proprioception

i'm reading around in phenomenology and related fields (philosophy of the mind, neurosciences, etc.) in order to better grasp a theory of action that makes sense of the relation of theory and practice in ordinary skillful pastoral work. this is grounded for me in work i've done on pierre bourdieu's view of practices and hubert and stuart dreyfus's theory of skill development but both push back to an effort to get around or over the object-subject split at the heart of epistemology over the last couple hundred years in the west.

so i picked up a new book titled how the body shapes the mind by shaun gallagher that looks very promising as an integrative text drawing on these various disciplines. he uses the term 'proprioception' as a way to speak both about the information one gets and the awareness one has of being present and acting in the world. it is an interesting word, one i didn't know before, and one that speaks about something i'm trying to make some sense of--how one's embodied experience gives shape to what we think and how we perceive what it is that we can and should do.

the question at the heart of my inquiry is to make more sense of the fact that experts don't know what they are doing. really. more on this as i get focused on writing more about our faith as a way of life project and what we're learning.

+peace,
chris

Comments

[Boe Woodbury]

This is a fairly common term in my world of exercise science. We use it to talk about our sense of orientation in space; are we upright or upside down, are we moving or still, how are our limbs arranged in space, how stable is the ground that we are on. Arguments erupt over whether this should be added to the traditional 5 senses, and we would call in the "kinesthetic sense," for feeling the motion. The "fad" in exercise right now is training of the "core" muscles to help increase our ability to stabilize against the outside forces that work on us. The emphasis, and I think rightly, is on adaptability, not on rigid, unyielding strength. We're still learning if proprioception can be trained or changed to a great degree, but there are obviously things that happen as we learn new skills, or "get a feel" for them.

[christian Scharen]

Hey, Boe, thanks for the comments and such a helpful connection in my current reading to things you've worked on all along! Hope you are well and do pass along something to read on this stuff so I can learn more!
Peace and love to you and yours,
Chris