any sensation-based approach to perception by detailing two topics: classic retinal image theories and perception in single-celled organisms. The second main point emphasizes the importance of the idea of organism-environment mutuality and its difference from structural coupling of sensations and motor behavior. We point out how ecological - phenomenological methods of inquiry grow out of mutualism and compare Gibson’s idea of visual kinesthesis to Merleau-Ponty’s idea of the lived body. Third, we conclude that Ecological Psychology and varieties of Enactivism are laying down different paths to pursue related goals. Thus, convergence of Ecological Psychology and Enactivism is not possible given their conflicting assumptions, but cross-fertilization is possible and desirable. (shrink)

Bodily awareness seems to present the body as a topologically connected whole, composed of many parts. In consequence, the source of topological and mereological content of bodily awareness comes into question. In particular, it may be asked whether (a) such content is provided by the bodily sense, i.e., sensory mechanisms which, like proprioception, presents the body “from the inside,” or (b) it is a product of “exteroceptive” elements of bodily awareness, which represents the body “from the outside” in a similar (...) way to that of other physical objects. This paper argues that while passive touch and proprioception are unlikely to present the body as a topological and a mereological whole, such content is likely to be provided by kinesthesis. In consequence, it is plausible that holistic topological and mereological bodily content is present in virtue of certain mechanisms of bodily sense. (shrink)

Recent work has demonstrated that the sense of agency is not only determined by efference-copy-based internal predictions and internal comparator mechanisms, but by a large variety of different internal and external cues. The study by Moore and colleagues [Moore, J. W., Wegner, D. M., & Haggard, P. . Modulating the sense of agency with external cues. Conscious and Cognition] aimed to provide further evidence for this view by demonstrating that external agency cues might outweigh or even substitute efferent signals to (...) install a basic registration of self-agency. Although the study contains some critical points that, so we argue, are central to a proper interpretation of the data, it hints at a new perspective on agency: optimal cue integration seems to be the key to a robust sense of agency. We here argue that this framework could allow integrating the findings of Moore and colleagues and other recent agency studies into a comprehensive picture of the sense of agency and its pathological disruptions. (shrink)

We present a model for several early stages of the sensorimotor transformations involved in targeted arm movement. In psychophysical experiments, human subjects pointed to the remembered locations of randomly placed targets in three-dimensional space. They made consistent errors in distance, and from these errors stages in the sensorimotor transformation were deduced. When subjects attempted to move the right index finger to a virtual target they consistently undershot the distance of the more distal targets. Other experiments indicated that the error was (...) in the sensorimotor transformation rather than in the perception of distance. The error was most consistent when evaluated using a spherical coordinate system based at the right shoulder, indicating that the neural representation of target parameters is transformed from a retinocentric representation to a shoulder-centered representation. According to the model, the error in distance results from the neural implementation of a linear approximation in the algorithm to transform shoulder-centered target parameters into a set of arm orientations appropriate for placing the finger on the target. The transformation to final arm orientations places visually derived information into a frame of reference where it can readily be combined with kinesthetically derived information about initial arm orientations. The combination of these representations of initial and final arm orientations could give rise to the representation of movement direction recorded in the motor cortex by Georgopoulos and his colleagues. Later stages, such as the transformation from kinematic to dynamic parameters, or to levels of muscle activation, are beyond the scope of the present model. (shrink)

This article explores the relationship between the bodily presence of other humans in the lived urban world and the experience of everyday architecture. We suggest, from the perspectives of phenomenology and architecture, that being in the company of others changes the way the built environment appears to subjects, and that this enables us to perform simple daily tasks while still attending to the built environment. Our analysis shows that in mundane urban settings attending to the environment involves a unique attentional (...) mode, which does not rely on concentrating on, or appreciating the architectural objects, but rather on social attention and on the subject’s kinesthesis in relation to the built environment. (shrink)

