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The Human Hand as a Microcosm. A Philosophical Overview on the Hand and Its Role in the Processes of Perception, Action, and Cognition

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The Hand

Part of the book series: Studies in Applied Philosophy, Epistemology and Rational Ethics ((SAPERE,volume 38))

Abstract

The phenomenological analysis of the hand is a fertile ground to reflect on the dialogue between philosophy and the biomedical sciences. In fact, this analysis highlights the correspondence which exists in human beings between body morphology and symbolic intelligence. In ancient philosophy, there is a confrontation between the mechanicistic thesis by Anaxagoras and the finalistic thesis by Aristotle. Starting from the hand, the argument extends to the role that touch has in relation to the other senses within perception and self-consciousness. The data of developmental psychology and neurosciences confirm that self-consciousness is growing gradually by learning to distinguish between what is own and what is extraneous, thanks to tactile sensations. In contemporary philosophy, we have the confrontation of two views: one is focused on haptic experience which attributes to touch a central role in the perceptive process and in the interpersonal relation, according to a line that goes from Aristotle to Kant and further on to Husserl, Derrida, and Lévinas. The other position considers sight as the more capable faculty to recognize and to imagine: this is the position of Merleau-Ponty who identifies the tangible with the visible. The question emerging from this confrontation—“is it the look that touches or the hand that sees?”—may find a practical reply within cognitive processes of persons suffering from congenital blindness.

Here lies the body of Lois Spears, …Children with clear eyes and sound limbs—(I was born blind). I was the happiest of women As wife, mother and housekeeper, Caring for my loved ones, And making my home A place of order and bounteous hospitality: For I went about the rooms, And about the garden With an instinct as sure as sight, As though there were eyes in my finger tips

E. Lee Masters, Spoon River Anthology (1916), Lois Spears

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Notes

  1. 1.

    Cfr. H. Diels—W. Kranz, Die Fragmenten der Vorsokratiker, Weidmann, Dublin-Zürich 197216, unveränderte Nachdruck ver 6. Auflage, A 102.

  2. 2.

    Aristotle, De partibus animalium IV 10, 687 a 9–11.

  3. 3.

    Aristotle, De Anima III 8, 432 a 1–3.

  4. 4.

    Révèsz (1950), Gibson(1966).

  5. 5.

    Napier (1956), Connally and Elliott (1972), Tallis (2003).

  6. 6.

    Tallis (2003)

  7. 7.

    Sennett (2008).

  8. 8.

    Sennett, pp. 148–149.

  9. 9.

    Lewin (1934).

  10. 10.

    Cfr. Hall (1966).

  11. 11.

    Le Breton (2006), Paterson (2007)

  12. 12.

    Davidson (1972).

  13. 13.

    p. 159.

  14. 14.

    Révèsz (1950)

  15. 15.

    “He does it with his hands, by experience, first in play and then through work. The hands are the instruments of man’s intelligence”. Montessori (1949, p. 25); “Man builds himself through working, working with his hands, but using his hands as the instruments of his ego, the organ of his individual mind and will, which shapes its own existence face to face with its environment”. Montessori (2006, p. 195).

  16. 16.

    Butterworth (2005).

  17. 17.

    Berteletti and Booth (2015), Gracia-Bafalluy and Noël (2008), Newman and Soylu (2013).

  18. 18.

    See the publications and the activities of the National Handwriting Association: http://www.nha-handwriting.org.uk/ and the advertising campaign of Bic Pen “Fight for your write”: https://www.bicfightforyourwrite.com/.

  19. 19.

    Mangen and Velay (2010).

  20. 20.

    Kress (2003), Berninger et al. (2006).

  21. 21.

    Pallasmaa (2009).

  22. 22.

    Sennett (2008), p. 59.

  23. 23.

    “Eyes are more precise witnesses than ears” (fr. 101a) says one of Heraclitus’ fragments (sec. V a. C.). Plato, in the Teeteto, defines sight, sensation and knowledge as “the same thing”. Classen (2012).

  24. 24.

    Aristotle, De Anima II, 413b–414 b 5–10.

  25. 25.

    Ivi.

  26. 26.

    Aristotle, De anima II 11, 423 b 17–20.

  27. 27.

    Aristotle, Historia animalium. I 15, 494 b 16–18.

  28. 28.

    Aristotle, De partibus animalium 656 a 35–b 6; De sensu 1, 437 a.

  29. 29.

    Talking about virtues, Aristotle attributes intemperance to tactile sensations, since the pleasures provided by sight, hearing and smell do not admit excesses. Aristotle, Etica Eudemia III, 1 1230b–1231a.

  30. 30.

