Embodied Minds: A History in Five Movements
Talk in Geneva, Nov 9, 2021
My forthcoming book
I had a contract with a book with CUP — it was supposed to be about the cultural practices of diplomacy — theatricality, social performances
The idea of “the world stage” — basically an exercise in cultural history
Emanuel Adler in Toronto had given my name to CUP — which was nice …
Everything looked great! — and then something terrible happened
My constructivist slumber
I started out as a constructivist — in the IR theory sense of the word
It came as a real revelation at the time — what matters in society is not the things in themselves, but what they mean … it is all about meaning, about interpretation
We read Foucault — a world organized according to epistemes, structures of knowledge
We read Clifford Geertz — meaning is given in cultural webs
I had Alex Wendt as my PhD supervisor at Yale — I read “Anarchy Is What States Make of It” as a draft, and thought — “Of course, I knew that!” — nothing special.
Jeffrey Alexander — primacy of interpretation — published my PhD in a CUP series on cultural sociology
It is all about “social construction” — everything, or at least much, is “socially constructed” — perhaps even “all the way down.”
This is a view which I’ve come to reject — it is a form of dogmatism — but the argument here concerns philosophy of science rather than anything to do with IR
I always regarded “constructivism” as a philosophical position anyway
apologies to those who want to hear something about IR — there is an IR payoff too, I think, at the end — but what I’m going to talk about is not an IR argument
Rude awakening
It was Mark Johnson who woke me up from my dogmatic slumber …
Johnson is the other part of the famous “Lakoff and Johnson” who wrote the seminal — “Metaphors We Live By” — about the origin of linguistic meaning
They had argued that “metaphors are grounded in the body,” but at the time I regarded this is a kind of misprint — we all know bodies too are “socially constructed”
I remember when it happened — I had read an article by Mark Johnson — we were living in Shanghai, China, at the time — about Merleau-Ponty
Walking back home it suddenly struck me that Johnson (and Merleau-Ponty) were right.
Meaning is not a matter of interpretation only.
Before culture — epistemes, semiotic webs — there is the body
Meaning starts in the body — the body comes first
Not projection from interpretation “all the way down” — but projection from the body “all the way up
Pretty obvious really ...
science tells us that everything has a cause and a precedent — this is true for the intentional content of our minds too
something comes before our thoughts, hopes, fears, imaginations — these “somethings” take place in the body
the body is in the world before our minds — or rather, we are not only in our minds, but in our bodies too
and the interaction between bodies and worlds is not something that our conscious minds know much
this is why it is dogmatic to start with minds and with interpretations
Or think of this is a matter of developmental psychology — newborns are not interpreters, they have no culture — what they have are bodies and the meaning they make are embodied meaning
This is where meaning starts — in the body’s interaction with the situations in which it finds itself — all other meaning proceeds from there
Cultural theorists show up too late — ones meaning already has happened
Bodies and minds
We must reject the Cartesian distinction between bodies and minds.
Differently put: there is only one kind of stuff — body/mind
Bodies are not things that we have, but things that we are
All scientists know this — except social scientists — PoMO, Constructivism, Judith Butler, Derrida — they all presuppose this distinction — and they are all wrong
I reread Alex Wendt, and sure enough — he very explicitly says that he accepts the Cartesian distinction — between a world of ideas and a world of physical matter
I got you! I thought. You are wrong, and I was wrong too — but at least I’ve come to admit my errors
Everything has to be rethought from the ground up — or rather from the body up
Winks and blinks
There is a famous example from Geertz meant to illustrate the crucial role of interpretation
He is observing these people in Morocco — and he notices that they are winking to each other — why are they winking? This needs to be interpreted, and this is what Geertz does. The result is what he calls a “thick description” — a description which contains all the meanings possible at a given time in a given society
He contrasts this with a blink — which is the pure physical action — this is what an unsophisticated observer would see, or a film camera — but this only results in a thin description, of no interest to a cultural anthropologist
But Geertz underestimates blinks — they are actually very interesting
There are studies of this — when and why do people blink
For example: at the end of a thought, at the end of a speech, or a daydream
And they blink a lot when they are stressed out or nervous
George Orwell, 1984 as an illustration:
Winston Smith, the main protagonist of George Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty-Four, knew this only too well. “Your worst enemy, he reflected, was your own nervous system. At any moment the tension inside you was liable to translate into some visible symptom.” Winston thought of a man he had passed in the street a few weeks earlier, a quite ordinary-looking man, a Party member, carrying a brief-case. But just as they passed each other the man twitched. It was only a rapid quiver, obviously habitual, and most likely not even conscious. But Winston knew that twitches of this kind were exactly what the Thought Police were looking for. The Thought Police, we can conclude, had the opposite interests of those of cultural theorists: they cared little for hermeneutics and much for human physiognomy. “That poor devil is done for,” Winston thought to himself.