Philosophers and scientists have studied sensory perception and, in particular, vision for many years. Increasingly, however, they have become interested in the nonvisual senses in greater detail and the problem of individuating the senses in a more general way. The Aristotelian view is that there are only five external senses—smell, taste, hearing, touch, and vision. This has, by many counts, been extended to include internal senses, such as balance, proprioception, and kinesthesis; pain; and potentially other human and nonhuman senses. (...) This “multisensory turn” has been driven partly by developments in contemporary psychology and neuroscience, which have revealed a host of complex interrelations and interactions between sensory modalities previously thought to be distinct. Contrasts between modalities and other crossmodal phenomena, including multisensory integration, synesthesia, and sensory substitution, have also begun to receive more attention in a burgeoning scientific and philosophical literature on multisensory perception and other crossmodal effects. This article focuses on recent empirically informed contributions to the philosophy of perception, as well as key scientific works that provide important background information and insights into the nature of the senses and sensory perception. Indeed, one of the lessons of the multisensory turn, and of contemporary philosophy of mind more generally, is that philosophers ignore this body of empirical research at their peril because many human and animal senses turn out to be richer and more complex than philosophers and scientists had previously imagined, making this a fruitful area for interdisciplinary interaction and research. (shrink)

According to the Self-Location Thesis, certain types of visual experiences have self-locating and so first-person, spatial contents. Such self-locating contents are typically specified in relational egocentric terms. So understood, visual experiences provide support for the claim that there is a kind of self-consciousness found in experiential states. This paper critically examines the Self-Location Thesis with respect to dynamic-reflexive visual experiences, which involve the movement of an object toward the location of the perceiving subject. The main aim of this paper is (...) to offer an alternative interpretation of these cases which resists attributing them self-locating content, arguing for a replacement of the de se component with a non-conceptual equivalent of the indexical ‘here’. In its final section, the paper also considers an extension of the h-replacement account to cases of visual kinesthesis. (shrink)

Comtrary to general assumption, subjective reports of immediate ordinary consciousness and non-ordinary alterations of consciousness can provide unique evidence concerning the bases of the human symbolic capacity. Evidence from classical introspectionism, the meditative traditions, and descriptions of synaesthesias suggests that thought, rests on a cross-modal synthesis or fusion of the patterns from vision, audition, and touch-kinesthesis. This would provide a holistic, non-reductionist explanation of our capacity for reflective self awareness and recombinatory creativity. The approach is consistent with Geschwind's and (...) Luria's models of neocortical operation and Jackendoff's and Yates' recent emphasis on symbolic thought as a "neutral" or "amodal" synthesis. (shrink)

I present empirical evidence suggesting that an infant first becomes aware of herself as the focal center of a caregiver's attending. Yet that does not account for her awareness of herself as agent. To address this question, I bring in research on neonatal imitation, as well as studies demonstrating the existence of a neural system in which parts of the same brain areas are activated when observing another's action and when executing a similar one. Applying these findings, I consider gestural (...) exchanges between infant and caregiver, such as reciprocal smiles and imitative vocalizations. Lacking self-awareness at first, the infant is unaware of her own agency. By returning her unwitting gesture, the caregiver singles out for her—thanks to neural matching—the gesture's kinesthesis. Moreover, the caregiver's smile, imitative vocalization, or other gesture is the form that focusing takes. The kinesthesis of the infant's gesture, in being singled out, is experienced by the infant as what the caregiver is focusing on. It is experienced as being within the focal center. In this way, the infant becomes aware of herself as a bodily entity acting toward the caregiver. Exchanges that involve matching are at first essential, I argue, in making the infant present to herself in action. Matching will cease to be necessary, but self-awareness continues to depend fundamentally on others until the acquisition of language, when the child becomes capable of talking to herself as if she were the caregiver. (shrink)

Movement and, more particularly, kinesthesia as a modality and as a metaphor has become of interest at the intersection of phenomenology and cognitive science. In this paper I wish to combine three historically related strands, aisthêsis, kinesthesis and aesthetics, to advance an argument concerning the aesthetic value of certain somatic sensations. Firstly, by capitalizing on a recent regard for somatic or inner bodily senses, including kinesthesia, proprioception and the vestibular system by drawing lines of historical continuity from earlier philosophical (...) investigations on bodily background experience, initially from aisthêsis, Aristotle’s concept of the sensory faculty. Secondly, concepts of the sensate body are advanced through discoveries in the nervous system and related discussions of the ‘inner’ senses such as Charles Bell’s ‘muscle sense’ (1826), and what Charles Sherrington later termed ‘proprio-ception’ (1906). Thirdly, we consider the possibility of aesthetic status for those inner senses, where recently aesthetic arguments by Montero (2006) and Cole and Montero (2007) seek to determine aesthetic criteria for proprioception, and similarly in dance theory the aesthetic status of kinesthesia has been questioned (e.g. Foster 2011). Finally we consider whether previous exposure to a ‘grammar’ of movement is a factor in determining the relative aesthetic value. (shrink)

