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68 Shaun Gallagher

Gibson, J. I. 1919. The Ecological Approach to Visttal Perceptiott. Boston: Houghton-Mifflin.

Kinsbourne, M. 1995. Awareness of one's own body: Al'r attentional theory of its natule,developrnent, and brain basis. In J. Bermtdez, N. Eilan, and A. Marcel (eds). TheBody and the Self (pp. 206-223). Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.

Lackner, J. R. 1988. Sorne ploplioceptive influences on the perceptual replesentation ofbody shape and orientation. Bran, 3: 281-291.

Merlear.r-Ponty, M. 1962. Phenomenology of Perception, trans. C. Srnith. London:Routledge and Kegan Paul.

Neisser, U. 1988. Five kinds of self-knowledge. Philosophical Psychology, l: 35-59,O'Shaughnessy, B. 1995. Proprioception ancl the body image. In J. Belmrdez, A. J. Malcel,

and N. Eilan (eds). Ze Body artd the Self (pp.115-203). Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.O'Slraughnessy, B. 1989. Tl.re sense of touch. Australasian Jotu'nal of Philosoph,,67:

3 7-5 8.O'Shaughnessy, B. 1980. Tlte Will: A Dual Aspecl Theory,. Camblidge: Cambridge

Univelsity Press.Sartre, J-P. 1956. Beittg and Nothingness: Att Essay on Pltenontenologicol Onlologlt,

trans. H. E. Barnes. New York; Philosophical Library.Sheets-Johnston, M. 1998. Consciousness: A Natulal Histoly, Journtl of Consciousness'

Studies, 5 (3):260-94Sherrington, C. 1953. Man on His Natw"e,2nd ed. New York: Doubleday.Slroernaker, S. 1994. Self-knowledge and 'innel sense'. Pltilosophy ancl Phettontenological

Research, 54:249-314.Shoenraker, S. 1986. Intlospection and the self. In P. A. French, T. E. Vehling and H. K.

Wettsteir.r (eds). Studies in the Philosophy oJ Mitd (pp. 101 120). Minneapolis.Midwest Studies in Philosophy, Vol. 10.

Shoetnaker, S. 1984. Identity, Cause, and Mind. Carnbridge: Cambridge University Pless.Shoetnaker, S. 1968. Self-refelence and self-awareness. Jotuttctl of Philosophy, 65 555 61.Strawson, P. F. 1994. The fir'st persorl and othels. In Cassarn, Q. (ed.). Self-Knowledge

(pp. 210 215). Oxford: Oxfold University Press.Tlevalthen, C. B. 1986. Neuroernbryology and the development of perceptual r.nechanisrs.

In F. Falkner and J. M. Tanner (eds). Hnnan Growth: A Comprehensive Treati.se,2"'r ed. (pp. 301-383). New York: Plenum Pl'ess.

Wittgerrstein, Ludwig (1958). The blue tutd brown books. Oxford: Basil Blackwell.

THEORIA ET HISTORIA SCIENTIARUM, VOL. VII, N" 1Ed. Nicolas Copernicus University 2003

Maxine Sheets-Johnstone

Kinesthetic Memory

This paper attempts to elucidate the nature of kinesthetic rnemory, demonstrate itscentrality to everyday human movement, and thereby promote fresh cognitive andphenomenological understandings of movernent in everyday life. Prominent topicsin this underlaking include kinesthesia, dynamics, and habit. The endeavor hasboth a critical and constructive dirnension. The constrlrctive dimension is anchoredin Luria's seminal notion of a kinetic r-nelody and in related phenomenologicalanalyses of movement. The dual anchorage stems from the general fact thatkinesthetic l-lelnory is based on kinesthetic experience, hence on the bodily feltdynamics of movernent, and on the particular fact that any movement createsa distinctive kinetic dynamics in virtue of its spatio-temporal-energic qualities.The critical dimension focuses on costmcts that comrnonly anchor discr,rssions oflnovement but bypass the reality of a kinetic clynamics, notably, Merleau-Ponty's"n'otor intentionality," and the notions of a body schema and body image. Thepointillist conception of movelnent and the Western rnetaphysics that undergirdthese constructs is exanined rn the concluding section of the paper.

Luria's Kinetic- and Kinesthetically-Informed Neuropsychology

Russian neuropsychologist Aleksandr Romanovich Luria is regarded "a fonndingfather of neuropsychology" (Goldberg 1990), lauded for his insights andnreticulous clinical research (e.g., Teuber 1966,1980; Pribram 1966, 1980). Hedescribes lnovement pathologies as disturbed kinetic rnelodies; everyday lrlove-rnent no longer flows forth in effortless ways, or indeed, is no longer evena possibility for patients with brain lesions. In The Working Broin, Luria describeshow kinetic rnelodies are constituted, using writing as an example. "In the initialstages," he observes,

10 Maxine S hee ls -Jo ltn s to ne

writing depends on melnorizir.rg the graphic fomr of every letter. It takes place thlor-rgha chain of isolated rnotol irnpulses, each of which is responsible fol the perforr.nanceof only one element of the graphic structure; with plactice, this structule of theprocess is radically altered and writing is converted into a single 'kinetic melody,'no longer requiring the mernorizing of the visual forrn of each isolated letter orindividual rnotol ir.npulses for making every stroke (Luria 1973, p.32).He later specifies how voluntary rnovelnent is a "cornplex functional systern,"

fulfilled in "the perfect perforrnance of a movelnent" on the basis of fourfundarnental conditions: (l) "kinaesthetic afferentalion, (2) a system of "spatialcoordinates" centered on "the visual and vestibular systerns and the system ofclrtaneolrs kinaesthetic sensatior-," (3) a "chain oJ'consecutive movenlenls, eachelemeut of which rnustbe denervated after its completion so as to allow the nextelement to take its place," and (4) a "motor task" which at rnore complex levelsof conscious action "are dictated by intentions" (ibid., pp. 35-37). At theneurological level, voluntary movelnent is thns the orchestlated resr.rlt of"conrpletely different brain systerns" (ibid., p. 37) that work together in sucha way ttrat a kinetic rnelody unfolds.

Of singular signifrcance is Luria's recognition that voluntaly rnovenrent isnot just a spatial phenomenon but a teruporal phenomenon. Luria in factdistinguishes between the ternporal and spatial distribution of rnotor irnpulses nterms of the prernotol and postcentral cortical zolles, respectively, notiugspecifically that the premotor zones of the brain "are responsible for the"cotlversioti of individual motor impulses into consectitte lcinelic meloclies" (1btd.,p. 119). Earlier, he pointedly ernphasizes that "Movement is always a processwith a temporal coLrse" that "requires a continuous chctin of interchangingmpulse.s" (ibid., p. 176). In this context, he reiterates in rnore genelal terms hisdescriptive acconnt of the origin of kinetic melodies: "In the initial stages offonnation of any rnovernent this chain must consist of a series of isolated irnpulses,with the developrnent of rnotor skills the indiviclual impulses are synthesizedand cornbined into integral lcinaesthetic strLtctures or kinetic tnelodies whcna single impulse is sufficient to activate a cotnplele dynamic stereotype olautonratically interchanging elements" (ibid., p. 116). He later specifies that theconstruction and pcrformance ol any complex trrovercllt clcpcnd on:

1. an intact frontal lobe, or what he clesignates an intcntionrl "blain zorle";2. kinesthesia, ol what he designates an "integrity o.f its [the movemeut'sJ

ki naes theti c r{Jerentatiort" ;3. a temporal organization, or what he designates a "constant regulation of

nntscle tone... ar-rd a sufficiently rapicl aud surooth chcngeover frotn ouesystern of lnotor innelvations to another, with the fonnation of cornpletelcinctesthetic nteloclies in the final stages of developtnent of skilled r-novement"(ibid., pp. 251 53).

