Body Consciousness and Performance: Somaesthetics East and West

Abstract

Embodiment is a universal feature of human life, and so is body consciousness. Body consciousness, as I understand it, is not merely the consciousness that a mind may have of the body as an object, but includes the embodied consciousness that a living, sentient body directs at the world and also experiences in itself (and through which it indeed can experience itself as both subject and object). Since the term ‘body’ is too often contrasted with mind and used to designate insentient, lifeless things, and since the term ‘flesh’ has such negative associations in Christian culture (and moreover focuses merely on the fleshly part of the body), I have chosen the term ‘soma’ to designate the living, sensing, dynamic, perceptive body that lies at the heart of the project of somaesthetics.1 Part of that project concerns the reasons and methods for raising one's somatic consciousness to promote better self‐use and consequently greater achievement of philosophy's traditional goals of knowledge, self‐knowledge, virtue, happiness, and justice. Consciousness has different levels. At its most basic form of primitive body intentionality, we can even describe a level of what could be paradoxically called unconscious consciousness. This is the sort of limited, obscure awareness we exhibit in our sleep, when, for example, we intentionally (though unconsciously) move a pillow that is disturbing our breathing.2 Beyond this level is the stage when we are awake and clearly conscious of the object we perceive, say the cup of coffee we are holding and drinking from, but are not explicitly aware of it as a distinct object of consciousness, as when we are drinking the coffee absentmindedly or simply noticing the coffee's taste and not the cup. Yet, even without explicit awareness, we can handle the cup with efficiency and ease. This level of unreflective, unthematized perception is what Maurice Merleau‐Ponty hails as “primary consciousness” and the fundamental, unappreciated key to the mystery of our successful perception and action.3 We reach a higher level of consciousness when we have explicit awareness of the cup, when we attend to it as a distinct object of consciousness; and we can distinguish a fourth, more reflective level, when we are not only explicitly conscious of the object but also conscious of how (and that) we are conscious of it. Here we consciously monitor our awareness of the object as an explicit datum of consciousness, noticing, for example, how our attention to the cup makes it look bigger or feel heavier. These different levels of consciousness that we noted with respect to objects like pillows or cups can also be found in the sense we have of our embodied selves. When asleep, the soma feels its positionality and breathing well enough to move the pillow or to reposition itself when it feels it is getting too close to the edge of the bed. We often pay no attention to our feet nor have an explicit awareness of them when we are walking. But sometimes we do make our feet an explicit object of consciousness—when we are crossing difficult terrain, when we have problems of balance, or when our feet are hurting. Similarly, we sometimes move from inexplicit consciousness of breathing to situations where our breathing becomes an explicit object of our somatic consciousness, as when we notice that we are short of breath or have difficulty breathing. Finally, there are cases of more reflective somatic consciousness, such as when we are not only explicitly aware that we are breathing but also clearly conscious of our conscious awareness of breathing and of how that reflexive consciousness affects our breathing and other dimensions of somatic experience. These explicit and reflective levels of consciousness, which can blend or overlap into each other, I describe respectively as somaesthetic perception and somaesthetic reflection.4 To what extent are somaesthetic perception and reflection really useful in improving our self‐use and performance? If every action requires bodily means and control, should not heightened somatic awareness be helpful in some way for improving action, and should not somaesthetic reflection or introspection in turn be useful for improving somatic awareness? Many great philosophers, however (including some who greatly appreciate the body's role in cognition and action), have influentially argued against the value of heightened or reflexive body awareness, though some insist on this value. It is customary to contrast Western and Eastern perspectives on body consciousness, but on this question both Western and Eastern thought seem to share the same ambivalence between opposition and affirmation of somaesthetic perception and reflection as effective means for successful action. In addressing the different arguments on this issue, I will eventually pay special attention to the performance of action in dance and theatrical acting, building on the insights of the master of Japanese Nō drama, Zeami Motokiyo (1363–1443). Since its ancient inscription on Apollo's Temple at Delphi and its Socratic advocacy, the quest for self‐knowledge has been long and widely affirmed as a central quest in Western philosophy. Yet reflectively examining one's somatic self has found little favor among its most influential philosophers. Despite affirming the value of bodily training in other dialogues, Plato, in Phaedo, most influentially argued that the philosopher should not concern himself “with the body” but rather turn attention away from it “as much as possible,”“because the body confuses the soul,” distorts perception, and distracts from the pursuit of truth (64e–67a).5 Though Immanuel Kant famously took meticulous care in bodily matters such as diet and exercise, he sternly warned against paying attention to one's somatic state and feelings. When claiming that “the First Command of All Duties to Oneself” is to “know (scrutinize, fathom) yourself,” he insists that this is “not in terms of your physical perfection (your fitness or unfitness for all sorts of … ends) but rather in terms of your moral perfection in relation to your duty.”6 Kant instead repudiates the project of reflecting on bodily feelings, claiming that it leads to the madness of hypochondria and morbid despondence. Somatic introspection “takes the mind's activity away from considering other things and is harmful to the head.”“The inner sensibility that one generates through [such] reflections is harmful … . This inner view and self‐feeling weakens the body and diverts it from animal functions.” Hence: “Turning reflection away from the body leads to health.” In short, introspective somatic self‐study is harmful to both mind and body, and the best way to treat one's body is to ignore, as much as possible, the self‐knowledge of how it feels, while using it actively in work and exercise.7 William James, one of the most body friendly of modern philosophers and one of the great masters of somatic introspection in psychology, similarly warned against its use in practical and moral life for fear of its encouraging an unhealthy self‐absorption that promotes depressive hypochondria, which he knew from personal experience. And one might compound the warning by arguing that such self‐absorption also promotes immoral selfishness.8 But James proposes a further line of critique against somatic self‐awareness, one involving the of this that “the of on one's bodily action and its somatic with that action. your and away all further is for successful of and in our of the we are with much consciousness of the and the he in of a the better the we of the of our feet it. 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