Coactivity: Philosophy, Communication 2015, Vol. 23, No. 2, 109–123.

ISSN 2029-6320 print/2029-6339 online

DOI http://dx.doi.org/10.3846/cpc.2015.227

DISCOURSES AND INTER-CORPOREITY

Algis MICKŪNAS

Department of Philosophy, College of Arts and Sciences, Ohio University,

Ellis Hall, Room 202, Athens, OH 45701, United States
E-mails: mickunaa@ohio.edu; amuali@gmail.com

Received 31 July 2015; accepted 12 September 2015

Contemporary European theories have focused attention on corporeity, its surface excitations and passions,
and even on politically constructed bodies – how do men and women “carry their bodies”. The great variety
of such claims suggests transformations in theoretical thinking, yet such changes were already articulated
at another level by phenomenological studies: kinesthetic body. It is obvious that to speak of corporeity is
possible only on the basis of analyses of corporeal movements. Thus, the aim of this essay is to disclose the
structures of bodily movements, constituting the basis of primordial awareness – not “I think” but “I can”.
In the essay there are presented a number of theses of post modernists who have not developed adequate
analyses of corporeal movements.

Keywords: horizons, “I can”, inter-corporeity, kinesthetic body, space-time morphologies.

Introduction concepts of body as a circulation of surface

effects, proposed by Gilles Deleuze, and the
The task of phenomenology has been both, to cynical body articulated by Peter Sloterdijk. It
describe the essential phenomena of awareness, seems to us that these interesting and perhaps
and through such a description to delimit the radical theses have delimited well the essential
transcendental conditions that provide most phenomena of awareness, but they have not
concrete access to any objectivity and/or su- articulated the concrete conditions for the
bjectivity. Yet currently, such conditions have possibilities of these phenomena. This is more
been replaced by the presumably more concrete so the case when these theses do not demons-
phenomena offered by a number of notable trate the connections between their claims and
thinkers. The present essay purports to take to the concrete corporeal–inter-corporeal enga-
task the most recent theoretical preoccupation gements in the lifeworld of praxis. The latter
with this replacement: the primacy of “discur- term is quite inclusive: it connects culturally,
sive practice”, offered by Michel Foucault, the economically, ritualistically required activities

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110 Algis Mickūnas Discourses and inter-corporeity

as inter-corporeal and equally individuating, analyses of strategies, and the constitution of

and the continuity in action from generation surface flow of vagabond nomads. Interesting as
to generation. such nomadic bricolage may be the actors, who
This, we shall argue, is the more basic con- interact with each other at this level of surface
ception of “history in the practical making” contacts, must first “move”, i.e. must constitute
than the history that is continuous only at the kinesthetic awareness. As we shall see, the latter
theoretical level. The former may have disconti- is one of the conditions that is granted, even in
nuities, overlappings, resumptions, and multiple its cultural variations, as a “tacit” dimension of
depth horizons, while the latter is regarded as a awareness in all lifeworld instances.
linear purposive teleology. Indeed, the notion of It is only metaphysicians who have posited
discontinuous history, offered by Foucault, and either mind or language as possessors of signifi-
by various postmodernists, is based on the his- cation and meaning, while reducing corporeity
tory of active engagements that need not have to a body mechanism in space-time continuum.
a continuity; certain actions are abandoned and Phenomenology, in contrast, has opened the
others, at times seen as “revolutionary” actions, active corporeity as being “prior” to any specu-
are initiated. Neither Foucault, nor Deleuze, and lative metaphysics and historicisms. What we
indeed not even Sloterdijk, have offered any propose then is the primacy of the “I can” over
grounding of their claims in the corporeity and the “I think”. The “I” does not stand for a conti-
inter-corporeity in and of the lived world. At nuous identity but as an indice of the abilities
one level, our task is to outline those prevalent that are correlated to concrete tasks with others.
theses and to show that they too have assumed, By now it ought to be obvious that the analyses
as their basis, the active inter-corporeity, and at this level will require a concretization of the
the lifeworld whose current constitution in the primacy of dialogue. The inter-corporeity, in
West is technical. While being writers, they have face of tasks, is also a mutual understanding of
sedimented their bodily activities to accom- the corporeal gestures concerned with what we
modate the current “practical implements” are doing and how it is to be done.
for their writing. Thus, the phenomenological
conditions for their possibility of offering their
theses is equally the acquired corporeal abilities Discursive practice
in correlation to what the current practical im-
plements require of their bodies. In this sense, The claims of Foucault regarding the most
we shall introduce a lifeworld of praxis that concrete phenomena are focused upon the
not only includes inter-corporeity, but also the multiple discourses as strategies that are de-
socioeconomic, practical world that calls for signed to adjudicate, promote, and establish
certain corporeal activities. powers in face of other powers. In Foucault’s
The world “out there” is not an objectivity terms, there is not one central power, but multi-
“in itself ” but an instrumental structuration that ple contesting powers (Foucault 1972, 1979,
requires a “pedagogy” of action in correlation 1980, 1975, 1990, 1994). This comes from the
to these structurations. While our analyses of argument of Friedrich Nietzsche that, in the
the concrete conditions of “awareness” have final analyses, one power cannot be power. Any
been offered in different contexts, our points power requires counter powers. Foucault adds
are designed not to deny or negate the current to this thesis the modern notion that there is
breakthroughs by the theoretical trends we shall no one master discourse, but equally multiple
articulate, but to open the passively assumed discourses as strategies for power. He follows
inter-corporeal and “inter-instrumental” aware- the Nietzschean notion that even language or
ness that subtend and/or pervade the discursive discourse is not a description of some reality,
 Coactivity: Philosophy, Communication 2015, 23(2): 109–123 111