Kinesthefic Mentory 11

With respect to the latter require1ent, Luria ernphasizes the uecessity of thesecond requirernent kinestlietic afference - citing physiologist NicholasBernstein's detailed studies of movement and its fundamental "degrees offreedorr" (Bernstein 1984, 1996)). As he points out, the degrees of freedorn inhurnan rnovement and the constantly changing tone of the tnttscles "explain whyit is that, in the perfollnance of a voluntary lnovelnent or action, although thetr-otol task preserves its r:egnlatory role, the highest responsibility is transferredfrom e/ferent to af.ferertt irnpulses" (Lr.rria 1973,p.249). Kinesthesia is thus ofrnaxiural significance; successful voluntary tlovetneltt and the fonnation of"a complete dynamic stereotype" depend on it.

Though not explicitly specified in this way, kinetic r-nelodies are inscribedin tlre body. They are "ttegral lcinaesthetic structttres" (Luria 1973,p.176) andare thus essentially, i.e., in a living, expeliential sense, not brain events butcorporeally resonant ones, in-the-flesh dynamic patterns of tnovelnent that areitttiated and rr.rn off. The rnost basic of kinetic melodies, ones that rnight becalled fundamental rnclodies of life - if not fundamental rnclodiesr life - at'eforged in the course of infancy and childhood, sotne of theln beginning in pre-latal life (Luria 1980, p. 192). In each instance, they are kept alive by kinesthetictnelnory; their inscription in the body is by way of kinesthetic uretlot'y, which isto say by way of distinctive moverent dynatnics. Thus, in nortnal everydayadult life, a kinetic dynarnics unfolds that is at ofce familiar and yetquintessentially tailored kinetically to thc particular situation at hand: a farniliarbut distinctive kinetic dynamics unfolds in articulatoty gestutes as we speak, inlepetitive downward swoops of our ann as we hatnmer, iu subtle, valying shiftsof direction and bendings of our body as we lnove quickly forward alonga crowded sidewalk. The farniliarity of these dynatrics is grounded in iuvariants,invariants of speech, of hammering, of weaving a path arouud obstacles. Theirtaiioring is grounded in the particular situational vagaries for-rncl in the presentexperience: feeling ill at case speaking to this particular persoll, harnmcring withthis new harnnter, weaving our way on this icy sidewalk.

Kinetic melodies that are inscribed in our bodies are dynamic pattems ofrnovement. They constitute that basic, vast, and potentially ever-expandable reper toireof "I cans" (Husserl 1910, 1913, 1980, 1989) pemeating hutnan life: walking,speaking, t'eaching, hugging, throwing, canying, opening, closing, brushitlg, tunning,wiping, leaping, pulling, pushing. The basic kinetic repeftoire is virtLrally lirnitless,being constrainecl only by age, inclination - and pathology. Its sequential complexityand intricacy are similarly virtually lirnitless, not only with respect to everyday"I cans" such as writing and tying knots, for example, but with respect to dancing,diving, skiing, perfonning surgical procedures, adtninistering medical cout'ses ofaction, learning artistic rnodes of applying paint and of sculpting a piece of wood,and so on. In each instance, knowledgeabilify is not simply a know-|rcw, a lessel

l2 Maxine S he els-Jo hns tone

form of knowledge that is "merely physical." Kinetic melodies are satulated incognitive and affective acuities that both anchor invariants and color and individualizethe manner in which any particular melody runs off.

Luria's concept of kinetic melodies is an experientially-based concept rootedin the kinetic dynamics of life as norrnally lived. "Kinetic rnelody" thus describesan experienced kinetic event: writing one's name fluently, reciting the rnonths ofthe year, solving an arithrnetical problem (Luria, e.g., 1966, p. 226; see alsobelow). What is ruptured by tumors, hemorrhages, or brain lesions mpturesa normally dynamic life, a life of meaningful movement and of ease in nrovement.When Luria at one point characterizes a wounded patient as suffering an"adynamia of psychological processes" (ibid. pp. 224-26), he quotes the patient'sown reflections on his wound, reflections that show clearly that the patient'spsychological adynamia is played out kinetically. The patient withdrew for weeksinto idleness - "[i] just lay idly in bed" - and social indifference, not writing orspeaking but "behavfing] as if I were alone, or by rnyself, and with nothing tocare about" (Luria 1966, p. 225). "My comrades," he rernarks, "even took mefor a deaf-mute" (ibid., p. 22l.In the rnost fundamental sense, his adynarnia iscorporeally represented (for more on corporeal representation, see Sheets-Johnstone 1990). It is indeed significant that his adynamia begins to lift onlywith a resumption of rnovement: "Only after six weeks, when I began to doexercises, did I write my first letter" (ibid., p. 225). h is as if he needed toreawaken hinself kinetically - to liis tactile-kinesthetic body and to kinestheticallyfelt dynamics - before he could rekindle the "kinetic melody" of writing.

Smooth kinetic melodies nevertheless proved beyond this patient. Inparticular, he was not able to carry out serially coordnated movernent. In Luria'swords, "The formation of a skilled movement in the forrn of a srnooth 'kineticmelody' met with insuperable difficulties" (ibid., p. 231). What is rnore,arithrnetical calculations, which were fonnerly within his plovince, were no longerso. Luria notes that "Despite the differences between these Iarithn-retical]disturbances and the disturbances of skilled movements described above, theyhave one common feature: In both cases we are dealing with a disturbance of thesmooth, automatized perfonnance of complex operations." (ibid., p. 256). In shor t,what was beyond this patient was coruplex sequential activity, including not onlyarithrnetical calculations but coherent narrative speech. The effects of the lesionwere thus splead out over a variety of activities and took several forms -"complex, smooth skilled movements," "intellectual operatios," coherentnanative speech (ibid., p. 290) - but all were rooted n a cornmon thematic:complex sequenttal activity. It bears emphasizing that Luria's concern withcomplex sequential activity, hence with lhe temporality of movernent, pervadeshis detailed neurological studies, and that, in consequence, anirnate movement isrecognized not merely as a spatial phenornenou - lrovelrent with respect toa particular situation -- but as a spatio-tentporal one.

Kinestltetic Memory /t

Luria's descriptive accounts of disturbances in kinetic melodies and of theirlinkage to pathologies in brctin zones (Luria 1973) constitute the basis forfundamental ner.rrological understandings of human movernent, that is, under-standings of how pathologies impede or obliterate dynamic pattems of movementthat are the bedrock of everyday hnman life activities. Given the acuity of hisobseruations, his extraordinarily complehensive clinical and experimental studies,and his central conceln with movement, it is curious that his work is not mentioneclin present-day studies of movement, if not by cognitivists, then by dynarnic systernstheorists. Although the latter's perspective is broader - ecological kinetics oforganism-environment relations - and their airn natrower or reductive -mathematical fonnulations of movement or "law-based" principles (Kugler andTurvey 1987 , e.9., p. 6) - and although kinesthesia is totally eclipsed by"infonnation" and an experiencing subject virlually discounted (cf. Wilberg 1983),thele is nonetheless a basic kinship. Kelso's "dynamic patterns," for example, inspite of being analyzed in radically different ter-rns (Kelso 1995), are descriptivelyriveted on lnovelnent in the sarne way Luria's kinetic melodies are; both centralzeattention not on objects in motion but on movement itself, and, in particular, oncoordinated movetnent. Moreover Luria would agree with Kugler and Tur.rey tliatrnovernent is not "a complex thing ptrt together t-om sirnpler things" like a reflex(Kugler and Turvey 1987,p.405); it is heterarchically, not hielarchically, organized.Luria's dynarnic understanding of neurology and neuropsychology are in facta model exernplification of how investigations of lnovement can be anchored inwhat rnany dynarnic systems theorists tenn "real-tirne" pirenornena (van Gelderand Pofi 1995, Thelen and Srnith 1994) rather than exclusively in studies of thebrain, in the kinetic arlificialities of rnovernent laboratolies, or in cornputer rnocleling.

