In everyday life we often act adequately, yet without deliberation. For instance, we immediately obtain and maintain an appropriate distance from others in an elevator. The notion of normativity implied here is a very basic one, namely distinguishing adequate from inadequate, correct from incorrect, or better from worse in the context of a particular situation. In the first part of this paper I investigate such ‘situated normativity’ by focusing on unreflective expert action. More particularly, I use Wittgenstein’s examples of craftsmen (...) (tailors and architects) absorbed in action to introduce situated normativity. Situated normativity can be understood as the normative aspect of embodied cognition in unreflective skillful action. I develop Wittgenstein’s insight that a peculiar type of affective behaviour, ‘directed discontent’, is essential for getting things right without reflection. Directed discontent is a reaction of appreciation in action and is introduced as a paradigmatic expression of situated normativity. In the second part I discuss Wittgenstein’s ideas on the normativity of what he calls ‘blind’ rule-following and the ‘bedrock’ of immediate action. What matters for understanding the normativity of (even ‘blind’) rule-following, is not that one has the capacity for linguistic articulation or reflection but that one is reliably participating in a communal custom. In the third part I further investigate the complex relationships between unreflective skillful action, perception, emotion, and normativity. Part of this entails an account of the link between normativity at the level of the expert’s socio-cultural practice and the individual’s situated and lived normativity. (shrink)

Merleau-Ponty’s explication of concrete or practical movement by way of the Schneider case could be read as ending up close to automatism, neglecting its flexibility and plasticity in the face of obstacles. It can be contended that he already goes off course in his explication of Schneider’s condition. Rasmus Jensen has argued that he assimilates a normal person’s motor intentionality to the patient’s, thereby generating a vacuity problem. I argue that Schneider’s difficulties with certain movements point to a means of (...) broadening Merleau-Ponty’s account of concrete movement, one that he broaches without exploiting. What could do more work is his recognition of a transposition capacity - and hence of a plasticity - in the healthy body’s skill schema. As well as avoiding vacuity, he could forestall the appearance of a dichotomy between practical coping and creativity. (shrink)

Článek si klade za cíl objasnit a obohatit Merleau-Pontyho pojetí promlouvající mluvy v kontrastu k mluvě, jíž se mluví. V kontextu tvůrčích vyjadřovacích výkonů, zejm. umění, píše Merleau-Ponty o promlouvající mluvě především jako o mluvě, jež otevírá nové horizonty zkušenosti a vede ke kognitivnímu obohacení recipienta. Mluva, jíž se mluví, je naproti tomu řečovou sedimentací kulturního významu, jejímž prostřednictvím jsou ustavené poznávací vzorce tradovány. Ve studii nejprve vysvětlujeme, jak se promlouvající mluva tvoří na pozadí běžné mluvy, jíž se mluví, a (...) jak souvisí s vnímaným světem. Poté se soustředíme na dva specifické případy promluv, jimiž se sám Merleau-Ponty explicitně nezabývá. Zaprvé jde o sekundární literaturu, jejímž posláním je sloužit nějakému původnímu autorskému dílu. Sekundární literatura sama o sobě nepřichází s původní stylotvornou vizí světa, a přesto tvoří mluvu, jež moderuje a mnohdy vůbec umožňuje porozumět původnosti myšlenek autorů v silném slova smyslu. Zadruhé se zaměřujeme na případy promlouvajících mluv, jež nás manipulují, nevedou k bohatšímu poznání světa, a přitom jsou schopny zakládat nově sdílený vzor. (shrink)

This essay explores Maurice Merleau-Ponty’s notion of flesh as it applies within the Community of Philosophical Inquiry, the pedagogical method developed by philosopher Matthew Lipman to foster young people’s multidimensional thinking—critical, creative and caring—through collaborative dialogue. Using a phenomenological framework, the essay aims to extend Merleau-Ponty’s conception of chiasmatic relations between self and other by appealing to the account of intersubjective dialogue presented in the work of phenomenologist and CPI scholar David Kennedy. The guiding question focuses on hostility expressed corporeally (...) in dialogue: How might the phenomenological experience of individual inquirers within a CPI be affected by the hostile interventions of body language? The essay introduces the notion of body taunting as the combined “vocabulary” of flesh—gestural, postural, physiognomic, kinetic expression—with which inquirers both deliberately and inadvertently provoke, dismiss, intimidate or alienate one another as they attempt to co-construct meaning. Building on what Kennedy calls “the lived experience of preverbal dialogue”, the essay argues that body taunting poses a threat to the CPI’s emerging intersubjectivity by changing the chiasmatic relations between inquirers, making boundaries between self and other seem more pronounced, notably in moments when disagreement is communicated nonverbally in antagonistic ways that betray or contradict voiced arguments. (shrink)