Skip to main content
SpringerLink
Log in

The Performativity of Practice

  • Chapter
  • First Online:
Book cover Seeing as Practice

Part of the book series: Performance Philosophy ((PPH))

  • 181 Accesses

Abstract

Performativity is the salient feature of each practice. This account helps to explain seeing as an act not of arbitrary construction but of constitution that retains receptive and mediating features. I borrow the term by J. L. Austin to show that seeing is a specifically executed act that cannot be properly explained without taking into consideration the way in which it is performed. The how is not a contingent, external form for the what, but rather determines what it specifically is. Seeing cannot be reduced to the thing seen any more than speech to the thing spoken. If we conceive of acts of perception as analogous to speech acts, it becomes clear that they constitute far more than a means of obtaining knowledge.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this chapter

Log in via an institution
Chapter
USD 29.95
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
eBook
USD 69.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as EPUB and PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
Softcover Book
USD 89.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Compact, lightweight edition
  • Dispatched in 3 to 5 business days
  • Free shipping worldwide - see info
Hardcover Book
USD 89.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Durable hardcover edition
  • Dispatched in 3 to 5 business days
  • Free shipping worldwide - see info

Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout

Purchases are for personal use only

Institutional subscriptions

Notes

  1. 1.

    G. C. Lichtenberg (1984, J 1310).

  2. 2.

    An introduction to the breadth of use of the term is provided by the anthologies U. Wirth (2002), J. Kertscher and D. Mersch (2003), further: C. Wulf and J. Zirfas (2005).

  3. 3.

    N. Bryson (1983). With this distinction, Norman Bryson attempts to overcome Gombrich‘s psychology of perception and show how Western Art is socially and historically determined.

  4. 4.

    For a more detailed account of the concept of personhood (Sturma 1997).

  5. 5.

    The integration of the body in seeing and the usefulness of seeing as an alternative form of touch is illustrated by Volkmar Mühleis’(2005) study of work by artists limiting the dominance of the visual in visual arts by dealing with haptic and holistic types of experience.

  6. 6.

    For a more detailed account see L. Weiskrantz (1986).

  7. 7.

    Although the voice too is characterised by sonic performance, it is a subjectively perceptible medium of expression. The expressivity of seeing, however, must first be put into speech in order to be perceptible to others. See the anthology D. Kolesch and S. Krämer (2006).

  8. 8.

    The faculty of Imagination as a form of representation is the main inspiration for Lyotard’s reading of Kant. See J.-F. Lyotard (1988).

  9. 9.

    Is he doing his wife a favour by getting some exercise or by preparing the garden for winter? Or is doing his wife a favour only incidental to his actual concern of getting some exercise in the fresh air? If he were to keep digging while his beliefs about his wife changed, the framework of the story would also change. In the first instance, it would be the story of a practical measure in a household with garden. In the second instance, a story about a husband’s relationship with his wife. The intentions cannot be described independently of the interpretive point of view. They must be divided into primary and secondary status. Activities thus become what they are by contextualisation. See also the discussion of Charles Taylor in Chap. I.2.c.

  10. 10.

    See for instance M. Frank (1990, p. 11ff.). Also helpful is the article by Rainer Rosenberg (2003).

  11. 11.

    Wölfflin speaks explicitly of a “history of seeing” that together with period influence is responsible for the style of an epoch.

  12. 12.

    Gottfried Boehm (2001) has described something similar for seeing of the whole and parts in pictures. A focus on details is necessarily blind to the image as a whole. Conversely, a seeing that takes in the whole surface at once necessarily overlooks details of figures, brushwork and so on.

  13. 13.

    See L. Wittgenstein (2001), N. Goodman (1976) and G. Abel (1999).

  14. 14.

    Sociologists have long considered substituting the concept of lifestyle for the class model of society. See S. Hradil (1987). Hartmut Lüdtke (1989) has elucidated the distinctions to be gained by milieu-specific aesthetic preferences of everyday self-display.