A more critical comrnonality is notable as well, however. Neither Luria nordynamic system theolists recognize the fact that movement creates its owndistinctive ternporal-spatial-energic qualities, and that this fonnative processresults in the creation of a distinctive dynamics - precisely as "kinetic rnelody"and "dynamic patteln" so aptly suggest but do not specify. The dynarnics ale notonly behaviorally observable; they are internal to the self-moving body crcatingthern and theleby potentially the basis of kinesthetic rnemory. In effect, throughself-movement, there is always potentially a folrn to remember, a forrn not ofsensations as such, but of a lnovement dynarnic.

Kinesthetic Memory

Anirnation is of the nature of life. Being animate beings, we lnove, and in movingarticulate a kinetic dynarnics. We do so as adults in virtue of kinesthetic memory,and, to begin with, in virtue of our having learned our bodies and learned to

---

74 M ax i ne S h eets -Jo hns ton e

lnove ourselves (Sheets-Johnstone 1999). Because dynamic patterns of movernenthave distinctive spatial, temporal, and energic qualities,r they each havea distinctive spatio-ternporal-energic form that is potentially invariant, dependingupon whether we practice the pattcrn, and through lepetition, learn it. Kineticdynamics are thus of the essence of kinesthetic mernory in precisely the waytl-rey are of the esserce of kinetic rnelodies. Melody and rlemory ale indeecldynarnic images of one another - as Lul'ia indicates when he identifies kineticrnelodies as "integral kinoesthetic structures." Il1 effect, being dynarnicallypatterned, kinesthetic memories are not vague, abstract kinetic phantoms blrt areinscribed in the body as specific bodily dynamics, dynamics that, as enacted, areat once farniliar and tailored distinctively to the particr-rlar situation at hand.Farniliarity and drstinctive tailoring were briefly exelnplified earlier in exarnplesof speaking, harnrnering, and weaving one's way along a crowded sidewalk.A rnore detailed exarnple will bring fuler dirnensions of both aspects to light.

Writing one's narre is commonly thor-rght of as an act rather than asa coordinated series of movernents. Yet a coorclinated series of rnoverrents defneslrole acclrrately "the act" of writing one's name. More specifically still, to writeone's name is to move through a dynamic series of coordinated lloveurents thatis kinesthetically felt botlt as clynarnic ancl as dynarnically falniilar'. What rnakesthe series farniliar are invaliant dynamic fatr"rres colnrnou to all instances olwriting one's name: gleater and lesser rnolnents of force occtu at certain lnorlentsin the flow, rnor-nents where onc accentuates a letter or par t of a letter, for examplc;changes in direction take place smoothly or abruptly at certain places, and inajagged or roundcd lnal.ner; pallses occur at celtain rnornents in the writing,perhaps with a felt sense of suspension as when one dots an i or crosses a /; tl.ebeginning of the signature and its end are clearly marl

-76 M axine S heets -Jo hns ton e

Scientific Bases of Huntan Movement. In a chapter titled "The Proprioceptorsand Their Associated Reflexes," Gowitzke and Milner (1988, p. 193) write that"The voluntary contribution to movement is almost entirely lirnited to initiation,regulation of speed, force, range, and direction, and tennination of the rnovenent."Kinesthetic "limitations" are in fact sizable freedotns, precisely as Bernsteinoriginally dernonstrated by way of degrees of freedom in his stuclies of humanrnovellent and as any attempt by any nonnal person to duplicate a movetnentsequence with pinpoint exactitude readily indicates. Initiation, tertnination. speed,force, range, and direction of rnovetnent may indeed be "regulated," thc last four"limitations" in particular specifying in an abbreviated and incomplete way spatio-temporal-energic qualities of rnovement, qualities that we can voluntarily changern rnyriad ways and in so doing, change the dynamics of any tltovement weperform. 'We can, for exarnple, change resolute tlovetnents into hesitant ones byrnaking certain changes in the force, range, and speed of our tnovetnent. Wernight thereby radically alter the way in wliich we customarily write orr'alne,bnsh our teeth, or walk - and thereby nullify a farnilial dynamic.

Turning attention to our o\.vn rnovernent in continuation of an initial volitionalimpulse, we attend to a kinetic rnelody in progress: as noted, any tittte wc care topay closer attention to our tactile-kinesthetic body, thele it is. TLunir-rg attentiouelsewhere but continuing on with the melody, we marginalize tactile-kincstheticsensitivities but ale not totally uuaware of ourselves in the process of rnoving.Thus, to say that we are aware of ourselves moving only when sotnetlting goeswt'oltg is misguided. Noticing that sornething is wrong necessarily assumes thefarniliar dynamic feel of that sarne or similar something going riglit. Iudeed, wecan be aware that something goes wrong only if we ah'eady know what courtnonlygoes right. To insist othelwise is illogical.

Now to acknowledge that we can be aware that something is arniss only ifwe already know a falniliar kinetic dynarnics is to acknowledge that we cau beaware of sornething going wrong only on the grounds of kinesthetic tnernoty.Kinesthetic nxemoty is the foutdation o.f-familiar kinetic dynantics.It is thus notwitlrout reason that Luria at oue point speaks of "lcinaesthetic nelodies" (Luria1973,p.253; italics added). Kinesthetic rnernory is structured along the lines of"kinaesthetic nelodies," and fanriliar "kinaesthetic rnelodies" are inscribed inkinesthetic mernory.

The Term t'Motort'

Motor skills are not properly "rlotor" phetromena, and indeed, the term "motor"is wayward. The skills are kinetic, and they are leamed through sensory-kineticexperience. Moreover complex concepts are generated in the course of sensoty-

Kinesthetic Mentorv 71

kinetic learnings, concepts having to do with the dynamics created by self-movement, i.e., with spatio-ternporal-energic qualities of movernent.2 "Motor"skills do not generate such concepts because no sentient moving persor) is plesentwho is rnoving skillfully or learning to rnove skillftrlly: the erstwhile sentientmoving persoll has been reduced to an operative motor.