The aim of this work is to elucidate the meaning of 'infinity' from a phenomenological perspective, especially within the framework of Husserl’s theory of knowledge and perception. In the first chapter I firstly sketch the basics of Husserl’s phenomenology of knowledge. Thereafter I delve into the questions concerning the reduction to the 'reellen Bestand', which is hold to be the ground of verification of purports in the "Logical Investigations". I then propose an interpretation of the categorial intuition as directed to (...) the laws an 'Auffassung' follows when it organizes the sensual contents related to an object. In the second chapter I briefly expound Husserl’s phenomenology of perception and I show how perception can be hold as an intentional experience. Afterwards I concentrate on the constitution of space and of thing (Ding). I show in which sense the structures of both constitutions are dependent on the sensations and kinesthesis (i.e. proprioceptions) experienced by the subject. In the third chapter I finally deal with the problem of infinity. I face some recent interpretations of Husserl’s theory of perception according to which infinity is somehow intertwined in and even intuited through thing-perception (Dingwahrnehmung). I claim that thing-perception can not be hold as an access to infinity, i.e. no thing-perception is a perception of something as infinite. Following I show how some other kinds of sensual experience can correspond to a perception of infinity. On the base of some Husserl’s manuscripts and through a brief confrontation with Kant’s Analytic of the Sublime I sustain that infinity can be sensually intuited in the senses of limitlessness and of formlessness. I then show that categorial intuition is necessary in order to constitute the meaning of mathematical infinity, i.e. an endless whole of discrete parts. In fact, the idea of such an “entity” is dependent on the capacity of grasping the law of a serial production. In the conclusion I establish that mathematical infinity is the only kind of infinity which can not find any sensual correlate. This is due to the fact that it is a meaning composed by two contradictory prescriptions: 'reach the limitless' and 'go on without an end'. I consequently argue that the idea of infinity is grounded on sensual experience and does not need any supernatural origin. (shrink)

El artículo confronta el análisis merleau-pontiano de los cuatro caracteres del “cuerpo propio” en Phénoménologie de la Perception con el tratamiento original que Husserl realizó de los mismos puntos en Ideen II. Se examinan sus respectivos análisis de la permanencia absoluta, las sensaciones dobles, las cenestesias y las cinestesias para determinar el diferente significado que comporta el “cuerpo propio” para cada autor. Se observa así que las “ubiestesias” no desempeñan para Merleau-Ponty el rol constitutivo del cuerpo propio que tienen para (...) Husserl. Esto conduce a distinguir, siguiendo a Husserl, dos sentidos diferentes de propiedad. Mientras que Husserl asocia el cuerpo propio con un sentido secundario de propiedad, derivado de un sentido yoico originario, para Merleau-Ponty la experiencia más básica del yo y de lo propio es vivida por un sujeto cor-poral al percibir y moverse.The article confronts the MerleauPontyan analyses of the four features of the “body proper” in Phénoménologie de la Perception with the original Husserlian consideration of the same issues in Ideen II. I examine their analyses of absolute permanency, double sensations, cenesthesis and kinesthesis, to determine the different meaning that the “body proper” acquires for each author. It is thus observed that “localized sensations” do not play for Merleau-Ponty —as they do for Husserl— the constitutive role of the body proper. This leads to distinguish, following Husserl, two different senses of ownership. Whereas Husserl associates the “body proper” with a secondary sense of ownership deriving from an originary sense of self, for Merleau-Ponty the most basic experience of myself and of ownership is lived by a corporeal subject in perception and movement. (shrink)