but a means to acquire and extend power over action is a terminology that is not derived from
other powers (Foucault 1972, 1979, 1980, 1975, discourses. Rather, the discourses themselves
1990, 1994). It is important to understand that must follow the corporeal practical condi-
an effort to extend power over everything will tions as ways of making senses of discursive
never succeed because other powers will equ- strategies. What we suggest is that one cannot
ally use discursive powers to resist and surpass understand terms such as “history has no conti-
currently given powers – for a moment. This nuity or direction”, as Foucault would have it,
logic simply states that there cannot be one in- unless one has a corporeal understanding of di-
finite power, since the very definition of power rections, orientations, constitutions of practical
requires counter-power. That means that there spaces and times in order to understand the dis-
can be only multiple powers, each one requiring courses. Discourses, as power strategies, would
the others in order to be powers. In this sense, not be able to articulate what someone must
Foucault’s logic suggests that discursive means do, where someone must go, or when someone
are essentially strategies to achieve and enhan- must be somewhere, unless one already has an
ce power in contrast or in opposition to other oriented body. More concretely speaking, even
discourses and their efforts to achieve power. the language of economy cannot be understood
The discursive practice as strategy is a logic that as a discursive practice of a capitalist or com-
operates on the bases of its own rules and the munist power unless the worker and the ruling
more basic constructs of a given milieu such as elites understand the body orientations in the
modernity. This means that one can learn the workplace in correlation to the specific imple-
grammar of a discourse and yet, in order to use ments requiring concrete corporeal actions in
this grammar as a strategy, one also presupposes face of tasks (for other details see Lingis 1994).
the background of a cultural unconscious that Foucault claims that there are institutio-
allows the grammar to function as if it were nalized discourses that require the human to
“normal”. The cultural unconscious is the nor- subject himself to those discourses in order to
malizing condition that seems to structure all acquire strategic power (Foucault 1972, 1979,
human engagements and discourses. 1980, 1975, 1990, 1994). Yet, in this case the
No doubt. There are the cultural phenomena human must have a corporeal and inter-corpo-
that are unquestioned and structure all other real awareness of movement, spatio-temporal
levels (whether such phenomena are uncons- constitution of places and times and therefore a
cious can be answered only metaphysically), system of corporeal orientations as a condition
yet our contention is that even these cultural for using the discursive strategies. In brief, the
phenomena are grounded in the direct engaged discursive logic is two-dimensional; without a
awareness of corporeity and inter-corporeity. multidimensional body that, as an awareness,
These engaged modes of awareness are the is coextensive with the signitive movements
transcendental conditions for the awareness of vectors of spatiality and temporality of the
of the functioning of powers and discursive lifeworld. Without movements that are cons-
practices. In order to make sense of discourses, tituted in the very activity of corporeity, the
specifically under the assumption that they discourses would make no sense. When we are
are implicit power imperatives, there is a more talking about corporeity and inter-corporeity,
basic awareness that consists of a system(s) we are not suggesting something psychological,
of lifeworld orientations, vectors, assumed by individualistic or physiological-scientific. These
particular corporeity. The latter, as a structure of notions are equally metaphysical, since they try
concrete awareness, makes sense of the abstract, to reduce inter-corporeity to an entity in a pre-
discursive power logics. The basic discursive given space and time. What we are suggesting
terminology that involves prescription for is that anyone who is engaged in any strategic
112 Algis Mickūnas Discourses and inter-corporeity

discourse in any culture will also accept pas- that in the period of post colonialism, it is not
sively the awareness of kinesthetic corporeity sufficient to understand modern discursive
and inter-corporeity as actions in correlation strategies in opposition to indigenous dis-
to tasks to be performed by us in a cultural and cursive strategies as clashing powers. Rather,
socioeconomic setting. more primordially, there is a required recons-
Given the assumption of the discursive titution of the inter-corporeal transcendental
practice, there is no way to understand why conditions that would be necessary for the
there should be a discontinuity in history. After functioning in the Western modern setting.
all, discourses of any type are significations that This, we contend, is the ground for “historical
imply horizons beyond horizons without any discontinuity”. Given the reconstitution of
limit. But the breakdown of continuous history the lifeworld of a given people by globalizing
is possible on the basis of what we do and what modernity, there is also a reconstitution of
we stop doing, of what we build and what we what people do concretely and corporeally in
destroy. To speak architecturally, one mode of this new lifeworld. If a lifeworld is a system of
building is discarded and becomes a relic for concrete inter-corporeal signitive implications,
tourists, while other modes of building become these signitive implications appear only on the
the current style. The previous one does not im- background of inter-corporeal awareness. I
ply nor does it necessarily continue the current know what I can do, and I know what we can
one; they can be different and discontinuous. do in face of given tasks, but now I must learn
This is to say, the previous acquired corporeal how to do in face of very different tasks, laden
activities of building or even producing are with technologies. No doubt, the constitution
discarded and new ones are constituted in face of corporeity is social and cultural, nonetheless
of new tasks. Thus, the previous “I can” is no the prescriptions assume that a corporeity take
longer required and a new “I can” is consti- on a structuration process as an acquisition of
tuted. In this sense, there is no necessity for a abilities of “I–we can”.
continuous historical subject. Those who cannot We would like to suggest another argument
acquire the abilities required of the new tasks concerning the primacy of the kinesthetic
to be performed are designated as incapable consciousness vis-à-vis Foucault’s notion of
and maybe inferior. In short, their sedimented discursive strategies. As we already noted, the
activities, that constituted their self identity as structure of discourse is two dimensional. It
“I can”, are no longer required for the current does not imply a connection between itself
tasks. Hence, they loose their position, status, and the tacit understanding of our corporeal
pride, dignity, etc., because they “cannot do” the and inter-corporeal activities in the lifeworld.
required activities. This means that Foucault assumes the modern
While Foucault’s discursive strategies notion of language that must be “applied” on,
purport to imply that institutionalized modes and thus determine “reality”. This is to say, he
of activities determine what we are and what is following quite uncritically the modern con-
we do, our point is that even institutionalized ception that “all theory must be applied” and
discourses require the condition of awareness that “scientific knowledge is power”. We do not
that is corporeal within whose parameters the claim that he is wrong, but wish to point out
discursive practices make sense. If we regard that his thesis is very much a part of Western
Western modern globalization, that extends modern modernity. The latter also assumed
technologies of mass production, we shall see that the only trusted theory is one that can be
that this globalization requires very different applied, but has never articulated the transcen-
inter-corporeal activities than those that were dental inter-corporeal conditions required to
acquired by indigenous peoples. This is to say make sense of application. The inter-corporeity
 Coactivity: Philosophy, Communication 2015, 23(2): 109–123 113

