Zeynep Çelik Alexander
- Published in print:
- 2017
- Published Online:
- May 2018
- ISBN:
- 9780226485201
- eISBN:
- 9780226485348
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- University of Chicago Press
- DOI:
- 10.7208/chicago/9780226485348.001.0001
- Subject:
- Art, Art Theory and Criticism
This book traces the history of “kinaesthetic knowing,” a form of knowledge associated with the movements of the body, in Imperial Germany. The figures that play central roles in the book invented ...
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This book traces the history of “kinaesthetic knowing,” a form of knowledge associated with the movements of the body, in Imperial Germany. The figures that play central roles in the book invented new pedagogical techniques with the conviction that there existed a non-discursive, non-conceptual way of knowing that could nonetheless compete in its rigour with reasoning realized through language, concepts, or logic. In doing so, they drew on the findings of the new discipline of experimental psychology. The book is structured around four techniques: a practice of comparative looking in which the eye was assumed to draw its own conclusions independently of the mind; a method of beholding that prioritized automatic and affective response rather than intellectual contemplation; a manner of drawing that abandoned the principles of imitation and composition and gave free rein to the movements of the body; and, finally, the practice of designing, a constellation of artistic techniques whose goal was to manipulate form, line, colour, and space rather than follow academic rules regarding orders, proportions, and composition. Some went so far as to argue that this alternative epistemological principle could become the basis of the human sciences at large. The faith in the epistemological value of kinaesthesia was short-lived but proved crucial: it was upon the foundation of this other way of knowing that many concepts and practices central to twentieth-century modernism were established. Primary amongst them was the formalist thrust of modern design education.Less
This book traces the history of “kinaesthetic knowing,” a form of knowledge associated with the movements of the body, in Imperial Germany. The figures that play central roles in the book invented new pedagogical techniques with the conviction that there existed a non-discursive, non-conceptual way of knowing that could nonetheless compete in its rigour with reasoning realized through language, concepts, or logic. In doing so, they drew on the findings of the new discipline of experimental psychology. The book is structured around four techniques: a practice of comparative looking in which the eye was assumed to draw its own conclusions independently of the mind; a method of beholding that prioritized automatic and affective response rather than intellectual contemplation; a manner of drawing that abandoned the principles of imitation and composition and gave free rein to the movements of the body; and, finally, the practice of designing, a constellation of artistic techniques whose goal was to manipulate form, line, colour, and space rather than follow academic rules regarding orders, proportions, and composition. Some went so far as to argue that this alternative epistemological principle could become the basis of the human sciences at large. The faith in the epistemological value of kinaesthesia was short-lived but proved crucial: it was upon the foundation of this other way of knowing that many concepts and practices central to twentieth-century modernism were established. Primary amongst them was the formalist thrust of modern design education.
Zeynep Çelik Alexander
- Published in print:
- 2017
- Published Online:
- May 2018
- ISBN:
- 9780226485201
- eISBN:
- 9780226485348
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of Chicago Press
- DOI:
- 10.7208/chicago/9780226485348.003.0007
- Subject:
- Art, Art Theory and Criticism
Sigmund Freud’s (1856-1939) posthumously published Entwurf einer Psychologie (Outline of a Psychology) is considered a turning point between his early career indebted to experimental psychology and ...
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Sigmund Freud’s (1856-1939) posthumously published Entwurf einer Psychologie (Outline of a Psychology) is considered a turning point between his early career indebted to experimental psychology and the later one dedicated to psychoanalysis. While the 1895 manuscript started with the assertion that psychology was a natural science, it ended less self-assuredly: faced with the problem of infinite regress, Freud turned halfway in the manuscript from a naturalistic to an interpretative model according to which the functioning of neurons resembled the operations of language. The book concludes with a discussion of Freud’s text and its readings in the twenty-first century as a manifesto for neuroscientific thinking avant la lettre. Even though kinaesthetic knowing did not win in the disciplinary wars of the early twentieth century, more recently there has been renewed interest in it. One contemporary field, neuroaesthetics, has promoted the conflation of kinaesthesia with formalism in ways uncannily similar to the history outlined in this book. Using Freud’s dilemma at the turn of the twentieth century, the epilogue reminds the reader of the argument repeated throughout the book that such epistemological claims have ethical implications and that therefore close attention should be paid to politics of knowledge.Less
Sigmund Freud’s (1856-1939) posthumously published Entwurf einer Psychologie (Outline of a Psychology) is considered a turning point between his early career indebted to experimental psychology and the later one dedicated to psychoanalysis. While the 1895 manuscript started with the assertion that psychology was a natural science, it ended less self-assuredly: faced with the problem of infinite regress, Freud turned halfway in the manuscript from a naturalistic to an interpretative model according to which the functioning of neurons resembled the operations of language. The book concludes with a discussion of Freud’s text and its readings in the twenty-first century as a manifesto for neuroscientific thinking avant la lettre. Even though kinaesthetic knowing did not win in the disciplinary wars of the early twentieth century, more recently there has been renewed interest in it. One contemporary field, neuroaesthetics, has promoted the conflation of kinaesthesia with formalism in ways uncannily similar to the history outlined in this book. Using Freud’s dilemma at the turn of the twentieth century, the epilogue reminds the reader of the argument repeated throughout the book that such epistemological claims have ethical implications and that therefore close attention should be paid to politics of knowledge.
