Movement for Movement’s Sake? On the Relationship Between Kinaesthesia and Aesthetics

Essays Philos (2012) 13: 471-497 1526-0569 | commons.pacificu.edu/eip Movement for Movement’s Sake? On the Relationship Between Kinaesthesia and Aesthetics Mark Paterson Published online: 1 August 2012 © Mark Paterson 2012 Abstract 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. Introduction Increased attention has been given to movement and, more significantly, the subjectivelyfelt qualitative dynamic of movement, kinesthesia, within phenomenologically-influenced studies in cognitive science and embodied cognition. Recently work on the philosophy of embodied gesture and movement in the performing arts has begun to shift the focus away from movement per se, and to consider the effects of gesture and movement in terms of performance (e.g. Shusterman 2009; 2011) and the relationship between gesture and agency (e.g. Noland 2009). Considering the aesthetics of movement most commonly entails a need for interpretation by a somewhat static audience. In this case there remain few treatments of _____________________________ Corresponding Author: Mark Paterson University of Pittsburgh email – Essays Philos (2012) 13:2 Paterson | 472 the felt qualities of movement, utilizing the so-called ‘muscle sense,’ the ‘interoceptive’ or somatic senses that include kinaesthesia, proprioception and the vestibular or balance system. Research on dance in particular, or the performing arts in general, deals only sporadically with the particularity of these somatic sensations, compounded by nonstandardized or confused terminology dealing with those modalities that pertain to movement. The first part of this paper clarifies the terminology by returning to a historically significant treatment of bodily sensations, aisthêsis, a generalized sense faculty within Aristotle. From this generalized aisthêsis are derived ‘coanesthesia’ in the eighteenth century, the more particular ‘muscle sense’ (Muskelsinn) in the nineteenth century, and ‘proprio-ception’ and ‘kinesthesia’ in the early twentieth. Throughout this unfolding story the emphasis is placed on how aisthêsis binds sensation into aesthetic evaluations. In proceeding from aisthêsis, via kinesthesis, to aesthetics in following sections, I consider how we might sequester the aesthetic value of movement, and by extension, isolate and examine the particularity of movement for movement’s sake. Aesthetic accounts usually center upon visual experience, rarely considering “other modes of experience and forms of attention” such as tactility, as Johnson (2002:61) observes. Yet the etymological and historical derivation of ‘aesthetics’ reveals a different story, able to be defined as dealing with physical, material things perceptible by the senses. ‘Aesthetics’ derives etymologically from stem aesthe, ‘feel, apprehend by the senses’ (OED, 1989), the basis for aisthêsis as the putative sensory faculty for example in Aristotle’s De Anima (c350 BCE) and De Sensu et Sensibilibus (c350 BCE), although we note some antecedents. Accordingly, the first section explores the utility of re-examining aisthêsis within these proliferating and specialized neurophysiological terms such as kinaesthesia (from Greek, kinein to move, and aesthêsis as sensation), somaesthesia (from Greek somatos, body, and aisthêsis, sensation), proprioception (Latin, proprius to own, and percipere, to perceive) and coenesthesia (the feeling of inhabiting the body). This paper combines the related strands, aisthêsis, kinesthesia and aesthetics, through the following structure. In the first section ‘From aisthêsis to kinesthesis’ I investigate how movement and, more particularly, kinesthesia as a modality and as a metaphor has become of interest at the intersection of phenomenology and cognitive science. Situating the relationship between aisthêsis that collectively constitutes the bodily or somatic senses, and kinesthesia as the sense of movement, I follow David Morris (2010) in demonstrating how this phenomenological interest has met with empirical validation through a renewed interest in the dynamics of movement within cognitive science (e.g. Maxine Sheets-Johnstone 1999, 2010; Berthoz 2000). The second section tracks how aisthêsis develops into the more medicalized language of a distinct ‘muscle sense’ from Charles Bell, and the emergence of the concepts of ‘kinaesthesia’ from Henry Charlton Bastian, and ‘proprio-ception’ from Charles Sherrington. The third section concentrates on neurophysiological discoveries of movement Essays Philos (2012) 13:2 Paterson | 473 and the sensory-motor around this period. The fourth section ‘kinesthesia to aesthetics’ threads through these historical treatments of movement into recent arguments made by Montero (2006a) and Cole and Montero (2007) about the aesthetic value of proprioception, in order to consider whether kinaesthesia is equally deserving of aesthetic value, both for the embodied subject and for outward observers. However, my argument will be achieved through different means. 1. From Aisthêsis to Kinesthesis After admitting that a work of art is produced for apprehension by the senses, and that fundamentally the purpose of such art is to “arouse feelings” in us, in his 1835 lectures on aesthetics Hegel rather dismissively pronounced: “art is related only to the two theoretical senses of sight and hearing, while smell, taste and touch remain excluded from the enjoyment of art” (1998:36). Conversely, Herder had discoursed on the virtues of touch in relation to vision in his 1776 appreciation of sculpture Das Plastik. Touch amongst the senses, as also sculpture amongst the fine arts, traditionally enjoyed a lowly posi (...truncated)