is, according to phenomenology, a process of Their analysis must, thus, be functional. This
kinesthetic abilities and their restrictions in face is not to say that they function mechanically
of the given social, economic, and even cultural or even vitalistically. Both theorists, no doubt,
tasks and the technical means available for their would see such designations as speculative.
fulfillment. The latter are designed to explicate a unitary
function of an organism. But for these thinkers,
the organism is a massive number of molecular
The nomad processes, and each consists in the formation
of a connection – an energy flow – and its in-
Two other theorists, Deleuze and Félix Guttari, terruption and consumption. They arm desire
are engaged in an unrelenting critique of the machines. The nutrition, the oxygen, the earth,
Oedipal triangle and of psychoanalysis that the light, are analogates in nature; each system,
move its trade within the context of this triangle with its own order, nonetheless connects with
(Deleuze, Guattari 1996). For Western mo- the organism as it connects with them. The bee
dern understanding, the myth of the Oedipus is part of the reproductive system of clover, as is
complex attempts to locate madness as an the wind, the human hand and the tail of a dog.
alienation from the prevalent social institution The plan is partially Nietzschean; our custo-
of the patriarchal family. The cure for any and mary conception of ourselves as a unitary ego
all madness is a reconciliation mediated by the and will, an actor behind the acts, has proffered
doctor, with the family, and a forming of a fa- a pretense of integrality: I am working, and I am
mily of one’s own. Deleuze and Guattari point enjoying, and I am in love – all reveal at once
out that this cure does not offer a genuine libe- an illusion of any unity, and the nomadism, the
ration but instead provides a way of psychiatric constant renaming of the self, and show that
participation in a repression of the human by there is no inherent synthetic unity, but selective
the bourgeoisie at its most far reaching level. processes that overlap and accommodate, tense
For them, the carnal desire does not have an and adjust. At the same time these theorists
object; rather, it is invested in whole environ- use basically a modern and partially a Marxian
ments, impulses and fluxes, and is essentially terminology to articulate these primordial pro-
nomadic (Deleuze, Guattari 1996). We always cesses of communication. The molecular pro-
make love to the world. Eroticism pervades all; cesses are productive and equally reproductive
the way a technocrat oils the machinery, the of production. In this sense they never change
way a judge pronounces a sentence, the way a to negativity, a desire of absences, or a phallic
corporation screws the worker. Only through absence beyond all satisfaction. The molecular
articulation, exclusion, and isolation that libido processes produce couplings that disconnect
becomes invested in objects or persons. The and disjoin flows and produce satisfaction, a
objectification is produced in the constitution consummate consumption. This conception is
of a subject. Yet it is important to note that the a conjunction of readings from biology, child
objects or persons are intersections of agonistic psychology, schizophrenic literature, and above
and protagonistic confluences of biological, all, Nietzschean reading of sociocultural history.
social, historical, and psychic fields which have The Nietzschean concept of savages and
been equally subject to libidinal investments. nomads is regarded as definitory of infantile
The molar structures – organisms and en- stages of our history. A barbarian and/or im-
vironments – formed from molecular structu- perial stage followed, that led to the capitalist
res, are composed of the processes which are stage, whose conclusive development in the
coextensive with their functioning: they do not positivity of capital as the global and univer-
signify or represent, aim at or mean anything. sal decoding and deterritorialization, ends in
114 Algis Mickūnas Discourses and inter-corporeity

savagery and schizophrenia. Schizophrenization integrate, interiorize and sublimate its laws, one
is writ large in our social world; it is written is classified as neurotic; in case one does not
even in the way we make love with the world recognize its power, reason and legitimacy, one
in our day and age. What this comprises is an is named psychotic. This is to say, the retreat
attack on two factors: the Oedipal triangle, and in the face of the Oedipal theater would be a
the structural linguistic reading of events that return to the pre-civilized, the primary, the no-
are pre-linguistic, nomadic, and without na- madism without designated and transcendent
mes. Moreover, the theoretical issues are more objectivities, the realities of daily and scientific
profound; far from being a context of all inter- discourse, the negativities of the law, the law of
pretation where civilization is accessed, reality modern bourgeoisie rationality, instrumental
coded, and socialization enforced, the Oedipus power of production.
stage itself emerges at a certain conjunction What would then be the extrication not
of cultural history. In this sense, it ceases to from the conjunction of chemical and biolo-
have a universal and necessary validity, an all gical processes, the constant exchanges and
encompassing explanatory force, and becomes adjustments of energy, constant intersection of
contingent, historically limited, and a partial processes to gain and release flows, but in terms
mode of speaking. This thesis is already obvious of the social-psychological drama. The infant
in Foucault’s reading of Nietzsche, where the who screams with the first breath, with the pain
domain of madness and rationality is not seen of being born, is a biochemical, unprotected
as pregiven, but as set up. Indeed, such a setting mass. It wants to return to the immediacy of
up is not at all a theoretical operation, but a the undifferentiated enclosure, to the inorganic
social practical invention, leading subsequently happiness. The infant now must obtain its suste-
to a specific concept of reason that no longer nance from the maternal substance to replenish
engages in a dialogue with its opposite, but is a the liquidous energy lost through its open tubes
monologue about the opposite, the linguistically and porous skin. Thus it clings to the mother
deemed irrational. and produces, for the first time, surface effects
This is precisely the Lacanian linguistic by extending its own surfaces through direct
thesis. All the separations of science and theater, touch and liquids consumed. Here the clinging
explanation and poetics, are linguistic power to the mother produces pleasure. This is the
segregations. This is a modern set up where the moment at which the infant overcomes the de-
socially dysfunctional – in terms of the logic of sire to return to the inorganic state and blocks
bourgeoisie industrialism – is regarded as irra- the death wish. The organism does not begin
tional, deviant, residua of industrial revolution, to sense, but must first produce the pleasure of
is in need of supervision, treatment, are minors living. It does so on the surfaces and nodes of
who someday might become responsible ci- undisrupted touching, caressing and ingesting,
tizens. Indeed, the rationality becomes not a on the surfaces that are constituted by these
mere looking into reality, but a very prescription very processes of attachments.
of normalcy and curative practices. When the This layer of orgiastic communication,
family, the agrarian community, becomes dis- of primary extension of surfaces, is rejected
mantled by industrialism, the curative institu- by Lacanian structural linguistics. The latter
tion becomes the father for the modern residua. derives its force from the phallic signifier cons-
Thus the psychoanalytic theory of modernity titutive of the symbolic order. The infant enters
is also established to reflect this practice, to language as Phallus, as an already constituted
give it scientific legitimacy. Here one must sign. One can enter language only as an element
accept the subjection to the doctor-father and of language, a signifier, as a part of a symbolic
enter the Oedipal triangle; in case one does not order. The order is not constituted part by part,
 Coactivity: Philosophy, Communication 2015, 23(2): 109–123 115