The above broad criticisrns of a "nlotor" vocabulary to describe organicmovenent need tempeling in recogntion of lesearchers not misled by the tenl,lesearchers who, being irnplicitly or explicitly aware of how a purely rnotorvocabulary effces living subjects, justly take a sentient rnoving person intoacconut.3 Luria, for exarnple, does not comprornise the reality of sentient urovingpersons in his neurological investigations of "rrotor" tasks ancl "1rotorprogralnl-nes" (Luria 1913). His non-rnechanization of self-rnover.nent stems fi'ornhis dual conception of science, a conception lleuropsychologist Oliver Sackseloquently eulogizes in his foreworcl to Luria's The Man with a Shartet'ed Worldand a conception Luria himsclf eloquently puts forth in The Making of Mind. Inessence, Lulia distinguishes between classical and lornantic science, the folnerbeing gearecl to a reductionist perspective, cornputer simulations, "luathernaticalscherras," and the like (Luria 1979, p. 176); the latter being geared to observationancl description - "phenornenological description" (ibid., p. 111) that is neither"super-ficial" nor "incon-plete" (ibid.), but that traces olrt relationships amongthings ancl events in sr.rch a way that rnultiple perspectives re gained aud "wecorne to the essencc of the object, to an nnderstanding of its qualities and therules of its existence" (ibid., p. l7B). Given Luria's equal esteern fol both sciences,it is not surprising that kinetic/kinesthetic melodies figure centrally in hisneurological investigations: they are vital to a veridical account of neurologicalnormalities and pathologics. His cornbined classical and rolnantic neulosciencecontrasts rnalkedly with the austere landscape of today's cognitive neurosciencewhere kinetic/kinesthetic melodies fignre as alien, flin-rsy bodies lacking stnrdycredenti als.

Unlike analyses of "lnotor behavior", analyses of kinetic/kinesthetic melodiesopen the way to cornrnonly overlookecl aspects of lnovernent, in pa, jr.tst those"limited" aspects of movement designated "voluntary." In opening towarcl thesefor.urdational aspects of selnovement, analyses of kinetic melodies readily deftrsetypically rnechanical concepts underpinning rnotor analyses itr the salne waythat they defitse typically lnechanical understandings of automatization. This is

2 What the tcxtbook nales as voluntary aspects of roverent - "speed, folce, range, anddirection" - atc created qualities of self-movemellt; rncasurernents of these aspccts col-rstitute thild-person assessrnellts.I As Merlcau-Portty miglrt say, they do not simply'lnanipulate things and give up iving inthern" (Merlcan-Ponty 1964, p. I59).

F-

78 Maxi ne S heets -Jo hns ton e

becanse kinetic/kinesthetic rnelodies are descriptive of the dynamic phenornenathernselves, not a rnechanical reduction of them. More concretely, they pinpointthe nature of self-movernent in a living sense; they langtrage lcinetic experience.aTlre term motor is no match for this experientially-descriptive language. Thetem, after all, names a mechanical device, a man-rnade rnachine, and is nota telrl whose genesis lies in observations of living organisms. Darwin, whoseround-the-world observations of life would authorize use of the terrn wele itaccurate, does not use it. ln fact, the tenn has no evolutionary foundations. It isnot difficult to appreciate why: "motor" does not describe the dynarnics of livingbodies but specifies something inside, sornething hidden frorn view, a "drivingforce" that gets the larger object in whicir it inheres rnoving in some way, itsrnovenent providing energies for the object to rnove or to do work. We can thusappreciate why neither dynamics nor volition are of topical, uot to say strategic."notor" concem: a real-life kinetics ancl kinesthesa are nowhere to be found.Kelso docurnents this lack from a clynarnic systems perspective when, in wlitingof "traditional approaclies" to nlotor learning, he conchrdes that "The olganisrn,to put it bluntly, is treated like a rnachine whose task is to associate inputs andoutputs" (Kelso 1995, p. 160).5

In surn, to continue to refer to sentient moving bodes in terms of notorbehavior, rnotor lrernory, and so on, without balancing the ledger to includedyrarnic and voluntary aspects of lnovernent, is to continne to think of animatefonns as lnechanical things that are capable neither of generating kinctic melodiesnor of voluntarily initiating rnovenrent or of voluntarily shaping it by changingits dynarnics. The point is of critical importance not only in light of the rnannerin wliich moveurent is commonly studied in today's scientific worlcl but in light

a lor rnoLe on the conccpt and challcnge of lartguaging experience, see Sheets-Johnstone 1999,2002.

5 The opcning statelnellt of a leview of a lecent neuroscience book on "l-notol leaming" tcstihcsto the pleoccupation with something "inside": "Motor learning can be defined as a set of neuralprocesses associated with plactice that lead to changes in perfolnrance and capabilities" (Flash2001, p. 1612). Ttre book- The Acqttisition of Motor Belnvior in Verlel'rates is arnply instluctivein this regard: brain str-uctures and neural networks arc the local couce[rls; eye-blink conditioningis a rnajor topic (e.g.,,,Eyeblink conditioning is recognizcd as a folrn olnrotol Iealning" [Hallett,Pascual-Leone, and Topka 1995, p. 291]); ablation str,rdies constitute a rrajor forrn of investigation;velbal comnrunication, communication that obviously requires sequential articulatory novement isnot recognized as "plocedural" knowlcdge - knowlcdgc that "r'cfels to scqucntial behavioi' ardusually l'elates to motor perfonlalce" but is unwittingly categolized as "declalativc" knowledge

knowledge that "refels to facts and includes all infolration about which wc thiuk and that wecorumunicate velbally" (ibirJ., p. 289). K,nowledge about "sequential tasks" Iags bclrind knowledgeabolrt couditioned lesponse. In fact, browleclge about Iiving rnovemcnt - kinctic rnelodies is farirt arteal's of knowledge about laboratory-induced movenleut.

Kinesthetic Memotl, j9

of the lllanller in which uncritical usage skews understandings to the poipt thatkinetic meloclies are occluded even as they appear to be recognized. Merleau_Ponty's 'hrotor intentiortality" is a classic instance. lt wanants extendecl discr.lssionbecause it furnishes insights into vcriclical understandings of uroveent,kinesthetic rnelrory, and habit.

Merleau-Ponty's,,Motor Intentionality,'

Merleau-Pouty's lnotor intentionality verges on Luria's kinetic melodres not onlyin offering an explanation of pathological disturbances, blrt in ernphasizing theimportance of the ftrst instant of a movernent: "being the active initiative, ltnefirst lnovetnent] institutes the link between a here and a yondel, a now and a futurewlrich the rernainder of the instants will rnerely develop" (Merleau-pot-tty 1962,p. la0)' Becattse Merleau-Ponty does not examine the experience of rnovernent,however' he uever atrives at its dynarnic kinetic shrrcture. Moreover because hedoes not recognize kinesthetc eiperience, he does not recognize kinestheticrnernory and the kineticallyikinestl-retically forged sense of farniliarity that is thebasis of habit' He appears to believe that to recognize kinesthctic exper.iece isto fall into the empiricists' trap of "a mosaic of 'extensive sensati

v'

80 Maxine Slrcets-Jo hnstone

lnovelnent sequence, but of learning one's body and leaming to lnove oneself tobegin with (Sheets-Johnstone 1999), self-directed learnings that each and everyhuman initiates and carries out from birth. The essential familiarity of habit - itskinetic dynamics - has in turn no experiential foundatious.