The last chapter involves circumventing the difficulties raised in the previous chapter. The commitment to observation as a two-term relationship will be relaxed by adopting a special form of sensation--kinesthesis-proprioception--as the exemplary model. A more technical version of introspection--the concept of which is garnered from the experimental uses of introspection--is considered and the adaptability of experimental introspection to the requirement of a kinesthetic-proprioceptive model of observation is examined. The causal features of the former is used to reinforce positive results (...) from the examination. In the course of this discussion, it becomes clear that the defense of an observation model of introspection is strengthened once the failure to acknowledge introspection's causal features is repaired. ;As a result of adopting consciousness as distinctive of mental phenomena, a host of other problems with regarding introspection as a variety of sense observation arises. The paradigm for observation, sensation, involves a relationship between two disparate entities. Efforts to model introspection on sensation is deemed inadequate insofar as introspection does not also involve two entities. In presenting the various ways in which consciousness is supposed to be an obstacle to introspection in the third chapter, we find that they are all variations on a single theme: Consciousness undermines introspection as a form of observation by allowing the involvement of only a single entity. The first set of objections point to the absence of the introspecting subject. The second set of objections deny the presence of an introspected object. ;The second chapter is devoted to an investigation of introspection's supposed failure to produce descriptions of the mental on par with the descriptions of the physical yielded by sensation. The failure is attributed to the alleged conflict between characterizing mental phenomena as private and referring to such phenomena, a conflict expressed by Wittgenstein's private language argument. Efforts are made to reinstate descriptions of the mental. These efforts involve abandoning privacy as characteristic of the mental in favor of consciousness and incorporating behavior into the concept of the mental. The causal relations in which mental phenomena participate are employed to cement consciousness and behavior into a unified concept of the mental. ;The first chapter consists of an examination of Locke's theory of introspection. The traditional understanding of introspection as a variety of observation does not include causal features. However, in this thesis, we discover that Locke, one of the precursors of this traditional view, does give introspection a causal role. For what Locke does is model introspection upon sensation . The parallels that Locke draws between introspection and sensation are traced. Furthermore, it is shown that a proper perspective on various alternative accounts of Locke's notion of introspection can be gained only within the context of introspection's causal role. ;The basic problem discussed in this thesis is to determine whether introspection is a variety of observation. This involves investigating whether there are any features of the concepts of introspection or observation which militate against subsuming the former under the latter. The investigation proceeds by way of the presentation of a theory of introspection conceived as a type of observation followed by a defense of this theory against criticism. (shrink)

Nos proponemos, en este artículo, sentar las bases necesarias para investigar la correlación entre algunas formas de epojé y las reducciones a las que dichas suspensiones abren, y que corresponden a una concreción cada vez más rica. Nuestra aproximación de la concreción fenomenológica se apoya, abiertamente, en la mereología. Tras un breve repaso de algunos conceptos mereológicos aplicados al giro transcendental de la fenomenología, trataremos de apresar, mereológicamente, la especificidad de la problemática finkeana en su VIª Meditación Cartesiana. Habremos pues (...) de diseccionar las partes de la correlación transcendental cruzándolas con el particular lugar que, en esa concreción, ocupa esa “parte” no concrescente que es el yo fenomenologizante. Ella conformará la “parte” antecedente del “todo” de la cinestesia fenomenologizante que tratamos de elucidar, y cuyo consecuente será el todo de la correlación transcendental. Intentamos así contribuir al esclarecimiento del proceso de reducción fenomenológica, sentando las bases para una investigación sobre las articulaciones concretas entre epojé y reducción.The aim of this paper is to lay the ground for understanding the correlation between some forms of epochè and the reduction they open to, which corresponds, each time, to a richer type of concreteness. Our approach of phenomenological concreteness is mereological. Therefore, after remembering some basic concepts of the husserlian mereology and their possible use within transcendental phenomenology, we try to grasp the specificity of the questions posed by Eugen Fink in his 6 th Cartesian Meditation. We shall expose the parts of the transcendental correlation and then account for the particular role played, “within” this concretion, by this particular “part” which is the phenomenologizing ego. The phenomenologizing ego will be the antecedent “part” or term within this “whole” consisting on the phenomenologizing kinesthesis. Thereafter, the consequent term of such a kinesthesis corresponds to the whole of the transcendental correlation. We thus intend to throw some light on the process of phenomenological reduction and set the basis for further investigations regarding the concrete articulation between epochè and reduction. (shrink)