such that a signifier would be determined by a function of a constituted faculty, its constitution
signifying singular act, pointing to a signified assumes a repetition as representation enacted,
identity; signs function in and are simulta- performed, and not added from outside by a
neously an internal articulation of a field of reflexive consciousness. This is equally a new
signifiers, related in mutual oppositions. In this conception of repression: one does not repeat
sense, the world is born as a whole through any the binding because one is oppressed, but one
sign, and the latter, functioning diacritically, is oppressed by the very repetition. In this way it
can signify anything. The child, thus, enters the makes sense that the repetition does not repre-
field not from outside, but as a Phallic signifier sent itself, it is never an object for itself, but an
who is constantly referred to altereity, to others, enactment posing no distance to itself, a magic
and thus is a zero signifier, a floating signifier, that collapses unto itself.
that once was called the transcendental Ego, This, now, makes sense of Deleuze’s rejection
forever absent, although always appearing as a of discursive law and its power in the Oedipal
unfulfillable desire – a total negativity. This is complex. The power of the law is too late. It
what defines eroticism as a desire. promises a synthesis of the similar in quality,
Deleuze and Guttari posit the orgiastic body or as equivalent in quantity. The law allows one
as a rejection of the Oedipal setting. While mo- to exchange parts, son for a father, paternal and
dern culture would designate such a rejection with father’s name, and becoming a member of
either as neurosis, psychosis, and schizophrenia, culture and thus significant. But repetition is a
they regard this rejection as a complete positi- fatum of the dissimilar, inexchangeable, irrepea-
vity. For them the orgiastic upsurge is neither table and dispersed singularity. A destiny never
a need nor a desire but production (Deleuze, consists of determinate relations, following
Guattari 1996). It is a force tensing against step by step, between presents, succeeding one
power, resistance, overcoming and extending another in accord with the structure of theo-
into erotic surfaces of pleasure, excesses, gra- retical, sequential time. The dissimilar imply
tuities, discharges of the superfluity of forces gaps between presents, trace non-localizable
and tensions that are the primary, non-signifi- connections, actions at a distance, recurrences
cative, pre-objective, pre-subjective, and even without temporal distances, resonances and
pre-psychological processes of communication. echoes, chances, signals and signs, roles that
Here the pleasure is not an object to be obtai- transcend spatial situations and temporal su-
ned, an intentional aim that could be instancia- ccessions. Thus a singular repeats and has its
ted, but a force that upsurges and dissipates. Yet own singular destiny and any authentic com-
such force is mobile and fortuitous, appearing munication would require an attunement to
here and there, now and then, and from this this, the orgiastic carnality with its rhythm that
mobility one could not compose some sort of mocks every language and pretended explana-
pleasure principle as a basic aim, drive, or a tion: a total positivity.
bond. Deleuze would regard bonding, as the It could be surmised that this nomadic po-
basis of the pleasure principle, as a second layer sitivity pervades even Jean-François Lyotard’s
appearance of the orgiastic in repetition, ritual, conception of the orgiastic body to the extent
patterns that bind and fix the freely mobile in- that the nomadic couplings with surface no-
tensities, reduce their force. Thus the oppression des and productive of force, extend to cover
of the orgiastic carnality does not come from otherwise incomprehensible practices. How is
outside, from a language and a consciousness, it that empires are set up basically by nomadic
but is inherent in the very production of the “heroes” whose achievements and excesses are
surface pleasures. It could be said that while not only a spread of the geographic surfaces,
recognition, the construction of memory, is a but are on the move for novel couplings with
116 Algis Mickūnas Discourses and inter-corporeity

other areas and domains, seeking other “conqu- Sloterdijk, here, evokes Nietzsche’s pronounce-
ests”. Although the imperial patterns seem to ment that the philosophers of the future will be
establish an inner suppression of the nomadic physiologists. Body, for Sloterdijk, is the most
logic, the latter will irrupt in senseless “games” covered up, most negated set of processes that,
attended by crowds, lashed from frenzy to coi- in it being negated is most present (Sloterdijk
tion, only to disperse back to the patterns of self 1988, 1990). This is to say, all the bodily pro-
inflicted suppression. cesses that occur without “our permission” have
But what, then, does this nomadism take been overlaid not only with fig leaves and other
for granted as the condition for its possibility. clothing, but also with “pure thought”, or “ideal
The very name nomadism suggests the power images”, and even angelic blessings. Yet despite
of movement, supposes kinesthetic awareness. all efforts, the body demonstrates its cynicism
Even the infant’s coupling to the maternal by urinating against the wind of idealities.
body, the clamping of the mouth to maternal The “lower parts” of society, the “dirty” and
breast, the clutching to her hair, require passive the “polluted” comprise the cynical realism.
syntheses of movement. The latter, as a kinest- Although the “high heads” may pretend to
hetic body, does not occur part for part, such escape the grime of the working bodies, the
that when the hand grips the rest of the body heads, perched on their thrones, must still be
remains unaffected. To reach is to reach with a seated on their asses, the real proletariat of the
total corporeal gesture, not only by stretching social world. Such a proletariat is not overly
one’s arm, but by kicking one’s leg and twisting concerned with ego and status, position and
the torso. The positive flows and productions of pose, but mainly with the hungry stomach and
energies and their disruptions on the surfaces the toiled (even if it is a hole in the ground).
depicted by Deleuze and Guattari require more What interests Sloterdijk, at this level, is not so
primary abilities, the constitution of kinesthe- much the facticity of the proletarian preoccu-
tic body at the passive level (Deleuze, Guattari pation with this type of the body, but above all,
1996). Hence it is our task to explicate such a its very presence even among the heads of the
body and its inter-corporeity and, as a matter high culture. They too are basically concerned
of experience, policentric access to the world. with their stomachs and the toilets (even if the
stomachs are “educated” to demand gourmet,
and the assess are trained to deposit their
The cynical body treasures in a perfumed toilet). As already
mentioned, these cynical bodies do not ask for
Sloterdijk engages in the task of comprehending permission; they do their contingent necessi-
power from the side of the body. Using the ties prior to and through all higher necessities,
phenomenological method, he articulates two be the latter important matters of state or less
broad modes of cynical “philosophizing”, the important matters of some mother church. To
body of the “lower” processes, the uncultured, use phenomenological terms, these bodies are
and the “polite body” of the elites, polite at least engaged with the world “anonymously” and im-
under the public gaze if not in private domain personally, so to speak “transcendentally”. They
(Sloterdijk 1988, 1990). Nonetheless, even the are, after all, the condition for the possibility of
elitist high discourses are designed to gratify all that is deemed to be “higher”.
some body passion, and in the last analysis, the We have no doubt that Sloterdijk has opened
acquisition of power. In this sense the erotic amidst the higher and the highest functions of
theory of wisdom, philosophy, has ended and culture a body that mocks all pretenses of trans-
is replaced by quest for power. Consciousness, cending the dirty world. Yet, it is our contention
in brief, comes with skin, hair, claws, and teeth. that this lower, although all pervasive body,
 Coactivity: Philosophy, Communication 2015, 23(2): 109–123 117