Yet habit is of central moment to Merleau-Ponty's "motor intentionality."Because "a movement is learned when the body has understood it" (1962,p. 139)? and because it is tl-re understanding, competent body and not thelearning or practicing body that defines Merleau-Ponty's "motor intentionality,"motor intentionality is easily conceived to be fundamentally the work of a "habitbody," a body that already lcnows.Indeed, it becomes ilonically clear how andwhy a habit body holds a privileged position in Merleau-Ponty's account ofmovernent. A habit body already knows how to llove, and its movement isalready all of a piece: a habit body is botli already "expressive" and a readily"expressive" storehouse of "kinetic melodies" (ibid., p. 146). Accordingly, thereis no need to dwell on just how the body contes to be a habit body or whatlcinestheticctlly strttctures its ttnderstandings.In a "prepersonal" kinesthetic-less world, habit has no experiential precursors and no need of such. The body"which is open on to the world and correlative with it" is a ready-made. Thtts,when Merleau-Ponty defines habit as "knowledge in the hands, which isforthcorning... when bodily effort is nade" (ibid., p. 144), he passes overa tactilely and kinesthetically resonant body that is the sottrce of knowledge"in tlre hands," a body that has leanted its way in the world from the beginningby moving, gaining knowledge "in the hands" alld elsewhere in the process.He thereby misses thefamiliar kinetic clynamics thatfundantentally cottstituteshabit, in this instance, the habit that is there in person "in the hands'" Moreoveralthough he points out with respect to tnovetlent of one's body that "[t]hesynthesis of both time and space is a task that ahvays has to be performedafresh," thus indicating that the habit body is flexible, adjusting itself to thekinetic demands of the tnoment, the task "that always has to be perforrnedafresh" never makes an appeal to kinetic knowledge or to kinesthetic rternory.On the contrary, Merleau-Ponty affirrls that "Our bodily experience ofmovement is not a particular case of knowledge [but] provides us with a wayof access to the world and the object, with a 'praktognosia"' (ibid., p. 1a0).Clearly, the very stuff of habits - their foundational kinesthetic familiarity,a farniliarity renewed by way of kinesthetic memory each time they arereactivated - is nowhere recognized.

7 CL Ber.gson, who, speaking specifcally of how repetitiot't "teaches" the bocly in the course oflearning a new coordination, writes, "A movetnettt is leal'ned when the bocly has bceu made toundelstand it" (Bergson [1896] 1990, p. 112).

Kinesthelic Memory 8l

Merleau-Ponty's habit body is not only without kinesthesia but is alsopreeminently an adult body without a history, a body that thereby rings falseneurologically as well as existentially. In both a neurological and existential sense,kinesthesia and kinesthetic memory are essential to progressive developmentalachievements and capacities, and to the forrnation of habits on the basis of thoseachievements and capacities. Adultist views of oneself in the world, perhapsparticularly ontologically-oriented "phenornenological" views,s ignore thecomplex nature of infancy and its intricate developmental history a history withoutwhich one could not attain adult habits, let alone adultist views of oneself in theworld. While Merleau-Ponty's "rnotor intentionality" and habit body rightlyprominence the body, they ignore a previons and ongoing lifetirne of kinestheticlearning and memory at the same tirne that they presuppose it at every step.

In sum, so strong is the driving thematic of an indissoluble body-worldrelationship that it overrules an investigation of movement and in consequenceeffectively squelches a phenomenological account of self-movement, i.e., ofkjnesthetic experience. While it is true that Merleau-Ponty avoids the representationsof the intellectuals and the "extensive sensations" of the empiricists by tying subjectand object - body and world - together through a "motor intentionality" that"cease[s] to draw a distinction between the body as a mechanism in itself andconsciousness as being for itself'(ibid., p. 139), the move is notwithout hazard.Kinetic melodies demand kinetic explanatior-rs. Merleau-Ponty can speak of"melodic flows" devoid of kinesthesia and kinesthetic memory only by explainingthe body's ready access to the world as "autonomous" and "anonymous" functionsof a prepersonal d in essence, as "motor" functions defined by classical science.But he also specifies another "motor" phenomenon, one that appears to bea subrogate fol kinesthesia, namely, the body image (schma corpore[).e

Body Image

Merleau-Ponty is not the only person to invoke a body irnage to explaincorporeal-kinetic phenorena, but his writings on the subject are a good placeto begin since he takes up the term from its original coinage in neurology, andsince his "existential analysis" (ibid., p. 136) of it readily demonstrates howkinesthesia and kinesthetic memory may be trivialized or passed over altogether.He begins by considering the original definition of body image - in his words,"a conrpendiunt of our bodily experience" (ibid., p. 98) - and goes on to improve

I Onc could cite l{eidegger as well.e Sec GallagheL (1986, 1995) for discussions ofthe confusion of body image and body scheura.

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82 Maxine Sheets -Johnstone

on it, defining body image rather as "a total awareness of my posture in the

a certain existing or possible task" (ibid.). He discusses this bodily attitudeessentially in terms of space, specifically, "a spatiality of situation" (ibid.)' Onelooks in vain, however, in the examples he subsequently gives and in thediscussions that follow, of a veritable dynamic: "the situation of the body inface of its tasks" (ibid.) nowhere spells out a dynamic beyond the fact that thebody moves in face of its tasks.

Merleau-Ponty's re-definition of the body image as "a spatiality of situation"coincides with the self-description of the patient whose case study constitutesthe basis for his refonnulation of the term. The patient - Schneider - is capableof kinetic rnelodies only in concrete situations, where specific objects calling forspecific rnovements are plesent - for example, scissors, leather, needle, and thread- and not in abstract situations where he is requested to perform certainmovements for example, pointing to a part of his body. of the former'moveents, Schneider states that "I experience the movements as being a resultof the situation, of the sequence of events themselves; myself and lny movementsare, so to speak, tnerely a link in the whole process and I am scarcely aware ofany voluntary initiative... It all happens independently of me" (ibid., p. 105).The statement is a conceptual blueprint, as it were, of the "third term" - existence- that Merlea-Ponty wishes to instantiate between the rationalists' reptesentations

nexlls, kinesthesia and kinesthetic memory are replaced by a body itnage whosedynarnics consist simply in the fact that the body moves.r0 Being a power thatpiojects the body into the world, the body image creates an "'jntentional arc"'(ibid., p. 136) that existentially links it to the world. In the patient's case, the al'cis truncated and otherwise damaged. To paraphrase Merleau-Ponty, the arc nolonger "projects round about Schneider his past, his future, his human setting,

r0 Ostensibly, Merleau-Ponty has reduced normal, everyday movement to its most elemeutarylevel, but that level in lct fails to account fol the dynamics of movemeut - the basis of habit - alidthe ontogenetical realities of infant life.

Kinesthetic Memory 83

his physical, ideological, and moral situation; it no longer brings about the unityof his senses, of intelligence, of sensibility and motility" (ibid').

Body image and intentional arcs notwithstanding, Merleau-Ponty remarkspointedly on the extraordinary way in which Schneider uses movement to gethis bearings with respect to a task he is asked to do or to an object he is askedto recognize. "Ifa part ofhis body is touched and he is asked to locate the pointof contact, he frst of all sets his whole body in motion and thus narrows downthe problem of location, then he comes still nearer by moving the limb inquestion" (ibid., p. 107); "If the subject's arm is extended horizontally, he cannotdescribe its position until he has performed a set of pendular movements whichconvey to him the arm position in relation to the trunk" (ibid.); "The patienthimself neither seeks nor finds his movement, but moves his body about untilthe movement comes" (ibid., p. 110). Later, as if in summation of these facts,Merleau-Ponty comments that "concrete movements, which are preserued bythe patient as are those imitative movements, whereby he compensates for hispuuity of visual data, arise from kinaesthetic or tactile sense, which incidentallywas remarkabty exploited by Schneider" (1bid., p. 113, italics added). In short,it is through moving, through "active movements" (ibid., p. 107), that Schneidertries to find his way, follow an order, respond to a request, and so on. Merleau-ponty thus appears to recognize kinesthesia, but only in the pathological instancewhen no kinetic rnelody is forthcoming, or more generally, "only when sornethinggoes wrong." Kinesthesia rnight thus seem to be something like the proverbialtree falling in the forest: unless we sense it, it does not exist. Indeed, Merleau-Ponty's solution is to relegate "consciousness of movement" to an amorphousbackground'.