Les résultats quantitatifs que la psychologie et la physiologie n'ont cessé d'accumuler depuis le début du siecle à propos du sens tactile laissent apparaître aujourd'hui une certaine ambiguïteé. D'un côté en effet, la préoccupation de connaître les sensibilities cutanées spécifiques telles qu'elles se présentent de manière isolée à l'analyse objective des récepteurs stimulés: les sensations de chaud et de froid, de pression et de contact, de douleur, de vibration. D'un autre côté, le désir de sauvegarder l'unité fonctionnelle du sens tactile (...) c.a.d. sa spécificité propre par rapport aux quatre autres sens traditionnels. Ainsi, par exemple, une analyse neurophysiologique des récepteurs tactiles5 ne manque pas de mentionner plusieurs catégories fonctionnelles de la sensibilité cutanée: la douleur, comme signal d'un danger qui peut menacer l'existence de l'organisme; la perception des qualités d'un objet, comme intégration du toucher et de la kinesthésie au cours d'une exploration active de la main; les expériences somatiques complexes telles que le chatouillement et les sensations sexuelles. Pour le phénoménologue, un tel compromis s'apparente à une confusion et provient des positions épistémologiques qui ont animé l'orientation méthodologique des recherches, depuis la psychophysiologie mécaniste jusqu'à la psychologie cybernétique de l'information sensorielle. En cela, la domaine de la sensation tactile reste l'apanage de la psychophysique, et nous tenterons de clarifier pourquoi cette position ne peut aboutir qu'à des résultats problématiques. A partir d'une psychologie anthropologique du sens tactile,14 nous défendrons l'idée d'une psychologie comparée qui permettrait une investigation empirique, objective des comportements animaux, sur la base de prolégomènes phénoménologiques. (shrink)

A hypothesis about sensorimotor integration (the λ model) is described and applied to movement control and kinesthesia. The central idea is that the nervous system organizes positional frames of reference for the sensorimotor apparatus and produces active movements by shifting the frames in terms of spatial coordinates. Kinematic and electromyographic patterns are not programmed, but emerge from the dynamic interaction among the system s components, including external forces within the designated frame of reference. Motoneuronal threshold properties and proprioceptive inputs to (...) motoneurons may be cardinal components of the physiological mechanism that produces positional frames of reference. The hypothesis that intentional movements are produced by shifting the frame of reference is extended to multi-muscle and multi-degrees-of-freedom systems with a solution of the redundancy problem that allows the control of a joint alone or in combination with other joints to produce any desired limb configuration and movement trajectory. The model also implies that for each motor behavior, the nervous system uses a strategy that minimizes the number of changeable control variables and keeps the parameters of these changes invariant. Examples are provided of simulated kinematic and electromyographic signals from single- and multi-joint arm movements produced by suggested patterns of control variables. Empirical support is provided and additional tests of the model are suggested. The model is contrasted with others based on the ideas of programming of motoneuronal activity, muscle forces, stiffness, or movement kinematics. (shrink)

A phenomenology of action is outlined, analyzing the structure of volition, kinesthesis, and perception in the experience of action, and, finally, the experience of embodiment in action. The intentionality of action is contrasted with that of thought and perception in regard to the role of the body, and the relations between an action, the experience of acting, and the context of the action are specified.

