Page 120 - Contribution To Phenomenology

THE BODY AS PAN-CULTURAL UNIVERSAL 113

kinesthetic and visual body. But they would in turn discover too that
these fundamental distinctions lead ultimately to convergences. The lithic
elaboration of edges into lines and the archetypal power of eyes to see
into the dark are exemplary instances of the rich and substantive
conjunctions of the tactile-kinesthetic and visual bodies.
A corporeal turn would furthermore foster an appreciation of cultural
mr^rdisciplinary studies. When culturally oriented academicians view
humans (or other creatures) simply on a behavioral level, in particular,
as a visual specimen from which information is to be gathered and on
which reports are to be made, they invariably begin by separating out
their particular "interest," be it economic, anthropological, religious,
sociological, or psychological. Thus, not only is experience neglected or
transposed to what is measurable, but the near exclusive focus on
behavior compartmentalizes knowledge. The problem is that we do not
live in this parcelled-out manner. Our sociology is not separate from our
psychology; our anthropology is not separate from our medical practice.
Disciplinary fragmentation exacerbates the neglect of experience. It
reduces knowledge about living creatures to discrete pieces of information
about them. Living creatures fail to be recognized as the "persistent
wholes" that they are." The mission of a philosophy of the cultural
disciplines should thus be to "interdisciplinize"—to draw together—as well
as to "universalize." The mission of a philosophy of the cultural
disciplines should in this sense recall that original Socratic philosophy that
knew no bounds, that persisted in its investigations and followed every
query wherever it led.
Phenomenology is critically positioned to carry out just this philosophy.
Phenomenologists who describe what is actually there in experience follow
the paths of experience where they lead and in so doing have the
possibiUty of relating their descriptive analyses to diverse fields of study,
tying together fragments of disciplinary information into coherent
understandings. Particularly with respect to analyses of fundamental bodily
experiences, a phenomenologist is critically positioned to show how
fundamental cultural practices and beliefs, even those stretching back to
stone tool-making, are in fact founded upon the pan-cultural universal
that is the living hominid body. Even further, and again, following the
paths of experience where they lead, a phenomenologist is critically

" The phrase "persistent wholes" is J. S. Haldane's. See his The Philosophical
Basis of Biology (New York: Doubleday, Doran and Co. 1931), 13.