[F]or the normal person every movement is, indssolubly, movement and conscious-ness of movement. This can be expressed by saying that for the nonnal personevery movement has a background.... The background to the movement is nota representation associated or linked extemally with the movelnent itself, but isimmanent in the movement inspiring and sustaining it at every moment (ibid., p. I l0).

The term ,'background" is both an expeditious and ambiguous way ofleckoning with "consciousness of movement": it effectively nullifies kinestheticexperience and kinesthetic memory, and thereby makes "consciousness ofmovement" literally, logically, and experientially unintelligible. By invokinga "background," Merleau-Ponty recognizes what must be recognized - "conscio-uSneSS of movement" - but cuts short its actual experience, nature, and signi-ficance. Certainly we are not ordinarily attentive kinesthetically in a focal waywhen brushing our teeth or weaving our way quickly through a crowd; rve areconcentrated on the task at hand. Our kinesthetic awareness of ourselves s inthe "background." But being in the background does not mean that it is completely

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84 Maxine Sheels -Johns tone

outside awareness. It is not only that any time we care to pay focal attention toour "consciousness of movement," there it is, but That the familiarity of ourmovement in the form of a certain kinetic dynamics undergirds our brushing,weaving, and so on, and is marginally or pre-reJlectively in our awareness evenas we focally attend to the appointment to which we are rushing as we weave orto what we will have for breakfast as we brush. A kinetic dynamics is sensuouslypresent at the lower end of the continuum that describes the intensity - or focalto marginal - gradient of consciousness. Indeed, if as Merleau-Ponty writes, thebackground "is immanent in the movement inspiring and sustaining it at everymoment," then a certain kinetic dynarnics is undeniably underway that is familiaras well as self-propelling, a dynamics that is not there only if we notice itfocally,but a dynarnic that is present as a farniliar, ongoing, and particular kinestheticmelody. How otherwise might one legitimately speak of a "consciousness ofrnovement"?

In sum, a veritable kinetic dynamics is not reducible to a "[bodly] attitudedirected towards a cerlain existing or possible task." Merleau-Ponty's reformulatedbody image falls short of fulfilling its dynarnic promise. A veritable kineticdynamics is kinesthetically felt, which is to say it is experienced in the flow ofmovement itself, and with a sense of familiarity (supposing the movement is notnovel) generated through kinesthetic memory.

Body Image and Body Schema

The term body irnage is actually misleading since it conjures up uot onlysomethir-rg preeminently visual, but sornething not actually perceived, i.e.,sornetlring imaginary. Philosopher Shaun Gallagher and neurophysiologistJonathan Cole try to correct these false impressious by specifying body irnage inexacting tenls and by distinguishing it frorn body schema (see also Gallagher1986, 1995). In their joint article on a "deafferented subject" - a ral who lostvirlually all kir-resthetic awareness - they attempt to docurnent just what is mssingin the way of a body image and body schema, and how the subject - referred toas IW - copensates for the loss and learns to move anew. In the process, andunlike Merleau-Ponty, Gallagher and Cole do not trivialize or pass overkinesthesia. On the contraty, using the broadet'tertn "proprioception," they specifyboth a neurological infonnational system and a system of experiential awateness.They thereby distinguish body image frorn body schetna: body image is"a cornplex set of intentional states" that includes perceptual experience,conceptual understandings, and emotional attitudes; body schema is "a systemof motor capacities, abilities, ancl habits that enable moveueut and thernaintenance of posture," a systern that operates "preconsciously" and "subperso-

Knesthetic Memory

nally" (Gallagher and Cole 1998, p. 132). They implicitly vindicate Luria's neuro-logical diagnostic and his ernphasis on the quintessential significance of kines-thetic afferents to intention or "will" when they state, "At the earliest stage ofhis illness IW had no control over his movements and was unable to put intentioninto action. There was, one rnight say, a disconnection of will frorn the specificsof movernent" (ibid., p. 135). The implicit vindication, however, is short-lived:neither body schema nor body image approxirnate to the neurological andexperiential dynamics of a kinetic melody.

To begin with, a body scherna has no basis in experience. It is at best anexplanatory convenience, a hypothetical entity in the brain (or central nervoussystem as a whole) that is conjured to do the work of putting movement together,furnishing a kinetic blueprint for neurological eyes only, as it were. In coutrast,a kinetic melody describes both what is constructed neurologically in the courseof learning - a distinctive temporal course of innervations and denervations, asin learning to walk, to brush one's teeth, to make an abdominal incision, to dothe tarantella - and what is experienced - a distinctive dynarnic flow of movement.A kinetic melody is not a thing in the brain (or in the central nervous system)but a particular neurological and experiential dynarnic. Each melody is in facta neuromuscular dynamic whose inneryations and denervations, together withthe constantly changing muscle tone they generate, constitute a parlicular ternporalorganization Kinetic melodies thus straddle two worlds; unlike a body schema,they describe inherently dynamic patterns that are at once neurological andexperiential.

A body irnage suffers from the same lack of experiential grounding anddynarnic resonance as a body schema. The identification of "the perception ofmovement" with body image (Gallagher and Cole 1998, p. 134) not uncommonlyreduces To a positional awareness of the body - e.9., "I can tell you where mylegs are even with my eyes closed"; "Proprioceptive awareness is a felt experienceof bodily position that helps to constitute the perceptual aspect of the body image"(ibid., p. 137). While the perception of movement certainly includes positionalawarenesses, it is quintessentially a dynamic awareness, and to overlook thekinetic/kinesthetic dynamics that are its source is to distort the account of "theperception of movement."

The problern with the body irnage rnight be judged to be basicallya rnethodological ploblem: beginning with a construct instead of experience.Unless one begins with and hews to experience, the very tliing one wants toexplain eludes one, in this instance, the experieuce of an unfolding dynarnics,the perception of one's own body in motion. The first question is properly not"How is such an experience possible?," but "What is the nature of kineticexperience?" In tuLn, the first task is not to come up with an explanatory entity

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86 Maxine Sheets-Johnstone

but with a descriptive account of the phenomenon in question.rr Methodology isthus of critical impoftance. Tuming toward "the thing itself' - self-movement -one realizes that a body irnage is not up to the task set for it. The phenornenologyof self-movement cannot be deduced from pathology. Certainly one rnay inferthe normal from the pathological, but inference is not phenomenology'

The importance of hewing to experience may be highlighted by notinga correspondence between Schneider and IW: IW too "exploits" movetnetlt totrigger movernent. He exploits it not by actively initiating movenent as Schneiderdoes, but through his ready ideational access to earlier experiences of nonnalmovetrent. IW already knows fundamental kinetic rnelodies; he knows "howthey go," so to speak, and even how they are supposed to go' Thus, whenGallagher and Cole write that "IW's success in recovering useful lnovelnentfunction has depended primarily on his finite mental concentration, and to a tnuchlessor (sic) degree on reaccessing or relearning motor plograms which are' sofar, poorly understood" (ibid., p. 138), they neglect to consider that IW knowsthe movement he intends or "wills": he has a kinetic lnemory of what it is toreach, to grasp, to sit, to stand. He knows these movements in his bones, eventhough he can no longer move these bones except by visual irtitiation andmonitoring. Thus, although he cannot call forth kinetic melodies frorn kinestheticmemory he can structure his present visually guided movement on the basis ofhis kinetic knowledge of thern. In fact, short of this dynarnic metlory ofmovelnent, he would not even know how to begin moving. To appreciate this,one need only consider what it would be like to be born as a "deaffet'entedsubject." IW's visual re-creation of movement does not begin from scratch butfrom a previous body of knowledge of such mundane kinetic melodies as walking,buttoning, and picking up an egg.