The Body at the Limits of Representation. The Theory of the Body and Painting in Merleau-PontyIn Eye and Mind,” Merleau-Ponty quotes a phrase from Valéry: “the painter brings his body with him.” He interprets the corporeal experience of the artist, not only as the center of a perceptual orientation or kinesthesis, but also as the inspiration for poets and for painters. In this sense, one can place his theory of body not only within the problematic of the phenomenological constitution (...) of the perceived object, but also in the context of the deconstruction of representation or in the genealogy of “de-representation” (Lyotard). By following Merleau-Ponty’s interpretation of the works of Cézanne and Klee, we are going to see how his theory of the experience of body and the formation of their works of art meet up in his consideration of the reversibility of the visible and the invisible. When Merleau-Ponty quotes Valéry’s phrase “the painter brings his body with him,” the body of the artist is no longer “subject-body” perceiving the world in a prosaic way; rather, the body is implicated in the anonymous vision at the source from which the painter’s expression emerges. Just as nature is recounted through the poet, it has the faculty of seeing itself through the painter. In the “Methods of Natural Research,” Klee says “the resonance surpasses all the optical foundations between myself and that which opposes me,” “the united anti-optic way of the root going out of the earth, which looks at me from down below all the way up to my eyes” and of the “united non-optic way of the universe come from above.” He demonstrates that this non-optic resonance, rather than a mirror and a black screen separating the light, allows the eye to be seen as a point of junction of non-optical things and thereby it constitutes a part of the circle created by the new nature of works (eine neue Natürlichkeit des Werkes). Following what is particular to Merleau-Ponty’s thought in which the body is conceived as a principle of de-representation, one sees, by means of his intention of assessing modern artistic creation as the deconstruction of classical ontology, the overcoming of the ontology of the object. In conclusion, we note that the theory of body and of painting in Merleau-Ponty brings to light the limit of the possibility of representation in modern art, by emphasizing especially the non-perception or the transcendence that one can discern in the perceptual field. By interrogating the body of the painter and the poet, that is, the poetic body or the body as symbolism, prior to its being diverted into being a result of the brain and of the libido where the body is no longer the body visible in the world, by doing this, Merleau-Ponty has found a way of placing the body beyond representation. Poièsis is no longer mimèsis in the banal sense of imitation, and the poetic body is not the representational body. But, he has found a way of placing it still in Visibility, as if there were a hinge in this border between the visible and the invisible, in this border between representation and de-representation, a border that one cannot definitively overcome by structuring it as a dichotomy. (De-representation, but the visible. Therefore the possibility of visible de-representation in the artistic creation, in poièsis.) This hinge, which denies us an alternation, is the body, the flesh, which is the condition of thought as ontological interrogation: an ontological interrogation in the age of ir-representation, in the age of the impossibility of representation (Vorstellung) and of poem (Dichtung), in the age of crowds where the image appears as one of my fellow creatures just like the shadow cast by existence.Il corpo ai limiti della rappresentazione. La teoria del corpo e della pittura di Merleau-PontyNe L’occhio e lo spirito Merleau-Ponty cita una frase di Valéry: “il pittore si dà con il suo corpo”. Egli interpreta l’esperienza corporea dell’artista non solo come il centro di un orientamento percettivo o cinestesico, ma anche come motivo d’ispirazione per poeti e per pittori. In questo senso, si può collocare la sua teoria del corpo non solo all’interno della problematica della costituzione fenomenologica dell’oggetto percepito, ma anche nel contesto della decostruzione della rappresentazione o nella genealogia della “derappresentazione” (Lyotard). Seguendo l’interpretazione merleaupontiana delle opere di Cézanne e di Klee, vedremo come la sua teoria dell’esperienza del corpo e la formazione delle loro opere d’arte convergano nella considerazione della reversibilità del visibilee dell’invisibile. Quando Merleau-Ponty cita la frase di Valéry “il pittore si dà con il suo corpo”, il corpo dell’artista non è più un corpo soggettivo che percepisce il mondo in modo prosaico; il corpo è piuttosto implicato nella visione anonima dell’origine dalla quale emerge l’espressione del pittore. In Wege des Naturstudiums, Klee afferma che “la risonanza sorpassa tutti i fondamenti ottici tra me e ciò che mi si oppone”. Egli dimostra che questa risonanza non-ottica, piuttosto che essere uno specchio o uno schermo nero che separa la luce, permette di vedere l’occhio come un punto di giunzione di cose non ottiche e ciò costituisce una parte del circolo creato dalla nuova natura delle opere (eine neue Natürlichkeit des Werkes). Seguendo la particolarità del pensiero merleaupontiano, secondo il quale il corpo è concepito come un principio di de-rappresentazione, si nota, in virtù della sua intenzione di interpretare la creazione nell’arte moderna come la decostruzione dell’ontologia classica, il superamento dell’ontologia oggettivistica. In conclusione, osserviamo come la teoria del corpo e della pittura di Merleau-Ponty chiarisca i limiti della possibilità della rappresentazione nell’arte moderna, enfatizzando l’impercezione o la trascendenza che si può distinguere nel campo percettivo. Interrogando il corpo del pittore e del poeta – il corpo poetico o il corpo come simbolismo, a monte del suo porsi come risultato della mente o della libido, là dove il corpo non è ancora corpo visibile nel mondo – Merleau-Ponty ha trovato il mondo di collocare il corpo al di là della rappresentazione. Poièsis non è più mimesis nel senso banale d’imitazione, e il corpo poetico non è il corpo rappresentativo. Egli ha trovato il modo di posizionare il corpo nella Visibilità, come se esistesse un punto di rovesciamento situato sul confi ne tra visibile ed invisibile, ovvero sul confine tra rappresentazione e de-rappresentazione: un confine che non si può definitivamente superare se lo si continua a strutturare come dicotomia. Questo punto, che ci nega un’alternativa, è il corpo, la carne, che è condizione del pensiero come interrogazione ontologica: un’interrogazione ontologica nell’era dell’ir-rappresentazione, nell’era dell’impossibilità di rappresentare (Vorstellung) o di creare poemi (Dichtung), nell’era delle masse, in cui l’immagine appare come uno dei miei simili, come l’ombra proiettata dall’esistenza. (shrink)

