Last year or the year before, when we discussed 'scientific' vs
'everyday' reasoning ala Vygotsky in a variety of contexts, I
had proposed that a critical element of the former was the habit
of seeing each possible action or opinion as one of a set of
alternatives. I think this is one of the essential elements of
reflective or reflexive thinking as the term is mainly being
used here at the moment. The other, presumably, is being able
to consider our own attitude toward an action or opinion as
one of a set of alternative possible attitudes (and which
therefore makes it possible to see ourselves and our own
viewpoint in a critical way, relate it to the stances of
others, etc.).
Neither of these features requires verbal language in principle,
though I still rather think that once language gets its foot
in the door one never quite does without it altogether (except
perhaps in very rapid motor response activity, as in Bourdieu's
examples of the habitus of the athlete during participation in
the sport, though of course there are other candidate cases, all
rather exceptional). But even if we allow that when we are
thinking with/by tinkering with gizmos, making sculptural forms,
arranging graph-lines on a single grid, or choreographing by
dancing with a partner and switching positions, the role of
language and its categories is rather minor sometimes, it still
seems that we can meet both the criteria I propose through
deploying the non-linguistic semiotic resources of these
activities. The dance example would be particular good, esp.
if it was not classical ballet (where there are linguistic
categories for body positions and movements that tend to
intrude strongly), but modern dance where there is not even
a language to describe what is happening (until one sets about
to make one). Actions, stances, movements are certainly seen and
felt in relation to alternatives, and by changing roles with the
partner, viewpoint is also factored. This could be taken even
one step more, if a second dancer replaces the choreographer,
who now stands back as observer and can see and kinesthetically
'reason' in a way that can formulate a sense-model of his/her
own dance-esthetic as it appears in the ensemble viewed, perhaps
contrastively with how another choreographer might do it, etc.
Bourdieu suggests, and it seems to be true in our culture at
least, that when we switch from participant stance to observer
stance we are more likely to verbalize. But our fundamental
metaphor here is a visual one, and its reference domain is a
spatial one (we step back, to observe ourselves). The verbal
habit is deeply engrained, and no doubt useful, but not
essential or necessary in principle I think. JAY.
JAY LEMKE.
City University of New York.
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