has to function even as a working body on the not posit metaphysical entities but articulates
basis of acquired or to be changed abilities in engaged corporeities that recognize each other
face of socioeconomic and technical tasks. This in what they can or cannot do. This is to say,
is to say, that a cynical body, to fulfill even its the philosophical issue of individuation and
meager requirements, must engage in socially how from the individual we get a community,
constituted activities. In this sense, the cynical is answered at the level of praxis and active
body presupposes the body in praxis or to inter-corporeity. To turn the question around,
speak purely phenomenologically, specifically the last two centuries up to date have offered
constituted inter-corporeal kinesthetic system. numerous volumes arguing either for the pri-
The hungry bodies that mock the promises ority of the individual or for the priority of the
of the high heads of economic great future as social. Our investigations suggest that to posit
described by the elites that lead these bodies to an individual in distinction from other indi-
victory, will be treated by these very elites cy- viduals does not show us in what sense there
nically as dumb working bodies for somebody is an individual self-recognition as individual,
else benefit, including the benefit of the elites nor can we derive society from sum of discrete
that explain the reason why these bodies are individuals. In turn, we cannot show how an
hungry and cynical. The lower parts, as the real individual will be derived from the primacy of
proletariat, is a sign of the proletariat that must the society. We are demonstrating that neither
subject its inter-corporeal kinesthetic constitu- is prior and that both are mutually constituted
tions in face of the requirements of production at the level of engaged corporeity and inter-cor-
lines, of the mechanisms which the hand and poreity facing common tasks at various levels.
the eye must manage and to which they must
accommodate in their movements. While the
workers asses might fart and their mouths may Body in action: constitution of space
spit, yet in order to participate in the production
for a meager wage, the worker will be “trained” While in his earlier works Edmund Husserl
in activities that the means of production call still spoke of hyletic data as given, but in
for. What we are suggesting is that the condition Ideas II: Phenomenological Analyses Relating to
for the possibility of cynical bodies is the kinest- the Problems of Constitution (Ideen II: Phäno­
hetic inter-corporeity whose activities cannot be menologische Untersuchungen zur Konstitution,
avoided. To speak with Ludwig Klages (1970), 1952), and in The Crisis of European Sciences
the slightest expressivity, even erotic, or cynical, and Transcendental Phenomenology (Die Krisis
is already a kinesthetic formation of a face, a der europäischen Wissenschaften und die tran-
total body gesture, and not a given state of an szendentale Phänomenologie: Eine Einleitung in
ontologically conceived body. We must not die phänomenologische, first edition in 1936) this
forget that even Diogenes of Sinope, parading view is undercut by the functioning of corporei-
his cynical body in the market place, had to get ty; the latter belongs to the passive side of trans-
there from his barrel and to squat in front of cendental subjectivity, yet in such a way that it
Plato’s house in order to pose as a cynic. transgresses the factual and the essential while
Our phenomenological investigations into founding in its generality both. The constitutive
inter-corporeity have performed number of activities subtend the hyletic data and show
tasks. First, they account for the passive and that the latter appear on the basis of kinesthetic
anonymous engagement in tasks with others; constitution of spaciality and temporality. This
and second, they demonstrate the constitution means that even the primordial data and indeed
both of once own self-recognition and the any surface nomadic nodes of sensuality are ap-
recognition of the other. This recognition does perceptive. The impressional data already have
118 Algis Mickūnas Discourses and inter-corporeity

