AIESEP Conference 26 October 2010

The importance and value of physical literacy throughout the lifecourse, based on existential and phenomenological schools of thought.

Margaret Whitehead PhD

University of Bedfordshire England

Physical literacy is a concept developed from a philosophical study of monism, existentialism and phenomenology.

The concept was developed

not

----- because I was intent, from the start, to look for a new way to express the purpose and value of physical activity ....................

............... as I studied, it gradually grew, in my judgement, into the notion that most closely aligned with the views of philosophers that I was studying.

The concept seemed to encapsulate the way that our embodied dimension contributes to our humanness, through playing a key role in our interaction with the world and thus the realisation of our individual potential - as described by these philosophers.

What I did start with was a passionate commitment to a monist appreciation of human being. Physical literacy arises from, and is based on, a monist philosophy.

The concept of monism is founded on the view that we are not comprised of two broad features/abilities - mental and physical, with the former usually being seen as superior to the latter. We are one indivisible whole, with every experience we have and every action we take, being influenced by, and influencing all, aspects of our personhood.

We are each comprised of a variety of capabilities, all of which function in concert with each other: reciprocally interacting, influencing and enriching each other.

Too much time has been spent, in my view, agonizing about how to put the separate parts together.

The philosophy of existentialists and phenomenologists refute this view and argue that we each develop as a whole - experiences are not compartmentalised, they arise from and engage with all aspects of our being.

As Strawson (in Gill 2000) asserts - the person is logically prior to any description of the dimensions from which the individual is comprised.

I believe that our reflective, analytic, conscious cognition has saddled us with a myth. A myth arising from the desire to isolate and name our different capabilities - as if they were separate entities. Descartes laid the ground for this in Western culture and we seem to be locked into this way of conceptualising human being. Leder (1990 153-4) talks about our being trapped inside a picture, a dualist picture that has limited our self-development and self-realisation. Eastern philosophies such as Zen and Yogic ideas are holistic. And in China their language supports the notion of monism, in that they have three words that refer to our embodied dimension.

These are

'shen' - the animate embodiment-as-lived;

'ti' - the inanimate embodiment-as-object or instrument;

and 'shi' - the embodiment-as-corpse.

Sadly in the English language we do not have the options of 'ti' or 'shen', habitually referring to our embodied dimension as 'ti'. Herein lies our problem – our limitation of only being able to refer to our embodied dimension as 'ti', as an object , as an instrument. Every time we use the word 'body' we are all but affirming a dualist approach to our human condition. It is principally the identification of the embodiment-as-lived that has fuelled the development of the idea of physical literacy. While the concept incorporates 'ti' and 'shen', it is the contribution of 'shen' to life as we know it that is highly significant.

As Leder reflects the notion of the embodiment-as-lived has the potential to provide a mode of escape from the cognitive habits of dualism that are deeply entrenched in our culture.

The myth alluded to above also includes a notion of an all powerful brain orchestrating the co-ordination of all the different aspects of our personhood. Again philosophers have challenged this, in fact identifying our embodied dimension as an underlying foundation of much of our understanding of the world and of ourselves.

Sheets-Johnstone (1992: 43) writes that 'A human intelligence bereft of a body would be an intellectual cripple' and Lakoff and Johnson (1999: 4) argue that 'Reason is not disembodied ... but arises from the nature of our brains, bodies and bodily experience'.

Similarly Merleau- Ponty referred to in Leder (1990:7) suggests that abstract cognition itself may sublimate but never escapes its inherence in a perceiving , acting body.

As soon as one adopts a monist approach with an appreciaton of the role of our embodiment-as-lived , our embodied dimension is seen in a very different light. And this is substantiated by existentialists who champion the view that existence precedes essence. Put simply this means that humans create their individual being through interaction with the world they inhabit.

Every interaction provides new perceptions, new experiences, new knowledge about the world. As we interact with the world we are ourselves enriched and changed. We not only come to know more about the world, but at the same time realise more of our potential and our capabilities.

We can interact with the world in a variety of ways.

Each mode of interacting with the world carries the potential to contribute to the full realisation of human being and so it follows that all modes that offer this interaction should be nurtured. The human embodied dimension is one such mode and is therefore worthy of serious study, attention and development.

