Abstract
This Husserlian transcendental-phenomenological investigation of interkinaesthetic affectivity first clarifies the sense of affectivity that is at stake here, then shows how Husserl’s distinctive approach to kinaesthetic experience provides evidential access to the interkinaesthetic field. After describing several structures of interkinaesthetic-affective experience, I indicate how a Husserlian critique of the presupposition that we are “psychophysical” entities might suggest a more inclusive approach to a biosocial plenum that includes all metabolic life.
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Notes
On the “pregiving” experience or life of consciousness, see, e.g., 37/287, 355; 11/256; 15/149; 34/70, 98f., 262, 319, 449, 451, 486; Husserl (1973), 174[152] (henceforth cited as EU/German page number [English page number]), and cf. 4/4f., 22f.; 8/473, 476; 11/162; 34/49 n. 1, 159f., 223, 251, 317, 452. Note that the sense of “pregiven” that is at stake here does not refer to something that temporally precedes full-fledged “givenness” (although the term is indeed sometimes used this way in genetic-phenomenological accounts). Instead, it refers to the natural attitude’s automatic acceptance of a ready-made world that is simply “there” for us as the universal basis for all action and affection, etc. (cf., e.g., 34/33, 72, and see also 302ff., where this is characterized as the universal prejudice within which all specific prejudices move). To put all this another way, here I am not concerned with a mundane phenomenology that places the sedimented accomplishments of the sciences in brackets solely in order to “go back to” the pre-scientific lifeworld and investigate its “pregiven” tacit structures, for as Husserl indicates (EU/49[50]; cf. 34/582), this is only the first step toward a true transcendental-phenomenological investigation of the correlational a priori in its universal scope (see 6/§§41–46): in addition to “making no use of,” e.g., naturalistic explanations (or other assumptions, results, etc., of mundane science), we must also “inquire back into” the transcendental life through whose operations everything “pregiven” comes about for us in the first place (34/223). For further methodological reflections on these and related issues, see Funke (1987), esp. Chapters 5–7 on critical transcendental phenomenology versus lifeworld metaphysics.
Cf. 4/297, where Husserl notes that sociality presupposes lived-bodily intersubjectivity; although the term “intercorporeity” is usually associated with Merleau-Ponty, the latter famously drew upon Ideen II in a number of respects, and this passage may have spurred him to come to the term.
For Husserl, this is true of phenomenological investigation in general; see, e.g., 3-1/135; HM4/73f.
Cf. Behnke (2007b). I considered not only familiar material from Ideen II (Husserliana 4), Analysen zur passiven Synthesis (Husserliana 11) and its later companion volume Aktive Synthesen (Husserliana 31), Formale und transzendentale Logik (Husserliana 17), Krisis (Husserliana 6), and Erfahrung und Urteil, but also material from the intersubjectivity volumes (Husserliana 13, 14, 15); from the early (1893–1913) texts on Wahrnehmung und Aufmerksamkeit (Husserliana 38); from the 1920/1924 lecture course Einleitung in die Ethik (Husserliana 37); from the 1922/23 lecture course Einleitung in die Philosophie (Husserliana 35); from the later (1926–1935) working manuscripts collected under the title Zur phänomenologischen Reduktion (Husserliana 34); and from the C manuscripts, now available in HM/8 under the title Späte Texte über Zeitkonstitution (1929–1934). For other introductions to Husserl’s notion of affection, see, e.g., Montavont (1994); and Steinbock (2001) (along with the references he suggests, li n. 36). For a broader context, see Lohmar (1998). For earlier influential discussions in Husserlian terms, see Landgrebe (1954); Aguirre (1970), Dritter Teil, II, especially §§31–32; Holenstein (1972), especially §§8, 11, 21, 40–42; de Almeida (1972), §14; Kern (1975), §30. For examples of more recent approaches to specific issues in a Husserlian context, see, e.g., Depraz (1994, 1998, 1999, 2000); Zahavi (1999), pp. 115–127; Lotz (2002a, 2007); Steinbock (2004) (my thanks to Brady Heiner for providing a copy of this essay); Lohmar (2005). Here it is not possible to consider either the literature on affectivity in Straus, Sartre, Levinas, Patočka, Merleau-Ponty, and Henry, or the recent work of Waldenfels in this area.
It has been suggested (Holenstein 1972, p. 63; Shin 1978, p. 105) that Husserl often generalized his concepts as he worked them out; the problem, however, is that as the initial sphere of reference becomes but one example of the concept in question, the terminology does not change to reflect the wider sense or differentiate it from the original one. For examples of extended senses of “affection,” see, e.g., 37/355, 34/160.
