Forschergruppe CSG-II W O R K S H P Freitag, 18
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Wissen Forschergruppe CSG-II W O R K S H P Freitag, 18. März 2011 9:30 Rebekka Ladewig Glauben – Können – Wissen: Passagen des Impliziten bei Michael Polanyi 10:30 Kathrin Thiele Henri Bergson: Intuition und Spekulation 11:30 – Kaffeepause – 12:00 Melanie Sehgal Wissen als Glauben bei William James 13:00 – Mittagspause – 14:00 Martin Thiering Mentale Modelle: Schnittmenge ORT zwischen implizitem und explizitem Wissen? Topoi Haus Mitte Seminarraum 15:00 Iris Därmann Hannoversche Str. 6 Wirksame Handlungen: 10115 Berlin Die Techniken des Körpers KONTAKT 16:00 – Kaffeepause – Rebekka Ladewig 16:30 Colin G. King Exzellenzcluster TOPOI Der aristotelische Hexis-Begriff Hannoversche Str. 6 10115 Berlin 17:30 Anna Echterhölter [email protected] Feldhaftung: Bourdieus Habitus- Konzept und die Ordnung der www.topoi.org Körper The Body-Mind Relation [Michael Polanyi's "The Body-Mind Relation" was a paper delivered at a 1966 conference sponsored by the Western Behavioral Sciences Institute, the Salk Institute for Biological Sciences and the University of California, San Diego .. The conference and the book that grew out of it, Man and the Sciences of Man, edited by William R. Coulson and Carl R. Rogers (Columbus, Ohio: Charles E. Merrill Publishing Company, 1968) in which "The Body- Mind Relation was published, were part of the Western Behavioral Science Institute's project investigating the philosophy of the behavioral sciences. "The Body-Mind Relation" is posted on the Polanyi Society web site with the permission of William R.Coulson and John C. Polanyi.] When I point my finger at the wall and call out: "Look at this!" all eyes turn to the wall, away from my finger. You are clearly attending to my pointing finger, but only in order to look at something else; namely, at the point to which my finger is directing your attention. We have here two different ways of being aware of things. One way is to look at a thing. This is the way you look at the wall. But how is one to describe the way you see my finger pointing at the wall? You are not looking at my finger, but away from it. I should say that you do not see it as a mere object to be examined as such, but as an object having a function: the function of directing your attention away from itself and at something else. But this is not to say that my pointing finger was trying to make you disregard itself. Far from it. It. wanted to be seen, but to be seen only in order to be followed and not in order to be examined. I shall call my pointing finger a subsidiary thing or an in- strumental thing that functions by pointing at an object which is at the focus of our attention. And I suggest that we have 85 86 87 here two different kinds of awareness. We are subsidiarily, in a new sensory quality. Sights in depth have come about by aware of the pointing finger and focally aware of the object at integrating sights that were comparatively flat. which it points. We establish an integrated relationship between This change of appearance is, in fact, a regular accom- them by recognizing the direction in which the finger directs us paniment of tacit integration. A pointing finger also looks a and by following this direction. little different from the finger fixed in the same position by This relationship is not symmetrical. The finger points at arthritis. This kind of difference is more noticeable in the the wall, but the wall does not point at the finger. The rela- closely analogous case of a word denoting an object. The word, tionship that we have established has an intrinsic direction: it when functioning in this way, appears transparent by contrast to is directive. Thus, the finger has a meaning that the wall its opaque appearance when we listen to it as a sequence of lacks. It can raise a problem: If you come across a pointing sounds. I shall come back to this case later. finger by itself, in a wood, it makes you wonder what it may be Professor Hadley Cantril of Princeton has shown that pointing at. This shows that it is for us to establish the coher- when we introduce two fairly disparate pictures into the ence of the pointing finger with that to which it points. It is stereoscope, we see fanciful integrations of them. Such images for us to comprehend the coherent system connecting a sub- are illusory. But we may limit ourselves to the case that the sidiary element with the focal point on which the subsidiary two pictures viewed are proper photographs, and that, hence, element bears. And note that we perform this comprehending their stereoscoping image is a reasonably correct evaluation without a word. No syllogism is set up; no evidence is cited. of their joint meaning. We can then regard stereoscopic viewing The performance is tacit, and since its result is valid, we may as a feat of tacit inference; that is, as a tacit counterpart to a call it an act of tacit inference. process of explicit inference. Another case of this kind will reinforce this analysis and But let me stop to warn here against a misconception. It is a develop it further. Think of a pair of stereoscopic photographs, mistake (and I often find it done) to identify subsidiary viewed in the proper way, one eye looking at one, the other eye at awareness with subconscious or pre-conscious awareness, or the other. The objects shown in the two pictures appear in with the fringe of consciousness described by William James. their joint image as distributed in depth, and tangible. This is The relation of subsidiaries to that on which they bear is a what we see at the focus of our eyes; but it involves also the logical relation similar to that which a premise has to the in- sight of the two component pictures: cover these up and we see ference drawn from it, with the great difference that the nothing at all. But we do not see these two pictures in them- inferences arrived at here are tacit. Subsidiary awareness can selves. In a way, we look through them, or from them, at their be fully conscious, as that of a pointing finger or a pair of joint image. So I shall class our awareness of them as subsidiary pictures viewed in the stereoscope, though in other cases our and observe that the way we look at them integrates their sights consciousness of subsidiaries may be on a very low level and into the spacially deepened image to which they contribute. may be altogether subliminal. Such is the case, for example, Thanks to our integration, the two flat pictures effectively when sensory clues inside our eyes and inner ear are inte- function as clues to a spacial image. grated to a percept. Such variations in their level of conscious- We may say that this image is their joint meaning, and ness in no way affects the functions of subsidiary elements in that this joint meaning lies in the focus of our attention. So contributing to an act of tacit knowing. far, the structure of this tacit integration is analogous to that Jean Piaget has strikingly constrasted the act of acquiring of a finger pointing at an object. But something important is knowledge by a sensory act like perception as compared with a added here. The joint meaning of the subsidiaries is expressed process of explicit inference. He points out that explicit in- 88 89 ference is reversible in the sense that we can go back to its example of this disintegration of meaning, caused by the shifting premises and go forward again to its conclusions as often as of our focal attention to that which has this meaning. A we like, while this is not true for the sensory act. And since spoken word loses its meaning if we repeat it a number of perception is always combined with action, and action with times while carefully attending to the movement of our lips sensation, Piaget contrasts all sensory-motor acts with explicit and tongue and to the sound we are making. These actions are inferences and calls them irreversible. meaningful, so long as we attend to that on which they jointly Actually, all acts of tacit integration are irreversible, and bear; they lose their meaning when we shift our attention to this can be understood f rom the structure of tacit knowing. We the actions, themselves. find, indeed, that tacit knowing can have two kinds of irrever- Admittedly, the disintegration of tacit knowledge by shifting sibility. One consists in the fact that we may not be able to our attention to its clues is not irreparable. The two stereo identify all the clues which we have integrated in establishing pictures can be viewed jointly once more; the word that has their joint meaning. The other kind of irreversibility goes lost its meaning will regain it if we once more use it—once beyond this. It is due to the fact that when we shift the focus of more subsidiarily be casting our mind forward to something our attention from the meaningful result of tacit integration, we can say by it. and focus on the subsidiaries, their integration is wiped out. But it is important to note that this recovery never brings The subsidiary particulars cease to have a bearing on their back the original meaning. It may improve on it. Motion prospective target and are reduced to an aggregate of studies, which tend to paralyze a skill, will improve it when meaningless objects.