"Vitenskapsteoretisk Forum" at NTNU (VITFORUM):
Richard Shusterman:
Thinking Through the Body: Educating for the Humanities

Mandag 23.05.05, NTNU, Trondheim, Norway, Aud. D5, Dragvoll, kl. 1315

Humanist intellectuals generally take the body for granted because we
are so passionately interested in the life of the mind and the creative
arts that express our human spirit. But the body is not only an
essential dimension of our humanity, it is also the basic instrument of
all human performance, our tool of tools, a necessity for all our
perception, action, and even thought. Just as skilled builders need
expert knowledge of their tools, so we need better somatic knowledge to
improve our understanding and performance in the arts and human sciences
and to advance our mastery in the highest art of all - that of
perfecting our humanity and living better lives. We need to think more
carefully through the body in order to cultivate ourselves and edify
our students, because true humanity is not a mere genetic given but an
educational achievement in which body, mind, and culture must be
thoroughly integrated. To pursue this project of somatic inquiry, I
have been working on an interdisciplinary field I call somaesthetics
whose aims, structure, and challenges will be outlined in this lecture
and whose interdisciplinary connections extend also beyond the
humanities to the biological, cognitive, and health sciences, which I
see as valuable allies for humanistic research.

Richard Schusterman is Professor of Philosophy at Dorothy F. Schmidt
College of Arts and Letters, Florida Atlantic University