a form and content and both are mediated by unity of experience, and in recourse to factual
constitutive activities of spatialization and tem- experience and its conditions which make it
poralization that provide duration and position possible. This is the central issue. If this is a re-
for the data. Without kinesthetic apperception sult concerning necessary condition which must
there are no impressions, sensations or intensive be presupposed, what constitutes its universal
nodes, and without kinaesthesia there are no necessity? It might be a hypothesis that could
apperceptions. The urimpressions are synthetic turn out to be unwarranted, or an ideology,
units of kinaesthesia. In this sense, kinesthetic disproven in subsequent experiences.
consciousness is space–time consciousness. The problematic could be restated in other
This means, furthermore, that corporeity is not terms. The basis for which Husserl seeks is to be
constituted but constitutive. It is a system of absolute, and yet the question of the individual
activities to which sense fields are coordinated is not answered purely on the transcendental
and as such is on the side of transcendental arguments for an ego. Individuality is to be
subjectivity. This makes precedent of corporeity sought elsewhere. It is precisely such a search
as “I can”, provided that no phenomenological that leads to the absoluteness of the corporeally
credence is given to the “I”. It could be said pro- engaged factual individual and inter-corporeal
visionally that the empowerments of corporeity relationships: contingent absoluteness. How
are genetically prior to the appearance of the is this contingency to be understood? Earlier
ego, or the discovery of the “mine” precedes the discussion would have suggested that it is a
discovery of the ego. fact correlated to an essence, but such a cor-
Here the world and other relationships are relation turns out to be impossible since every
pre-delineated. This subjectivity does not have fact is already a constituted system in a field.
the world as something facing it, but something In addition, the reflective thinking cannot
that is coextensive with it. The world is to the determine the limits of the facticity of passive
extent our corporeal activities constitute it in activities and hence correlate them to essential
synthetic praxis and articulation: we know insights. Neither facticity nor essentiality will
of it as much as is announced in corporeal do, specifically if experienced facticity of self in
activities. The activities are not at our disposal activity does not yield any substantial identity
but are what we are in praxis, and the world is and predicative characterizations. The factual
the praxis world. In this sense the world is not process is not experienced as a brute and dumb
confronted, but is coextensive with the trans- fact, to be subsumed as an exemplar of an eidos,
cendental becoming. And this is precisely why but as a system of dynamic abilities, deployed
the world escapes us as an object or subject and from a here and a now, not in a sense of being
remains as an anonymous groundless ground. inserted in a pregiven space-time, but from
Nonetheless, it bears in itself the principle both which the world is opened in action. The null-
of individuation and other relatedness, their point is the corporeity from which all actions
difference and commonality. It pre-establishes unfold, but in such a way that the null-point
a process which can be called mine and diffe- itself is apperceptive and located in a process of
rentiated from others on a common ground. shifting and intersecting activities comprising a
Without the corporeal activities, conscio- field and not a position.
usness of self is a presupposition, a condition Our contention is that this field and its field
for the possibility of experience but not an nature are pre-delineated in its factual life as
experience of the individual self or ego. The a constant activity and a structuration of the
unity of the transcendental ego might turn out perceptual world. The ego is an achievement of
to be a construction, or an explanatory principle factual enablements that are not factual data. In
which one presupposes in order to explain the this sense, the ego is absolute fact. Its necessity
 Coactivity: Philosophy, Communication 2015, 23(2): 109–123 119

is neither essential nor contingent. Both are a mirror, but because they are kinesthetically
subtended by the acting corporeity and its sys- reflexive and at the same time coextensive with
tematic engagements with the practical affairs. and differentiated from those of others. I cannot
What follows from such an absolute fact is that do this means that not only that I have tried and
any essential and contingent determinations failed but that I have seen others perform it. The
of it are inadequate. In this sense it is without correlation of abilities and inabilities is an inter-
ground. One could claim that the activities are corporeal experience present in the handling
constitutive of, while being unconstituted by, of tasks and undertakings. Corporeal abilities
the phenomenal field. Given this it is now possi- comprise an understanding of commonalities
ble to take the last step toward the tracing of the and individuating differences.
question of individuality and inter-subjectivity. The commonality has two components: first
Bodily activities constitute an ineradicable the common task in which we are engaged,
facticity that is not dumb but an articulated pro- and second the continuity of activities that
cess that does not emerge into the foreground – differentiate themselves into variations. We lift
specifically since it is not entitative but constitu- something, but you do it from that side and I
tive of spacio-temporalization of patterns. The do it from this. While the end you are lifting is
latter are neither interior nor exterior; hence heavier, you can, and I cannot lift that end, yet
reflective awareness is inadequate to grasp it. I can lift this end, and thus discover a common
Rather it is a taken for granted point of depar- activity and its corporeal differentiation. This
ture for any investigation of the lived world and constitutes a polycentric field of activities and
a field of history. Each gesture and movement includes others who are not present at the task.
is accomplished spontaneously and recognized “If only Joe were here to lend us a hand”, inclu-
in correlation to, and distinction from, others. des the abilities of Joe as coextensive with, and
From childhood on there is a vital-kinesthetic differentiated from our capacities. Or, “Lucky
exploration of the world and the constitution of that Mike is not here; he certainly likes to lend a
corporeal abilities. The latter are neither inner hand, but tends to be more of a hindrance than
nor outer, but are primarily effective. One can help”. The investigations reveal possible varia-
reach something, move something, pull, push, tions that take over the suggestion of Cartesian
lift and throw. This effectivity comprises its own Meditations (Méditations cartésiennes, first
domain of cognition. edition in 1931) concerning empathy. At the
While pre-reflective, corporeal move- active level the term empathy can be modified
ments constitute their own self-reflexivity by “filling in”. It is quite a common notion; we
and self-reference. In a missed attempt to do fill in for someone at the job, by taking over a
reach something, the attempt is immediately function, or by putting our shoulder to the task
repeated. The missing comprises an instance from another side. All these functions suggest a
of movement which reflects back upon itself commonality and a variation. This is corporeal
and calls for a variation of itself in a second individuation and inter-corporeal field that is
attempt. There is a direct kinesthetic question: neither a simple fact, nor an essence; it subtends
can I do this? Revealing at the outset an already both. Concurrently, there is a level of reflexivity,
articulated field of abilities and tasks with pos- of direct apperception of the self and the other
sible variations that never offer a final, factual on the basis of activities that both undertake.
limitation. Here one builds a recognition of Her ability to reach something, and my lack
oneself in terms of what one can do. This self- of such an ability, despite my efforts, reflects
recognition is coextensive with the recognition directly our corporeal commonality of reaching,
of the abilities as mine, not because the abilities and our differences. Thus, the I can is prior to
are mirrored in a psychological interiority or in the pure I, since the former is individuated and
120 Algis Mickūnas Discourses and inter-corporeity