In surn, kinetic rnelodies describe the reality of movetnent in ueurologicaland experiential ways that neither body scherna nor body irnage catt approxitnate.They do so because they explicitly recognize a bodily-kinetic dynarnic. Moreexplicitly still, they recognize a vast range of bodily-kinetic dynamics "iu faceof the world," each melody being distinctly analyzable as a dynamic pattern olrnovernent. Body image and body schema are no match for this bodily-kineticdynamic. Indeed, they are recalcitrant to Gallagher and Cole's noble clarifyingefforts and should be jettisoned in favor of a veridical phenomenology of selmovernent, one that recognizes the foundationally dynarnic character of movementfrom the start.

rr One rnight cite neurophysiologist Kurt Goldstein (1939) as well as Husserl: "[l]t is the firsttask ofbiology to describe carefully all living beings as they actually are" (p.6);"|(hat do thephettomena... teach us about the (essenceD (the inlrinsic nature) of an oryanism?" (p. 7).

Kinesthetic Mentory 87

The Pointillist Conception of Movement:Its Conceptual Underpinnings and Liabilities

Motion, Descartes stated, "[is] the transfer of one piece of matter, or one body,from the vicinity of the other bodies which are in immediate contact with it, andwhich are regarded as being at rest, to the vicinity of other bodies" (Descartes11644) 1985, p. 233). With respect to a body in face of its task sitting down,lifting a suitcase, cutting a swath of grass - point A and point B are typically thepoints of interest. They mark the place of departure and arrival of a movingbody, and thereby the beginning and end of its task. The points say nothing ofthe dynamics of movernent. They describe a basically static spatial worldintermittently interrupted by bodies changing position.

The spatial concordance of body and world described by Merleau-Ponty isrooted in a pointillist conception of movement: individuals move frorn point Ato point B, following along the lines of an intentional arc. In privilegingposition,the conception neglects to account for and virtually effaces rnovement itself.The neglect and virtual effacement are stlaightaway evident in Merleau-Ponty'sconcluding analysis of Schneider: "[T]he normal subject has his body not onlyas a system ofpresent positions, but besides, and thereby, as an open systerl ofan infinite number of equivalent positions directed to other ends. What we havecalled the body image is precisely this systern of equivalents, this irnrnediatelygiven invariant whereby the different rnotor tasks are instantaneously trans-ferable." (Merleau-Ponty 1962, p. l4I).t2 Movement - what putatively shouldrnake the body image dynamic - is nowhere in evidence because in fact there areno dynarnics, only a pointillist conception of "motricit."

The pointillist conception is sirnilarly exemplified in the earlier quotationsfrom Gallagher and Cole: knowing where one's legs are when one's eyes areclosed, fol example. The conception clearly leads one erroneously to believethat movement is simply a change of position, and in tnm to conceive a kinestheticawareness of movement to be an awareness of changed positions. The conceptionis actually spatially deficient in its non-recognition of the spatial qualities of

r2 The te;nporality of rnovcurent is of notable signifcance in this coutext. As Lul'ra points out,voluntary rnovelnent derands not only kincsthetic aflerence but an eve-changing selies ofimreryations and dener.ations. What he tclms the "dynamic stereotype" is habit, a basically invaliantbut still kinetically variable phcnomenor-r: "the invcu'ianl tnolor tuslc is ful/illed not by a conslotlt,f red set, but by (r vuyirtg sel oJ'movenrcrrl,s tvltich, hotvever, lead to the constanl, invariont efct."(1913,p.248). Transfrability s thus grouncled not in a body irrage but in dynamic sedimcntationsconstituting a familial dynarnios ancholcd in kinesthetic mcmoly.

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88 Maxine Sheets-Jo hnstone

movement and coffelative kinesthetic awarenesses. Indeed, however persuasivethe notion of "a spatiality of situation" - "know[ing] indubitably where rny pipeis" (Merleau-Ponty 1962, p. 100) - its explanatory referents - body irnage andbody scherna - effectively suppress the essential insight that movement createsits own space, time, and force, and thereby the dynamics that are movementitself. If movement did not create its own space, time, and force, there would beno such thing as habit: no specific kinetic dynamic would exist to repeat, topractice, to learn. Equally, there would be nothing to remember, hence, nokinesthetic memory.

The pointillist conception of movement that body scherna and body irnageimplicitly support emanates from a bias of Western thought that anchors realityin the spatiality of things to the exclusion of their ternporality, i.e., theirimpermanence, their flow, their temporal dynamics. A Westerrr predilection fornrechanics over dynamics, for lnass - things - over flow - dynamics (e.g., Yates1987, Kelso 1995) - testifies to this bias. Traditional views of motor behavior,rnotor mernory, rnotor control, motor habits, and so on, exernplify a furtherdimension of the bias in their Cartesian reduction of movement to objects inmotion, quantifiable things tied to positions in space and rnoments in tirne, andeither by nature not kinesthetically attuned or by manner of study not recognizedas being kinesthetically attuned. Not only is it easier to explain conditioned eye-blinking (see note 5) by way of objects in motion than to describe dynamicprocesses like piano-playing by way of kinesthesia and kinesthetic memory, butit is less perilous ontologically: like mechanisms, objects in motion are spatially-localized, stable entities that anchor functions. Corelatively, distinct units in theblain dedicated to short-term storage and long-tenn storage, and opposing speciesof rnemory - e.9., fact, declarative, and representational as against skill,procedural, and dispositional, respectively (Goethals and Soloman 1989, p. 5l) -specify solid, well-defrned rnemory repositories and categories as the kineticdynamics of kinesthetic menory do not. Clearly, a motorized mechanics-over-dynarnics goes hand in hand with a conception of nrovement that eschews thetemporal in favor of the spatial.

Being temporal by nature, kinesthetic memories, like kinetic rnelodies,subsume not only rhythrnicities within their compass, but terrporally unfoldingpostural and orientational relations, kinetic protentions and retentions, and soon. Kinesthetic tnemoty is thus not a pointillist system of rernembered sensations,but a rellembered spatio-ternporal-energic dynarnics. Indeed, kinesthetic memoryis not memory of sensations of one's body, but of perceptions of the dynamics ofself-movement. The point warrants elaboration.