The Body at the Limits of Representation. The Theory of the Body and Painting in Merleau-PontyIn Eye and Mind,” Merleau-Ponty quotes a phrase from Valéry: “the painter brings his body with him.” He interprets the corporeal experience of the artist, not only as the center of a perceptual orientation or kinesthesis, but also as the inspiration for poets and for painters. In this sense, one can place his theory of body not only within the problematic of the phenomenological constitution (...) of the perceived object, but also in the context of the deconstruction of representation or in the genealogy of “de-representation” (Lyotard). By following Merleau-Ponty’s interpretation of the works of Cézanne and Klee, we are going to see how his theory of the experience of body and the formation of their works of art meet up in his consideration of the reversibility of the visible and the invisible. When Merleau-Ponty quotes Valéry’s phrase “the painter brings his body with him,” the body of the artist is no longer “subject-body” perceiving the world in a prosaic way; rather, the body is implicated in the anonymous vision at the source from which the painter’s expression emerges. Just as nature is recounted through the poet, it has the faculty of seeing itself through the painter. In the “Methods of Natural Research,” Klee says “the resonance surpasses all the optical foundations between myself and that which opposes me,” “the united anti-optic way of the root going out of the earth, which looks at me from down below all the way up to my eyes” and of the “united non-optic way of the universe come from above.” He demonstrates that this non-optic resonance, rather than a mirror and a black screen separating the light, allows the eye to be seen as a point of junction of non-optical things and thereby it constitutes a part of the circle created by the new nature of works (eine neue Natürlichkeit des Werkes). Following what is particular to Merleau-Ponty’s thought in which the body is conceived as a principle of de-representation, one sees, by means of his intention of assessing modern artistic creation as the deconstruction of classical ontology, the overcoming of the ontology of the object. In conclusion, we note that the theory of body and of painting in Merleau-Ponty brings to light the limit of the possibility of representation in modern art, by emphasizing especially the non-perception or the transcendence that one can discern in the perceptual field. By interrogating the body of the painter and the poet, that is, the poetic body or the body as symbolism, prior to its being diverted into being a result of the brain and of the libido where the body is no longer the body visible in the world, by doing this, Merleau-Ponty has found a way of placing the body beyond representation. Poièsis is no longer mimèsis in the banal sense of imitation, and the poetic body is not the representational body. But, he has found a way of placing it still in Visibility, as if there were a hinge in this border between the visible and the invisible, in this border between representation and de-representation, a border that one cannot definitively overcome by structuring it as a dichotomy. (De-representation, but the visible. Therefore the possibility of visible de-representation in the artistic creation, in poièsis.) This hinge, which denies us an alternation, is the body, the flesh, which is the condition of thought as ontological interrogation: an ontological interrogation in the age of ir-representation, in the age of the impossibility of representation (Vorstellung) and of poem (Dichtung), in the age of crowds where the image appears as one of my fellow creatures just like the shadow cast by existence.Il corpo ai limiti della rappresentazione. La teoria del corpo e della pittura di Merleau-PontyNe L’occhio e lo spirito Merleau-Ponty cita una frase di Valéry: “il pittore si dà con il suo corpo”. Egli interpreta l’esperienza corporea dell’artista non solo come il centro di un orientamento percettivo o cinestesico, ma anche come motivo d’ispirazione per poeti e per pittori. In questo senso, si può collocare la sua teoria del corpo non solo all’interno della problematica della costituzione fenomenologica dell’oggetto percepito, ma anche nel contesto della decostruzione della rappresentazione o nella genealogia della “derappresentazione” (Lyotard). Seguendo l’interpretazione merleaupontiana delle opere di Cézanne e di Klee, vedremo come la sua teoria dell’esperienza del corpo e la formazione delle loro opere d’arte convergano nella considerazione della reversibilità del visibilee dell’invisibile. Quando Merleau-Ponty cita la frase di Valéry “il pittore si dà con il suo corpo”, il corpo dell’artista non è più un corpo soggettivo che percepisce il mondo in modo prosaico; il corpo è piuttosto implicato nella visione anonima dell’origine dalla quale emerge l’espressione del pittore. In Wege des Naturstudiums, Klee afferma che “la risonanza sorpassa tutti i fondamenti ottici tra me e ciò che mi si oppone”. Egli dimostra che questa risonanza non-ottica, piuttosto che essere uno specchio o uno schermo nero che separa la luce, permette di vedere l’occhio come un punto di giunzione di cose non ottiche e ciò costituisce una parte del circolo creato dalla nuova natura delle opere (eine neue Natürlichkeit des Werkes). Seguendo la particolarità del pensiero merleaupontiano, secondo il quale il corpo è concepito come un principio di de-rappresentazione, si nota, in virtù della sua intenzione di interpretare la creazione nell’arte moderna come la decostruzione dell’ontologia classica, il superamento dell’ontologia oggettivistica. In conclusione, osserviamo come la teoria del corpo e della pittura di Merleau-Ponty chiarisca i limiti della possibilità della rappresentazione nell’arte moderna, enfatizzando l’impercezione o la trascendenza che si può distinguere nel campo percettivo. Interrogando il corpo del pittore e del poeta – il corpo poetico o il corpo come simbolismo, a monte del suo porsi come risultato della mente o della libido, là dove il corpo non è ancora corpo visibile nel mondo – Merleau-Ponty ha trovato il mondo di collocare il corpo al di là della rappresentazione. Poièsis non è più mimesis nel senso banale d’imitazione, e il corpo poetico non è il corpo rappresentativo. Egli ha trovato il modo di posizionare il corpo nella Visibilità, come se esistesse un punto di rovesciamento situato sul confi ne tra visibile ed invisibile, ovvero sul confine tra rappresentazione e de-rappresentazione: un confine che non si può definitivamente superare se lo si continua a strutturare come dicotomia. Questo punto, che ci nega un’alternativa, è il corpo, la carne, che è condizione del pensiero come interrogazione ontologica: un’interrogazione ontologica nell’era dell’ir-rappresentazione, nell’era dell’impossibilità di rappresentare (Vorstellung) o di creare poemi (Dichtung), nell’era delle masse, in cui l’immagine appare come uno dei miei simili, come l’ombra proiettata dall’esistenza. (shrink)