    “All men by nature desire to know. An indication of this is the delight we take in our senses; for even apart from their usefulness they are loved for themselves; and above all others the sense of sight. For not only with a view to action, but even when we are not going to do anything, we prefer sight to almost everything else. The reason is that this, most of all the senses, makes us know and brings to light many differences between things”. Aristotle (1960).

  31. 31.

    Descartes (2001).

  32. 32.

    Locke included Molyneux’s problem in the second edition (1694), of his An Essay concerning Human Understanding, II, 9 § 8: “Suppose a Man born blind, and now adult, and taught by his touch to distinguish between a Cube, and a Sphere of the same metal, and nighly of the same bigness, so as to tell, when he felt one and the other; which is the Cube, which the Sphere. Suppose then the Cube and Sphere placed on a Table, and the Blind Man to be made to see. Query, Whether by his sight, before he touched them, he could now distinguish, and tell, which is the Globe, which the Cube”. See Morgan (1977).

  33. 33.

    Gallagher (2005).

  34. 34.

    “The extension, shapes, and motions perceived by sight are specifically distinct from the ideas of touch called by the same names; there is no such thing as one idea or kind of idea common to both senses”. Berkeley (1709).

  35. 35.

    Diderot (1751). Also Condillac (1754) values touch.

  36. 36.

    “This sense (touch) is also the only one of immediate external perception and for this very reason it is also the most important and most reliably instructive, but nevertheless it is the coarsest, because the matter whose surface is to inform us about the shape of the object through touching must be solid”. I. Kant (2006, 46–48).

  37. 37.

    “Consequently the sensuous aspect of art is related only to the two theoretical senses of sight and hearing, while smell, taste, and touch remain excluded from the enjoyment of art. For smell, taste, and touch have to do with matter as such and its immediately sensible qualities—smell with material volatility in air, taste with the material liquefaction of objects, touch with warmth, cold, smoothness, etc. For this reason these senses cannot have to do with artistic objects, which are meant to maintain themselves in their real independence and allow of no purely sensuous relationship. What is agreeable for these senses is not the beauty of art”. Hegel (1823).

  38. 38.

    Heidegger (1998). This is the course run in Freiburg in the winter semester 1942/1943 and published in 1981.

  39. 39.

    These theses will also be deepened in the courses Heidegger run in the winter semester 1951–52, published in 1954: (1976).

  40. 40.

    See the comment to these Heideggerian theses by Derrida (1987).

  41. 41.

    Petrosino (2006).

  42. 42.

    Husserl (1913), Slatman (2005).

  43. 43.

    Phénoménologie de la perception (1945).

  44. 44.

    Le visible et l’invisible (1964), L’oeil et l’esprit (1961).

  45. 45.

    Irigaray (2011).

  46. 46.

    Piaget (1936), for example, believes that touch “teaches” sight in the perception of the third dimension; for Bruner (1959), children are able to visually recognize objects which are known only through other sensory means, like touch. Hatwell (1986).

  47. 47.

    Sherrington (1906).

  48. 48.

    Katz (1925).

  49. 49.

    Révèsz (1950).

  50. 50.

    Straus (1956).

  51. 51.

    Senden (1960).

  52. 52.

    “Active touch refers to what is ordinarily called touching. This ought to be distinguished from passive touch, or being touched. In one case the impression on the skin is brought about by the perceiver himself and in the other case by some outside agency”. Gibson (1962).

  53. 53.

    For example, the feelings of heat, the smell of something burnt and of smoke provide the perception of fire.

  54. 54.

    On the other hand, the most recent studies on the blind show that they reach equivalent performances to sighted people in the acquisition of spatial data not just through sensory compensation, but through kinesthetic codification. A blind man uses tactile exploration better than a sighted man, but relies on his own body and on the codification of his own movements rather than on space. Hatwell (2003).

  55. 55.

    Cfr. Hayes and Cox (1999), Edvardsson et al. (Edvardsson et al. 2003).

  56. 56.

    Derrida (2000, p. 85).

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  1. Roma Tre University, Rome, Italy

    Maria Teresa Russo

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  1. Institute of Philosophy of Scientific and Technological Practice, Università Campus Bio-Medico di Roma, Rome, Italy

    Marta Bertolaso

  2. Institute of Philosophy of Scientific and Technological Practice, Università Campus Bio-Medico di Roma, Rome, Italy

    Nicola Di Stefano

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Russo, M.T. (2017). The Human Hand as a Microcosm. A Philosophical Overview on the Hand and Its Role in the Processes of Perception, Action, and Cognition. In: Bertolaso, M., Di Stefano, N. (eds) The Hand. Studies in Applied Philosophy, Epistemology and Rational Ethics, vol 38. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-66881-9_6

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