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Mindful Performance

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The Extended Theory of Cognitive Creativity

Part of the book series: Perspectives in Pragmatics, Philosophy & Psychology ((PEPRPHPS,volume 23))

Abstract

In this chapter I explore several variations of mindfulness in performance, and I focus specifically on variations of self-awareness in these practices. I take an enactivist approach, clarifying first why enactivism is not a form of behaviorism. I argue that phenomenologically inspired enactivist conceptions of perception and action are neither mindless, in a naïve behavioristic way, nor overly cognitivist, but do involve aspects of mindfulness that support embodied performance. I’ll look at examples from athletics, dance and musical performance. Finally, I’ll consider the status of self in mindful practices that are sometimes described as attaining mindless or selfless states.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    On a slightly different reading Zahavi (2018) takes me-ness and mineness to involve forms of reflective awareness which are only occasional, or as he says, ‘rare’. To be precise, Zahavi is right that we are not aware of the experience “as my own” if we take the ‘as’ to signify a conceptual grasp. I suggest we understand the ‘as’ to be a soft (non-conceptual) or bracketed ‘as’.

  2. 2.

    The Buddhist scholar John Donne (2011, 74) points to more detailed descriptions in the Buddhist literature. “For practitioners to experience a non-dual state, however, there must be some form of knowing or experiencing that is not structured by subject–object duality. This form of knowing is ‘reflexive awareness’ (Skt. Svasa mvitti, Tib. rang rig), and it does not receive a robust theoretical treatment until the works of Dharmakírti and his major commentators (seventh to ninth centuries). Once a clear account of reflexive awareness is in place, Buddhist authors now have the tools to speak of truly non-dual meditative states, namely, those in which the meditator experiences consciousness in its true form as utterly devoid of subject–object structuring. And this is precisely the type of practice that emerges historically as Mahámudrá in India by the end of the first millennium (C.E.).”

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Acknowledgements

Research on this paper was supported by the author’s Anneliese Maier Research Award from the Humboldt Foundation, and by an Australian Research Council (ARC) grant, Minds in Skilled Performance. DP170102987.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Philosophy, University of Memphis (USA), Memphis, TN, USA

    Shaun Gallagher

  2. Faculty of Law, Humanities and the Arts, University of Wollongong (AU), Wollongong, Australia

    Shaun Gallagher

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  1. Shaun Gallagher
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Correspondence to Shaun Gallagher .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Cognitive Science, University of Messina, Messina, Italy

    Antonino Pennisi

  2. Department of Cognitive Science, Psychology, Education and Cultural Studies, University of Messina, Messina, Italy

    Alessandra Falzone

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Gallagher, S. (2020). Mindful Performance. In: Pennisi, A., Falzone, A. (eds) The Extended Theory of Cognitive Creativity. Perspectives in Pragmatics, Philosophy & Psychology, vol 23. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-22090-7_3

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-22090-7_3

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