References

  • Abel, Günter. 1999. Sprache, Zeichen, Interpretation. Frankfurt a.M.: Suhrkamp.

    Google Scholar 

  • Arendt, Hannah. 1959. The Human Condition. New York. Doubleday Anchor Books.

    Google Scholar 

  • Bahr, Hermann. 1996. From Expressionism. In Art in Theory 1900-1990, ed. Charles Harrison. Cambridge: Wiley-Blackwell.

    Google Scholar 

  • Bergson, Henri. 2004. Matter and Memory. Mineola: Dover Publications.

    Google Scholar 

  • Boehm, Gottfried (ed.). 2001. Repräsentation – Präsentation – Präsenz. In Homo pictor, 3–13. Leipzig: Saur.

    Google Scholar 

  • Bourdieu, Pierre. 1974. Architecture gothique et pensée scholastique. Paris: Seuil.

    Google Scholar 

  • Bryson, Norman. 1983. Vision and Painting: The Logic of the Gaze. New Haven: Yale University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Butler, Judith. 1988. Performative Acts and Gender Constitution: An Essay in Phenomenology and Feminist Theory. Theatre Journal 40.4: 519–531.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Crutchfield, Richard S. et al. (eds.). 1982. Elements of Psychology. New York: A. Knopf.

    Google Scholar 

  • Danto, Arthur. 1981. The Transfiguration of the Commonplace. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Danto, Arthur. 1983. The Transfiguration of the Commonplace. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Davidson, Donald. 2001. Essays on Actions and Events: Philosophical Essays. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Fiedler, Konrad. 1991. Schriften zur Kunst. Munich: Fink.

    Google Scholar 

  • Foerster, Heinz von. 1985. Sicht und Einsicht. Braunschweig: Vieweg+Teubner.

    Google Scholar 

  • Frank, Manfred. 1990. Stil in der Philosophie. Stuttgart: Reclam.

    Google Scholar 

  • Gehlen, Arnold. 1966. Der Mensch, 157–180. Frankfurt: Athenäum.

    Google Scholar 

  • Gibson, James. 1966. The Senses Considered as Perceptual Systems. Boston, MA: Houghton Mifflin.

    Google Scholar 

  • Gibson, James. 1986. The Ecological Approach to Visual Perception. Hillsdale: Routledge.

    Google Scholar 

  • Goldstein, E. Bruce. 2002. Sensation and Perception. Pacific Grove, CA: Wadsworth.

    Google Scholar 

  • Gombrich, Ernst. 1960. Art and Illusion. Princeton: Princeton University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Goodman, Nelson. 1976. Languages of Art: An Approach to a Theory of Symbols. Indianapolis: Bobbs-Merrill.

    Google Scholar 

  • Hart Nibbrig, Christiaan Lukas. 1994. Was heißt Darstellen? In Was heißt Darstellen?, ed. Christiaan Lukas Hart Nibbrig, 7–14. Frankfurt a.M.: Suhrkamp.

    Google Scholar 

  • Hradil, Stefan. 1987. Sozialstrukturanalyse in einer fortgeschrittenen Gesellschaft. Von Klassen und Schichten zu Lagen und Milieus. Opladen: Leske + Burdrich.

    Google Scholar 

  • Humboldt, Wilhelm von. 1973. Schriften zur Sprache. Stuttgart: Reclam.

    Google Scholar 

  • Huse, Norbert. 1972. Studien zu Giovanni Bellini. Berlin: de Gruyter.

    Google Scholar 

  • Kant, Immanuel. 2000. Critique of the Power of Judgment. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Kertscher, Jens, and Mersch, Dieter (eds.). 2003. Performativität und Praxis. Munich: Fink.

    Google Scholar 

  • Kolesch, Doris, and Krämer, Sybille (eds.). 2006. Stimme. Frankfurt a.M.: Suhrkamp.

