Immediato potere di escogitare. Per una “ecologia” del corpo senza rappresentazione

Abstract

Immediate power of excogitation. For a body “ecology” without representation This essay explores the possibility of an ecological model of knowledge which stresses the immediacy of the relationship between individual and its environment on the basis of a holistic mind-body perspective. The aim is to emphasize the primacy of a non-conceptual and non-symbolic cognition in order to reclaim the spontaneous inventiveness of living body acting and perceiving in the world before the intervention of reflective consciousness. Despite their different backgrounds, the guiding principal which links the authors discussed is the rejection of representation considered as the original act of the internal/external mediation. The common aim is to release the body from its instrumental role in relation to consciousness and to recognize its “implicit” explorative power, leading to new significations of the Self. The starting point is the pragmatic turn assumed by some phenomenological positions of French xx century’s scenery which are read in line with the anti-representational approach of embodied model proposed by cognitive sciences. Particular attention is given to “corporeal ecology”, paradigm developed by the most recent reflections of body epistemology, which is intended as an integrative perspective between the externalism of a reductive materialism and the internalism of an egological pattern. The last section takes Spinoza’s psychophysical monism as a relevant contribution to restore the evenemential aspect of knowledge arising from the emphasis given to the body expressing itself beyond the capability of representational consciousness.

Keywords

• excogitation
• ecology
• ethic