In spite of their opposite methods, Fichte's deductive process and Husserl's reduction cope with the same challenge: they aim to explain how the sensible world is dependent on reflixivity. As perception is generally linked with natural existence, and pure passivity, the deepest significance of transcendental thought in those philosophies consists in equalizing phenomenon and reflexion. In the heart of bodily life, some spiritual theme has to be found. Fichte defines action as the quantification of freedom, and freedom is effectively achieved (...) in the sensible world. Human perception reveals freedom altogether in corporal movements as in the surrounding world (Umwelt). The Fichtean theory of acknowledgment assumes this goal. In the same way, Husserl's reduction explains how significance proceeds from the body (Leib). The Husserlian analysis of kinesthesis and the radical experience of the hand touching the other hand both introduce to the status of pre-reflection. However the complete resolution of the question is given by Fichte: Intelligibility may exist in the sensible world as the metaphysical concept of phenomenon (Erscheinung) in the last Fichtean philosophy expresses the idea of the Absolute pervading the sensible. (shrink)

Cet article se donne pour tâche l’examen de la fécondité conceptuelle d’une réduction paradigmatique souvent effectuée par les études en phénoménologie contemporaines de la danse : la réduction du mouvement dansé aux _kinesthèses_ par lesquelles il devrait être immédiatement vécu. Nous entendrons montrer, au contraire, que les kinesthèses ne permettent pas de rendre compte du mouvement vécu parce qu’elles le transforment en un vécu de mouvement demeurant extérieur au sujet qui le vit. Cette critique nous amènera ensuite à repenser conjointement (...) le mouvement dansé comme véritable sujet de la danse et le corps dansant comme déposé par ce mouvement en lequel il est pris. (shrink)

L’étude porte sur νόος (νοεῖν, νόημα), dans les trois genres de la poésie archaïque non épique, iambique (Archiloque, Sémonide), élégiaque (Solon, Théognis), mélique (Alcée, Sappho, Simonide, Bacchylide, Pindare). En insistant sur les enjeux pragmatiques de la performance rituelle (par exemple symposiaque ou épinicique) et les effets de la transmission, reconstruction et interprétation post-classique des énoncés, surtout des fragments, qui peut tirer l’analyse sémantique vers une abstraction dualiste de type étique (vs. émique), on observe la multifonctionnalité du νόος figuré poétiquement, en (...) action, comme une faculté rythmée, à la fois sensorielle, expressive, éthique, décisionnelle, cognitive, logique, fondée sur des jeux d’empathie visuelle et kinesthésique, et de maîtrise, par exemple dans les relations entre hommes et dieux. La poéticité des fragments de Xénophane s’en trouve aussi réévaluée. (shrink)