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Conceptual remarks on proprioception and knowledge of one’s actions| old_uid | 2875 |
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| title | Conceptual remarks on proprioception and knowledge of one’s actions |
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| start_date | 2007/05/22 |
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| schedule | 11h45 |
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| online | no |
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| location_info | salle F 106 |
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| details | suite à 14h30 |
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| summary | The paper raises some conceptual issues about one’s awareness of his body and, in particular, about one’s bodily actions and limbs positions. It appears that the notion of “Proprioception” needs clarification. First, we have the idea of sub-personal proprioceptive systems that allegedly provide ‘information’ about one’s position, movement, limb position, etc. However, It is unclear for whom those ‘signals’ count as information. Additionally, we have the idea of “proprioceptive awareness”, which is supposed to be some form of conscious experience of the body (It was even suggested proprioception may count as the sixth sense). But again, it is unclear what sort of experience that could be. Wittgenstein persuasively suggested that our knowledge of the position and movement of our limbs is not derived from some sensation (so called kinesthetic sensations). One does not feel the position of one’s arm in the same sense of “feeling” as one feels pain. Wittgenstein suggests that the sentence “Raise your arm, and you will feel that you are raising your arm” is not an empirical proposition. In some sense, we know of our moving our arm; but not, it seems, in the ordinary sense of ‘knowing’. Not, e.g., in the sense that I know that you just moved your arm. What does it mean to say that I have knowledge of my bodily actions? Not that I am always (or even usually) consciously aware of them. Perhaps, it just means that I am not surprised by them. But what about cases such as the anarchic hand syndrome? One may argue that in such cases the subject does not act, since she does not actually control her hand. Certainly, all these issues cannot be addressed by mere grammatical analysis, but some conceptual clarity will favor empirical research. |
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| responsibles | Roy |
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