This too is social, but not cultural — as long as we think of culture as a matter of interpretation
We learn a lot about Oceania this way.
Or about the way women throw balls is patriarchal societies — “throwing like a girl”
or how people stand in elevators — sit in parks — queue at post offices — move in crowds
A world of signs, not symbols — not require interpretation — animals react to signs too
our bodies are reacting to signs — a social analysis of the body
Cognitive science
Cognitive theory and phenomenology
What the body actually is up to — happens outside of our cognitive awareness .. behind our backs, as it were; within us but without us … discover a secret life of the body
Bodies can be primed. To be primed is to be set on a certain path, and to become predisposed to noticing, or doing, certain things. For example: once a researcher primes us with a stimulus denoting “old age,” we tend to do the kinds of things that old people do. Walk more slowly, for example. Likewise, if a researcher convinces us to hold a cup with a warm beverage, we will assess a person shown in a photograph as “warmer” than if we hold on to a cup with a cold beverage. Warm beverages prime for warm feelings, and cold beverages prime for cold.
Bodies can also remember. Fingers can remember pin numbers that deliberating minds fail to recall, and they find keys on a keyboard that we cannot find. Bodies also remember things differently depending on their posture. For example: we recall negative events more easily when sitting in a slumped position, and positive events more easily when sitting in an upright position.
Bodies judge. We are more likely to find a cartoon funny if we are forced to keep a pencil between our teeth which activates the muscles we usually use when smiling. It is our muscles which judges what we see. But bodies can also inhibit judgments. For example: a person whose frowning muscles have been injected with Botox has more problems understanding the negative content of a text. We are not just reading with our eyes, but with our faces too.
Bodies adjust to situations. For example: people who experience social ostracism are more likely to take warm baths, and their baths last longer. Actual warmth compensates for the lack of metaphorical warmth. Similarly, people playing games donate more to charity if the game takes place in a room that smells clean than in a room that has a neutral smell. Again, the cause of the difference is not available to our conscious awareness.
Bodies feel shame. People who are force to deceive another person via voice mail are prepared to pay more for mouthwash than people who do not deceive, and those who type the deception in an email are prepared to pay more for hand sanitizer. However, once they have washed their hands and mouths, individuals in both groups are less likely to be helpful to others. The responsibility for the deception is literally washed away.
Bodies bond. People who sing, pray or row a boat together are more likely to empathize with each other and appreciate each other’s opinions, and they identify with the group as a whole even if they have no other means of communicating. Similarly, people who have spent time drumming together are more likely to help each other pick up accidentally dropped pens than people who have not drummed together. Synchronized movements create social bonds.
Bodies understand. When we read a sentence in a text which describes a movement, the section of the brain responsible for the movement of that body-part is activated. Our subsequent movements are a consequence of this fact. We take significantly longer imagining walking along a certain path when told we are carrying a heavy load. When we read a sentence about a drawer being closed, we are slower at moving our arms towards our bodies, and quicker at moving them away from our bodies. Likewise, if parents stick out their tongues, the motor cortices of infants resonate directly, and the infant understands and responds in kind. No interpretation is required. A baby only 42 minutes old can do it.
Phenomenology
Phenomenologists are interested in experiences — not subjective experiences — biography, psychology, culture — but what objectively can be said about subjective experiences
Works very nicely with cognitive theory — exciting new field of research — focused on consciousness
Finding oneself in a certain situation — moods and affordances — attunement
happens automatically
our bodies are solicited
all of this too happens outside of our cognitive awareness
My new book
Is not a cultural history — not a review of practices or performances
it is not an IR book – not trying to explain historical events
it is an application of cognitive science and phenomenology to moving bodies
I’m not a cognitive scientist or a phenomenology — but I can apply their findings to historical cases
it is about bodies and movements
a history of being-in-the-world — a history of affordances, moods and attunements
what it is that bodies do — does it make a difference? Yes, it does. These are different ways of being in the world
Five chapters …
- being
- thinking
- knowing
- imagining
- willing
Of which I gave you the chapter on the imagination