differentiated from others, and yet is directly this that allows an archeologist a historian, and
aware of them as well as of itself. an anthropologist to reconstruct the so called
It should be by now somewhat more obvious past on the basis of some handy find. This is to
that the ground of history is neither historical say, these scholars and researchers do not have
nor constituted by a logic of continuity of to date the find in a preconceived temporal
time, but is the very process of inter-corporeal sequence – this comes as an occupational tan-
making, comprising an interconnected field of dem subsequently – but to encounter it as an
bodily activities such that the activities, cons- analogate of what they could do with this object
tituting a systematic engagements in tasks, are and imply that we too already recognize that we
individuating and coextensive with others. Yet could equally do similar things.
this leads to the reinvestigation of the “factu- This means that there is no necessary in-
al” tasks and objects to which such tasks are terconnection among all activities; some are
related. The factual states of affairs, correlated continued, others discontinued, and still ot-
to our activities, are equally prior to essentia- hers postponed, thus constituting varied time
lity and brute factuality. Rather they have an structures and task structurations that prohibit
open explorability and generality, specifically any teleological direction to history. With such a
with respect to their practical functions. It prohibition, any quest for history as something
is to be noted that history is not thought but that is unidirectional and above the activities
built, made, in practical engagements. Such and tasks that build it, ceases to make sense.
engagements reveal another aspect of activities The activities are of course interconnected in
that could be called dimensional, leading to various ways, inclusive of the above delimited
corporeal analogization of the field of praxis. commonalties and differentiations, yet they
The active handling of objects does not exhibit comprise a field without a telos, without a di-
a one-to-one correlation between activities and rection and hence a continuous building but
the objects. Each activity can range over various not in any sense temporal building. It is rather
and typologically distinct objects and tasks. The an atemporal intersection of activities wherein
hand can pick up a stone, a hammer, a stick the so called past and the presumed future, as
and use any of them to pound a stick into the ontologizations, come too late. In brief, the lived
ground. And this constitutes a primal analo- world as historical is a world of praxis that does
gization in two senses. First, one can perform not admit either of essentiality or of facticity;
similar activities and recognize them directly rather both are coextensive with what Husserl
anywhere and anyplace prior to historical tem- describes as “primordial technē” (Husserl 1964,
poralization, and second, the activities perform 1952, 1932, 1970; Landgrebe 1963, 1968). Any
a passive analogization of objects by using given society in its practical tasks also compo-
them as interchangeable in face of a task. The ses specific sedimented activities of bodies and
hammer, the stone and the stick are analogates inter-corporeities that comprise a background
by virtue of the generality of our abilities. In concrete consciousness. This sedimented in-
this sense the “I can” is a factual generality that ter-coporeity allows for a foreground activities
cannot be reduced either to a closed essence or of certain body movements. When Deleuze,
a brute fact. One can then claim that the his- Guttari, and even Georges Bataille speak of
torical field is recognized by the interchanging the modern production, such as capitalist
functions as analogous to one another, capable production, where the owner only buys the
of filling in one another, and equally by the worker hands as an attachment to a mechanical
facts as systems, not revealing essentialities, as productive process, they failed to note that even
was shown at the outset, but various analogical kinesthetic composition of the hands not only
interconnections, recognizable corporeally. It is correlate to the tasks to be performed, but also
 Coactivity: Philosophy, Communication 2015, 23(2): 109–123 121

assume a kinesthetic sedimented corporeity as the field of tasks that we inter-corporeally per-
a background. This is to say body must stand form. If I plow a field and my son leads the mule
or seat in a particular posture in order to make I know what he is doing and he knows what I
the hands as a foreground to be able to perform am doing in correlation to the tasks we are both
what the worker would say “I can do this job”. performing. We have a passive awareness of the
Assuming that Foucault, Deleuze and Guattari texture of the land, the resistance of the earth,
have argued that the transcendental subjectivity the power of the mule, and our own direct
as some sort of universal consciousness is not connections which we read from each other
attainable, they have forgotten or neglected the activities. If we shift this passive understanding
more fundamental transcendental condition to industrial production, we also can see how
of kinesthetic inter-corporeity as practical people are trained to put a nut on a bolt, how
awareness prior to being elevated to some sort the hand should move, and the nut should fit,
of consciousness of reality or of objectivities. by the use of my or the others’ hands. This is
Society then is a field of tasks requiring inter- inter-corporeal kinesthetic understanding that
corporeal awareness how we do things in this is the consciousness prior to any metaphysical
place, and that means already a tacit or pas- understanding of consciousness. The latter
sive awareness on whose background various would be interpreted as mind inside of a body,
functions are comprehensible. or as something internal in opposition to so-
Those social requirements comprise a field mething external, or even some spirit inhabiting
of inter-corporeal activities where what I can momentarily the physical realm.
do is read directly what the others are doing. What we are saying is nothing novel. It has
Let us take a soccer game where each player to be emphasized that any specific awareness
reads the body directions and movements is conditioned by the transcendental conscio-
in correlation to the entire field of the game. usness. This consciousness is not personal or
This is to say where are my team-mates and in a possession of some entity called human but
what directions they are moving and where are rather a formation of corporeal activities in
the opponents and how they are positioning face of concrete social tasks. The very structure
themselves will also constitute my kinesthetic of that consciousness is the way that inter-
requirements how do I move toward my te- corporeity acts in the world of tasks required
ammates and opponents comprising the entire by a certain social practice. This means that
spatio-temporal and kinesthetic field. In this certain sedimented social tasks also constitute
sense, what Foucault claims about the discursive specific inter-corporeal activities that equally
practices as confrontation of powers, requires become sedimented and regarded as normal.
the most basic awareness of where, when, and For example, in a capitalistic social economic
how one must act in order to practice the dis- context certain mechanical fragmented acti-
cursive strategies (Foucault 1972, 1979, 1980, vities are sedimented and therefore constitute
1975, 1990, 1994). What we are suggesting is the very inter-corporeal understanding. It is
the passive constitution of spatio-temporal cor- like asking somebody who are you? And the
poreal engagements prior to any understanding answer would be “I am a welder on an assembly
what the discursive strategy means. While the line”. No doubt, one could say that he can do
above illustrations we offer seems to apply to other things, but only after some “training in
the field of sports, all social activities engage to the required skills”.
require tasks equally constitute a body that is an What is at issue for the now accepted globa-
inter-corporeal a field body. lizing Western modernization is the compelled
In industrial or agricultural production one reconstitution of corporeal and inter-corporeal
understands one’s own tasks in correlation to practices. The latter must be constituted in
122 Algis Mickūnas Discourses and inter-corporeity