    Google Scholar 

  • Krämer, Sybille (ed.). 2004. Performativität und Medialität. Munich: Fink.

    Google Scholar 

  • Lichtenberg, Georg Ludwig. 1984. Sudelbücher. Frankfurt a.M.: Insel Verlag.

    Google Scholar 

  • Lüdtke, Hartmut. 1989. Expressive Ungleichheit. Opladen: Leske + Burdrich.

    Google Scholar 

  • Luhmann, Niklas. 1986. Das Kunstwerk und die Selbstreproduktion der Kunst. In Stil, ed. Hans Ulrich Gumbrecht et al., 623–626. Frankfurt a.M.: Suhrkamp.

    Google Scholar 

  • Lyotard, Jean-François. 1988. The Differend: Phrases in Dispute. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • MacIntyre, Alasdair. 2007. After Virtue: A Study in Moral Theory. Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • McGinn, Collin. 1999. The Mysterious Flame. New York: Basic Books.

    Google Scholar 

  • Merleau-Ponty, Maurice. 1962. Phenomenology of Perception. London: Routledge.

    Google Scholar 

  • Merleau-Ponty, Maurice. 1964. The Film and the New Psychology. In Sense and Non-Sense, 48–59. Evanston: Northwestern University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Merleau-Ponty, Maurice. 1993. Indirect Language and the Voices of Silence. In The Merleau-Ponty Aesthetics Reader: Philosophy and Painting. Evanston: Northwestern University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Mersch, Dieter. 2002. Was sich zeigt. Munich: Fink.

    Google Scholar 

  • Mitchell, William John Thomas. 1986. Iconology: Image, Text, Ideology. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Mühleis, Volkmar. 2005. Kunst im Sehverlust. Munich: Fink.

    Google Scholar 

  • Podro, Michael. 1998. Depiction. New Haven: Yale University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Proust, Marcel. 1993. In Search of Lost Time, Vol. VI: Time Regained. New York: Modern Library.

    Google Scholar 

  • Rosenberg, Rainer. 2003. Stil. In Ästhetische Grundbegriffe, Vol. 5, 641–664. Stuttgart: Metzler.

    Chapter  Google Scholar 

  • Saussure, Ferdinand de. 1976. Cours de linguistique générale. Paris: Payout.

    Google Scholar 

  • Schmitz, Hermann. 1967. Der leibliche Raum. Bonn: Bouvier.

    Google Scholar 

  • Sturma, Dieter. 1997. Philosophie der Person. Paderborn: Schöningh.

    Google Scholar 

  • Sturma, Dieter. 2005. Die Selbstverhältnisse der Person. Journal für Psychologie 13.3: 240–254. Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht.

    Google Scholar 

  • Weiskrantz, Lawrence. 1986. Blindsight: A Case-Study and Implications. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Wirth, Uwe (ed.). 2002. Performanz. Frankfurt a.M.: Suhrkamp.

    Google Scholar 

  • Wittgenstein, Ludwig. 2001. Tractatus logico-philosophicus. London: Routledge.

    Google Scholar 

  • Wölfflin, Herinrich. 1950. Principles of Art History. New York: Dover Publications.

    Google Scholar 

  • Wollheim, Richard. 1980. Seeing-as, Seeing-in and Pictorial Representation. In Art and Its Objects, 205–226. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Wulf, Christoph, and Zirfas, Jörg (eds.). 2005. Ikonologie des Performativen. Munich: Fink.

    Google Scholar 

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Otto-von-Guericke University, Magdeburg, Germany

    Eva Schuermann

Authors
  1. Eva Schuermann
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

Copyright information

© 2019 The Author(s)

About this chapter

Check for updates. Verify currency and authenticity via CrossMark

Cite this chapter

Schuermann, E. (2019). The Performativity of Practice. In: Seeing as Practice. Performance Philosophy. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-14507-1_4

Download citation

Publish with us

Policies and ethics

Search

Navigation