This can be seen very clearly in the young child coming to appreciate the nature of everything around him - sounds, smells, the behaviour of others, the texture, weight and malleability of objects, etc. From experiences such as these the child begins to develop a picture of the world and how this impacts on his own functioning. Furthermore he begins to come to terms with ways of interacting with the world and in so doing experiences the confidence of achieving an effective relationship with the environment. This foundation of knowledge and understanding in the early years is constantly built on refined and sophisticated as we move into and through adult life.

Many writers are now convinced that the development of cognitive concepts depends on embodied interaction with the world. (PMM)

For example Burkitt (1999: 12) writes that meaning is created through our embodied interaction with the world and also says that 'What we call mind only exists because we are embodied and this gives us the potential to be active and animate within the world...we can only become persons and selves because we are located bodily at a particular place and time in relation to other people and things around us.'

Combining monist and existential views we can describe the individual as an indivisible entity comprised of reciprocally enriching modes of interacting with the world. Our embodied interaction with the world plays a significant part in creating and sustaining our individual human personhood.

Phenomenology adds further support for the significance of the embodied dimension, covering both 'ti' and 'shen', in proposing that the world is only grasped from the standpoint of the individual.

We perceive the world from the perspective of how we have interacted with it on previous occasions. The meaning it has for us is based on experience. We make sense of the world by assimilating what is perceived so that it builds from our prior knowledge, in a way 'seeing' the world in a particular way. We accommodate this new information about the world by merging it with existing knowledge and understanding. Each of us has a slightly different world and each of us is changed by what we experience.

The richer the understanding and appreciation of the world, accrued through interaction with the environment, the more sensitively perceptive the individual becomes, the more the individual learns about the world and at the same time learns about him/herself.

Given the key role that the embodied dimension plays in interacting with the world and the monist views of the human as a whole being, this provides further support for the importance of our embodiment. It is the case that an element of the meaning of most of our surroundings springs from our embodied relationship with features.

Unfortunately this meaning is seldom realised or articulated. Polyani (1966) describes this as tacit meaning or knowledge. Meaning that is inherent in our dealings with things. I have tried to articulate this meaning in my book.

We are as we are on account of our embodied nature and we interact with the world essentially from an embodied perspective. The world is for us a world viewed by an embodied being.

Monism, existentialism and phenomenology give unequivocal support for the significance of the embodied dimension in human life as we know it.

As such it is not appropriate to 'write off' our embodied dimension as a subordinate servant to our intellect.

Leder (1990: 114 and 126) again writes that 'the lived body is mentalised through and through, all of its organs participating in a uniquely human intelligence' and refers to the 'lived body as the seat of vitality, action and thought'.

To be motivated, confident and have the physical competence to interact effectively with the world, in other words to be physically literate, offers the individual the opportunity to capitalise on a significant aspect of his/her personhood.

Physical literacy and indeed literacy in any field, is not for me a personal skill but a disposition to use experience, understanding and abilities to interact effectively with the world.

Herein lies the value of physical literacy

Your embodied dimension has great potential to enrich your life.

And this enrichment is far more than obviating the need to go to the doctor or keeping physically fit, which of course is valuable.

Top of my list of enrichment are the realisation of a human potential and

the self confidence and self regard

this develops.

I believe that physical literacy can have a powerful influence on individual health in its broadest definition - but that is another paper. Website www.physical-literacy.org.uk

References

Brownell,S.(1995) Training the Body for China: Sports in the Moral Order of the People's Republic University of Chicago press. Chicago and London

Burkitt, I. (1999) Bodies of thought: Embodiment, Identitiy and Modernity. London: Sage.

Gallagher, S. (2005) How the body shapes the mind. Oxford: Clarendon Press.

Lakoff , G and Johnson, M. (1999) Philosophy in the flesh; The embodied mind and its challenge to Western thought. New York: Perseus Books Group. Basic Books.

Leder, D. (1990) The Absent Body. Chicago and London. University of Chicago Press.

Polanyi, M. (1966) The Tacit Dimension. Garden City, NY: Doubleday

Sheets-Johnstone, M. (1992) Giving the Body its Due. New York: SUNY Press.

Strawson Quoted in Gill,J.H. (2000) The Tacit Mode. New York: State University of New York Press.

Whitehead, M.E. (Ed) 2010 Physical; Literacy. Throughout the lifecourse. London: Routledge.

AIESEP 2010

MWhitehead