Husserl also makes this distinction by contrasting “objectivating affection” with “feeling-affection” (31/9).
See, e.g., 4/219f.; cf. 11/166.
See, e.g., 14/54; HM8/99 n. 1, 3, and cf. also 34/262f.
Although “undergoing” is often contrasted with “doing,” here “undergoing” implies appreciating streaming subjective processes, in contrast to focusing on the abiding transtemporal unities/identities constituted through these (usually anonymous) processes. I will return to this issue in Sect. 3 below.
Sokolowski (1974), pp. 108f.
Here it is not possible to offer a complete account of Husserl’s notion of kinaesthesis or to trace the discussion of this theme in subsequent literature.
Cairns (1976), p. 73. It should be emphasized once again that for Husserl, kinaesthetic performances belong to the broader realm of the “I” whether or not they are explicitly guided by the active, awake “I” and whether or not they come to explicit awareness; see, e.g., 14/447, 450, 452 n. 1; HM8/336 (cf. 53, 258); Cairns (1976), p. 92 (cf. 62, 64f.).
Cf. Behnke (2004a, 2007c). In addition to the two points just mentioned—the localization of kinaesthetic capability in somaesthetic sensibility and the role of the kinaesthetic “how of the receivingness” with regard to any somaesthetic sensations whatsoever—and to Husserl’s usual concern with the (often unthematized) role of the kinaestheses in bringing correlative sensuous profiles of externally perceived objects to givenness (cf., e.g., 11/185 n. 1, 363), the kinaestheses of “making a body” must also be taken into consideration (see, e.g., Behnke 1997, pp. 186ff.); all of these aspects of kinaesthetic functioning interact in complex ways that cannot be discussed here.
Cf. Behnke (2004a).
Cf., e.g., HM8/338, 351f. On the lucidly lived body—experienced from within, in lucid awareness and in the manner proper to kinaesthetic consciousness rather than in the mode of “separative seeing”—see Behnke (1984). Cf. also Behnke (1990a, 1990b, 2001b). Natalie Depraz has also independently developed a notion of a “lucid body.” While mine was developed under the influence of Jean Gebser (1973, but cf. also Mohanty (1970/71, pp. 118ff, 1972, Part Three, Chap. 1) and informed by transformative somatic practice (cf. Behnke 2007c), hers was developed under the influence of Sartre and informed by both Eastern Orthodox Christian and Tibetan Buddhist spiritual practices (cf. Depraz 2001a). I was not able to study Depraz’s Lucidité du corps (2001b) prior to carrying out the present investigation and writing this research report, but on first glance, there would certainly seem to be many possible points of contact between Depraz’s work there and my findings here, as well as certain amicable differences of method and interpretation. However, we are, I think, in agreement on the importance of working out a “Husserlian description of transcendental flesh” (Depraz 2001a, p. 493). I am influenced in this regard by Mohanty (1985, e.g., pp. 163f., 211, 242, and cf. also Kern 1975, pp. 43f., p. 47).
On the reduction to the primal standing-streaming present, see, e.g., 34/384ff. and cf. 185ff., as well as HM8/185ff. On the “original instinct of ‘objectivation’” (HM8/258), cf. Nam-In Lee (1993). On the habitual apperceptive focus on the “external,” see, e.g., 34/64. On the constitution, explication, and enrichment of abiding transtemporal unities/identities, see EU/passim.
See, e.g., HM8/352; cf. 134, and see also Cairns (1976), p. 84.
On the metaphor of a phenomenological “archaeology,” see HM8/356f. Cf. also HM8/394 on the ongoingly interwoven co-functioning of the “strata.” On what I am terming transcendental “mindfulness,” cf. 34/153f. And on further methodological issues merely hinted at here, see Behnke (2007a).
Cf., e.g., 34/46f. on taking episodes from everyday praxis as examples for phenomenological analysis. Note that all of the examples in this section must be understood in terms of the exemplicating move (cf. Zaner 1973, pp. 38f., 41f.)—i.e., taken as examples rather than for their own sake—and that the structures mentioned in no way represent claims about “the” essence of interkinaesthetic affectivity. Instead, I have merely identified certain styles of possibilities that transcend the facts of any given instantiation of them. On the transformation of “essence” into “style” in Husserl’s later phenomenology, cf. Behnke (2004c). Further research in a variety of settings beyond the limits of the present investigation is obviously needed.
Much more sophisticated examples of this structure occur in team sports where one looks for gaps in the other team’s defense, or in such martial arts as aikido, where one looks for energetic points of vulnerability.