Kinetic rnelodies are subtended by kinetic hannonies. Everyday movementinvolves the whole body; coordinated movem.ent is the result of global kineticorchestrations. Kinetic melodies are thus grounded in a kinetic harmonics that is

Kinesthetic Memory 89

the whole moving body. In turn, the experience of movetnent is not a matter oflocalized and discrete bodily sensations, but of a felt hannonious whole whereparticular areas may be tonally dominant, as when one kicks a ball, moves a forkto one's mouth, or stands up. Discrete, localized bodily sensations - sensationsas such - are not dynamic awarenesses but preeminently positional ones likeitchings and ticklings. Neurophysiologists Jonathan Cole and Jacques Paillard's(1995, p. 256) perspicuous but kinetically unelaborated distinction between"topokinetic" lrtovement (e.g., pointing to a place on the body where one wastouched) and "rnorphokinetic" ltovement (e.g., drawing figure eights in the airin front of one) adumbrates the difference between positional and dynamicawarenesses of movement. To be topokinetically attuned - to attend to orrenrenrberpositional sensations as such - is to reduce movertentto an object innotion in the manner of Descartes and thereby forego the sense of a dynarnickinetic lrarmonics. (It is significant that Cole and Paillard describe the gesturallanguage of deafferented subjects as a "tnorphokinetic tnelody," while othelwiseexplaining the subjects' tlovement in tenns of body image and body schema[ibid., p. 2591.) The kinestheti-c memoty of walking - not a visual image buta morpholcinetic recolleclior - subsumes a kinetic hannonics; the memoty is nota rnerrory of positions but of a whole body dynamic, which is based not onbodily sensations - localized, positional happenings - but on the perception oflnovetneut. In short, kinesthetic memories are constituted through and throughby dynarnic, not sensational. sedimentations. There is in fact no position that thebody is ir in walking.13

The liabilities of a pointillist conception of movement point toward a chal-lenging rnethoclological cuestion: what justifies starting with pathology, i.e., tlieloss of kinetic melodies? If the purpose is to understand everyday self-movetnent,why not start with a magnification of slrch lrovement rather than with itsdiminisliment? Why, for exatlple, not begin with dance, and ask whether motortheories, body schemas, and body images are Ltp to the task of explaining howsuch intricate and complicated ongoing rnovement is leamed and retnetnbered.Merleau-Ponty spoke of dancing as a "tnotor habit" and said that "forming thehabit of dancing is discovering, by analysis, the fonnr"rla of the movement inquestion" (Merleau-Ponty 1962, pp. 146, 142, respectively). Of his dance"Untitled Solo," Merce Cunningham wrote,

A large gamut of movements, separate for each of the three dances, was devised,rlovernents for the arms, the legs, the head and the torso which were separate andessentially tensile in character, and off the norrnal or tranquil body-balance. The

', - uny rnore than thee is a postion that the wind is lrr in blowing, or that a wave is ir iurolling forward.

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90 Maxine S heets -Jo hns tone

separate movetnents were arranged in continuity by randorn means, allowing for thesupelirnposition (addition) of one or lrore, each having its own rhythrn and time-length. But each succeeded in becoming continuous if I cor"rld wear it long enough,like a suit of clothes (Cunningham: undated, unpaginated).Untitled So/o is hardly a rnotor habit and learning it was hardly learning "by

analysis, the formula of the lnovertent." Through plactice, the dance becarnea kinesthetically crystallized whole, etched in kinesthetic memory and articulatedby way of kinesthetic memory. Were one to take Cunningham's description asa transcendental clue to coordinated rnovement, one might say that if one "wearsmovement long enough," it can become a kinetic dynarnic that spins continuouslyout of one's body like the web of a web-spinning spider.

Beginning with extraordinary rather than dirninished kinetic capacities meansbeginning with "the thing itself'and gaining direct knowledge about the inherentdynamics of movement.ra While in one sense extraordinary movement is at theother extreme of pathological movernent, the idea of a linking continuum ismethodologically rnisleading, for precisely by beginning with the extraordinaryone begins with the neurological and experiential reality of a kinetic melody anda kinetic harmonics, and goes from there to foundational dynarnic understandings.A methodological focus on the extraordinary has the power to bring these dynamicunderstandings to light because it magnifies rather than constricts subtleties andcornplexities inherent in kinesthetic experience and kinesthetic memory.

References

Bergson, H. 1991. Matter and Memory, trans. N. M. Paul. New York: Zone Books.Bernstein, N. 1984. Huntan Motor Actions: Bernslein Reassessed, ed. H. T. A. Wliiting.

Amsterdam: North-Holland.Bernstein, N. 1996. Dexterity and lts Development, ed. M. L. Latash, M. T. Turvey;

trans. M. L. Latash. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Ellbaum Associates.Cole, J. and J. Paillard. 1995. Living without touch and pelipheral inforn-ration about

body position and tnovement: studies with deafferented subjects.In The Body andtlte SelJ', ed. J. L. Bern-rdez, A. Marcel, N. Eilan. Cambridge: Bradford/MlT Press,245-66.

ra Such knowledge depends on a qualificd obser.ver. If cognitive scienoc is to nrake use ofexperiential reports, it slioulcl insure that rcportees are tlained if not in phenorncnologicalnrethodology, theu in "au[o-serrsory obselvation" (Jacobsot' 1961 ,1970). IW's repolt of "a sense of effott" (Gallaghcr and Cole 1998, p. 137) is tantalizing in this lespect. What is this "cmde"seilse?

Kinesthetic Memory 9l

Cunningharn, M. undated. Changes: Notes on Choreography, ed. F. Starr. New York:Something Else Press.

Descartes, Ren. 1985 11644l. Principles of Philosophy. The Philosophical llritirtgs ofDescartes, vol. l, trans. J. Cottingham, R. Stoothoff, D. Murdoch. Cambridge:Cambridge University Press.

Flash, T. 1997. "Motor Learning." Science 275: 1612.Furuhjelm, M., A. Ingelman-Sundberg, C. Wirsn. 1966. A Child Is Born. New York:

Delacorte Press/Seymour Lawrence.Gallagher, S. 1986. Body image and body scherna: a conceptual clarification. Jotu"nal of

Mind and Behavior 7: 541-54.Gallaglrer, S. 1995. Body scherna and intentionality. In The Body and the Self, ed.

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THEORIA ET HISTORIA SCIENTIARUM, VOL. VII, N" IEd. Nicolas Copernicus UniversiTy 2003

Monica Meijsing

Phantoms and Movements,Or, Are We Really Just Our Brains?

what kind of entity is it that we, -human beings, really are? This question isexplicitly ontological. I will not here be concerned with the episternologicalquestion of how we can be sure of what we are.l

The classical cartesian position in philosophy of rnind states that we areessentially just our (non-material) minds. Against this position Gareth Evans(1982) has argued that we are just as much spatially extended, corporeal beingsas rnental bengs. In his argument a crucial lole is played by proprioception: it isproprioception that establishes us as, in contemporary parlance, embodied beings,ernbedded in the world. I call this argument the arguntent from propriocepton.I will argue that rnainstrearn philosophy of mind, though avowedly anti-Cartesian,is still standing vety much in the Cartesian tradition. It is anti-Cartesian in that itis materialistic, and rejects the notion of a separate nnd.But what is left as "theengine of reason, the seat of the soul" (churchland, 1995) is not the mater.ialbody, but the rnatelial brain. Accordrng to eliminativist philosophers Dennettand Churchland, but just as rnuch, though less conspicuonsly, according to theiradvelsaries McGinn, Nagel and Searle, we are really just disembodied brais.The "disernbrained" body is left literally dangling, a wholly dispensable puppeton an arbitralily long string. V/e rnight as well not have a body at all, for mostpulposes. The brain alone can do all that is lequiled to lnake us hurnan beings.

I will examine what is presupposed in this position of the all-powerful brain.I will argue that, though it rnight have been possible that we were essentiallyjust brains if we had been cornpletely passive beings, a brain on its own could

I Actually, it is the sceptical qucstion I want to avoid. The ontological ploblent canltot be dealtrvith without going into sorne episterrological issues.