terms of the technical modes of production here to there, but also from now to then – we
that require an increasing fragmentation and are “looking toward the future” and “leave the
militarization of activities. This is the condi- past behind”.
tion for the Marxian conception of division The implications of corporeal movement
of labor and Foucault’s conception of modern investigations are indefinite, not only in our
militarization, not to speak of the behaviorist relationship to the world and interaction with
conception of one-to-one correlation of ato- others, but also in our understanding of other
mistic stimuli to localizable responses, or what species. It can be suggested that the premises of
Maurice Merleau-Ponty called the “constancy biological evolution are somewhat inadequate
hypothesis” (Merleau-Ponty 1964, 1963, 1962). insofar as genetics has taken the lead to explain
This is to say, even the science of human beha- transformations of physiological structures.
vior, being globalized by psychology, consists of After all, when speaking of adaptation, we must
a radically fragmented corporeal set of activities also speak of moving-shaping a living creatures
such that none know what the others are doing. body to slowly assume a shape that is adequate
But as is well known, even this psychology is a for interaction with a changing environment.
technique of behavioral modification, whether Such investigations belong strictly to pheno-
as industrial, clinical educational, social or cri- menology.
minal psychology.

References and suggestions

Conclusions and implications for further readings

There is a long tradition to regard the body as a Deleuze, G.; Guattari, F. 1996. Anti-Oedipus: Capita-
lism and Schizophrenia. Minneapolis: University of
thing in space, time and movement, such that
Minnesota Press.
these factors do not have any essential impact
on the body. Whether one is in Vilnius, Tokyo, Foucault, M. 1972. Archaeology of Knowledge. New
today or tomorrow, the body will remain the York: Pantheon Books.
same. Such a view fails to take into account Foucault, M. 1979. Discipline and Punish: The Birth
that body not only is, but also moves in com- of the Prison. New York: Vintage Books.
plex ways in correlation to the environment Foucault, M. 1980. Power/Knowledge: Selected Inter-
or the phenomenal field and relationship to views and Other Writings, 1972–1977. Gordon, C.
the movements and activities of others. In this (Ed.). New York: Pantheon Books.
article the task was to offer a brief investigation Foucault, M. 1975. The Birth of the Clinic: An Ar-
of kinesthetic body as an all pervasive pheno- chaeology of Medical Perception. New York: Vintage
menon required to make sense of the claims Books.
of various post modern theorists, interested in
Foucault, M. 1990. The History of Sexuality, Vol. 1: An
body awareness. Whether one speaks of body Introduction. New York: Vintage Books.
surfaces, or discursive bodies, one must take for
granted a direct awareness of the movements of Foucault, M. 1994. The Order of the Things: An Ar-
chaeology of the Human Sciences. New York: Vintage
others and, reflectively, of oneself. Moreover,
Books.
our awareness of space and time is premised
on the oriented body, consisting of at least six Husserl, E. 1964. Erfahrung und Urteil: Untersuchun-
dimensions (not to speak of dancing bodies gen zur Genealogie der Logik. Landgrebe, L. (Ed.).
Hamburg: Claassen Verlag.
which deploy dramatically complex space-time
configurations). Simple statement: “let us go Husserl, E. 1952. Ideen zu einer reinen Phänomeno-
forward” tells us not only that we must go from logie und phänomenologischen Philosophie. 2. Buch:
 Coactivity: Philosophy, Communication 2015, 23(2): 109–123 123

Phänomenologische Untersuchungen zur Konsti- Lingis, A. 1994. Foreign Bodies. New York: Rout­
tution. Biemel, M. (Hrsg.). Haag: Martinus Nijhoff. ledge.
Husserl, E. 1932. Nachlass. Bd. I. 21. In Husserl Ar- Merleau-Ponty, M. 1962. Phenomenology of Percep-
chiv, Koeln Universitaet. tion. New York: The Humanity Press.
Husserl, E. 1970. The Crisis of European Sciences and Merleau-Ponty, M. 1964. Signs. Evanston: Northwes-
Transcendental Phenomenology: An Introduction to tern University Press.
Phenomenological Philosophy. Evanston: Northwes-
tern University Press. Merleau-Ponty, M. 1963. The Structure of Behavior.
Boston: Beacon Press.
Klages, L. 1970. Grundlegung der Wissenschaft vom
Amsdruck. Bonn: H. Bouvier u. Co. Verlag. Sloterdijk, P. 1988. Critique of Cynical Reason. Vol.
40: Theory and History of Literature. Minneapolis:
Landgrebe, L. 1963. Der Weg der Phanomeologie. Das University of Minnesota Press.
Problem einer ursprünglichen Erfahrung. Gütersloh:
Gütersloher Verlagshaus Gerd Mohn. Sloterdijk, P. (Hrsg.). 1990. Vor der Jahrtausendwende:
Berichte zur Lage der Zukunft. Frankfurt: Suhrkamp.
Landgrebe, L. 1968. Phänomenologie und Geschichte.
Darmstadt: Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft.

DISKURSAI IR TARPKŪNIŠKUMAS

Algis MICKŪNAS

Plėtojant šiuolaikines Europos teorijas daug kalbama apie kūniškumą, paviršiaus dirginimą ir aistras bei apie
politiškai suformuotus kūnus – apie tai, kaip vyrai ir moterys „nešioja“ kūnus. Ištisa tokių teiginių įvairovė rodo
teorinio mąstymo pokyčius, tačiau juos jau įgyvendino visai kitas fenomenologijos studijų klodas – kūno ju-
desys. Apie kūniškumą įmanoma kalbėti remiantis judesio analizėmis. Tad šio straipsnio tikslas – atverti kūno
judesių struktūras, sudarančias pirmapradės patirties pagrindą – ne „Aš mąstau“, bet „Aš galiu“. Straipsnyje
pateikiamos kelios postmoderniųjų mąstytojų tezės, kurioms nebūdinga nuodugniai išplėtota judesių analizė.

Reikšminiai žodžiai: horizontai, „Aš galiu“, tarpkūniškumas, kinestetinis kūnas, erdvės ir laiko morfolo-
gijos.
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