Proximity, Sense, and Knowledge

May 14th, 2007 Fred McVittie Posted in Art, Embodiment, Feeling, Metaphor, Perception, Sense, thesis |

According to embodied theories of cognition the dominant strategy for the apprehension of abstract concepts is through the widespread and largely unconscious application of metaphor, such that we understand abstract concepts in terms of more concrete concepts.

(W)e tend to structure the less concrete and inherently vaguer concepts (like those for emotions) in terms of more concrete concepts, which are more clearly delineated in our experience. {Lakoff, 1981. p. 112}

Lakoff and Johnson go on to argue that three natural kinds of experience, of the body, of the physical environment, and of the culture, are the basic source domains upon which metaphors draw. All of these source domains are apprehensible directly through the senses.

The concrete sensorial experience that we have of the world is therefore used metaphorically in the formation of concepts. However, the type of information we receive through the various sensory channels, eyes, ears, the surface of the skin, is not equal, and the use we make of this different information depends upon the sensory mode through which it is mediated.

The sensation of seeing is very different to that of hearing, and differs again from that of touching. It is inevitable then, that knowledge understood through the use of metaphors which derive from these different sensory origins will tend to exhibit differences, and also that these differences will be consistent. All concepts which derive from sight-based metaphors should have features in common which distinguish them from concepts formed from touch-based metaphors. I will show here that these consistent differences reveal themselves in language, in gesture, and in their status within interpersonal discourse.

In order to examine the ontology of the metaphors that we use to form abstract concepts, we need to clearly identify the nature of the sensory mode from which they originate. This means reminding ourselves of some obvious facts about the nature of experience as it is mediated by sight as opposed to its mediation by touch for example. Events which stimulate the visual sense, i.e. things that we see, are obviously outside of our body, possibly even a considerable distance from our body, and therefore do not have a direct ‘impact’ on our wellbeing. Visualised objects are also usually also visible to other people, existing in interpersonal shared space, which means that objects apprehended visually are likely to have similar significance for all viewers (seeing a tiger is likely to cause anyone in visible range to run away).

Objects and events which are apprehended through the sense of touch, on the other hand (sic) do, by definition, have a direct impact on the body doing the touching, they are in extreme proximity to that body, and are likely to have a much greater significance for the person touched than for someone else who is not in contact with the object, (touching a flame causes a significantly different response than seeing one).

These completely embodied ontological differences suggests that there is a structured and organised variation in experience depending upon which sense is primarily used to access that experience. The difference in sensory mode maps onto corresponding differences in the proximity of the stimulus to the body, and to the degree to which an experience is shared amongst a number of experiencers. Vision identifies objects which are at a remove from the body, and which are accessible to a number of viewers. Touch identifies phenomena which are up-close and personal.

Given that, as noted above, we draw substantially on embodied experience to organise and structure our knowledge of those aspects of the world which are abstract through the use of conceptual metaphor it is likely that abstract concepts will also be organised according to the various sensory modes. Even a cursory inspection reveals that we do indeed find this distinction, with concepts which we regard as ‘objective’ being referred to using visual metaphor, thus placing them in a shared conceptual space where they appear similar to all (metaphorical) viewers, much as we might place a physical object on public display. Conversely, those entities we regard as ’subjective’ are often referred to using tactile metaphors. These subjective entities are held metaphorically against the body where they are ‘felt’, an individual experience with an acknowledged difference in impact for the ‘feeler’ than for the objective ‘viewer’. Held at such close proximity, tactile concepts are not separated and distanced from the body of the person, they are almost part of that subjectivity, part of the subject.

Visual knowledge contains within its logic the binary opposition of self and other, subject and object, observer and observed. Tactile knowledge elides this distinction into a point of contact in which the space between these supposed binaries is collapsed. Indeed, with some constructions of knowledge, the metaphorical sensory impression that the concept makes on the body penetrates beneath the level of the skin and into the interior, where it engages not only sensorially, but sensually and sexually. This approach to knowledge is found in the ecriture feminine of Cixous and others, the goal of which is to create a language with an interior “to get inside of,” a place of feminine jouissance.

In making art we are constantly traversing the space between the objective and the subjective; stepping back from it so that we might get an ‘overview’ of it, then embracing it and letting ourselves feel it and feel with it. It is both outside us and inside us and the language we use reflect this oscillation, this switching of sensory channels.