Here it is not possible to provide a complete phenomenological description of such structures as mutual or asymmetrical permeability of projects, conflicts among projects, etc.
On “prominence by absence,” see Zaner (1981), pp. 245ff.
Here the term “body mask” refers to patterns of corporeal comportment adopted for public social roles; contrast, for example, a puppy straining at the leash, eager to explore every provocation from a dancing world, with the far more guarded movement style of the adult who is walking the dog, or consider what types of movement might be perceived as “undignified” at a solemn occasion, and so on.
The word “gemütlich” means “good-natured, friendly, genial, comfortable, restful”; “gemütlich werden” means “unbend”; “es sich gemütlich machen” means “make oneself at home, relax”; and “gemütliche Beisammensein” means a social gathering, an occasion for enjoying the pleasures of sociality (HM8/33).
Gallagher (1986a), pp. 153ff.
The notion of sensory-motor amnesia stems from the work of Thomas Hanna (1988). On the critique of corporeal experience, see Behnke (2001a, pp. 101ff., 2004c). The notion of a “dispossession” in need of a “recollection” in which one appropriates one’s own possibilities could also be worked out in Heideggerian terms, although without necessarily following the historical course of Heidegger’s own development (see, e.g., Buckley 1998, pp. 229ff.). Similarly, Husserl’s theme of cultural renewal (27/3ff.) needs to be worked out in more embodied terms. Finally, on the notion of “what is needed next here,” see Behnke (2005) and the references mentioned there.
My background in music (chamber music, orchestra, free improvisation, improvisation with dancers) has given me many rich interkinaesthetic experiences that painfully contrast with what passes as “mainstream” experience in our time.
Here it is not possible to provide a complete phenomenological description of the lived experience of feeling “replenished” (rather than, e.g., “drained”).
John J. Drummond suggests that respect is a moral emotion; what I am suggesting here is that it is also, and correlatively, a style of kinaesthetic comportment. Cf. Drummond (2006).
The context of this reminder is a work in progress I have provisionally entitled This Body that is Not a Thing.
Here it is not possible to provide a complete phenomenological description of a “friendly” (open, accepting, supporting) presence (in contrast, e.g., to sensing a “hostile” or “menacing” presence).
See, e.g., 19-1/24; 34/66, 176; HM8/41.
See 34/363, and cf., e.g., 156, 285. The apperceptive retrieval that is at stake here complements the more familiar function of the transcendental-phenomenological epochē and reduction—namely, to suspend the naive-dogmatic positing (or “acceptance in advance”—cf. 34/222) of the absolute being (Sein) of the world and to bring to light the streaming functioning life that constitutes the world (cf., e.g., 34/395ff.)—by effecting a similar suspension of the unquestioned “acceptance in advance” of something’s being-thus (Sosein) and bringing to light the “apperceiving-as” that constitutes the phenomenon in question as having precisely this sense (34/280).
Cf. 34/54, 393; see also 137f., and cf. 6/81f., 415. In other words, the abstraction that “purifies” the psyche from the psychophysical does not, in and of itself, also perform the work of the transcendental-phenomenological epochē and reduction: it is only the latter that suspends any automatic acceptance of the naive absolutization of the world and its pregiven entities.
Cf., e.g., 34/49, 112. The theme of the mundanization of transcendental flesh cannot be pursued here.
Cf. 32/217f. on the realm of the organic, encompassing individuals that maintain morphological identity across metabolic change, in contrast to the realm of the inorganic, where an object remains the same insofar as it has the same identical parts. Husserl suggests that it is this larger sense of morphological-biological individuality (rather than the “psyche” per se) that ought to be contrasted with sheerly physical res extensa; the distinction between organic individuals having a psychic life and organic individuals presumed to lack such a life then falls under the broader category of the organic in general—a conceptual reconfiguration that requires rethinking how the entire question of the “psychophysical” is to be addressed scientifically (cf. 32/225f.).
Reported in Criswell Hanna (2003), in the context of describing the importance of somatics practitioners developing coherent heart rate variability (e.g., respiratory sinus arrhythmia) as yet another way (in addition to the transformative somatic practice in question) to benefit their clients and students, moving them “toward greater synchrony and coherence.” However, Backster’s research on the biocommunication phenomenon he terms “primary perception” may indicate that the relationship he has investigated does not change with distance in the way we might expect with an electromagnetic signal; see Jensen (2000), 292ff.
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Behnke, E.A. Interkinaesthetic affectivity: a phenomenological approach. Cont Philos Rev 41, 143–161 (2008). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11007-008-9074-9
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11007-008-9074-9