Action as Expression

8/19/2019 Action as Expression

1/9

S c a n n e

d b y

C a m

S c a n n e r

..

.·~ • ~ ~' . . ' ~ iJ ,

· ·:. :. 4; .J •

. ~ . . • :I '' ' • o 7-' . · ~ l. 1_.> .. .. , .

G 1: M . AN 'iCO M B E

d o -- At/?ft:M qJ . _ tff f}f 8A . 2 5 ~

Intention and

IntentionalityEssays in Honour o fG. E. M . Anscombe

P OITBD BY

CORADIAMONDu o t J I OI ~ Prrif ,uor o f Phllo.tophy, tfnl1111r •ltY u VlrMifllu

ANI}

JENNY rfHCIJMANl · ~ o w' /Jhtlt .vo phy, Ntw JltJ/1 Ct•miJrt•IWt

THE HARVESTER PRESSt \JH Yr 041>

~ ~ - I , ,


2/9

S c a n n e

d b y

C a m

S c a n n e r

tjI

[ ] ACTION AS EXPRESSIONCharles Taylor

The oatura.J cx preui on of wanting is tQiog to Ft.

I d like to try to explore what a claim of his kind can add up to.n what sense can action be seen as expression? I want t tackle

this problem in two stages . In the fint, I discuss the dift erentsenses that expression could have. In the second, I look a t thequestion whether action can be seen as expression in one o fthese senses.

Part IWhat do we mean by expression? I d like to s u p t hat we canarticulate what this term means in a wide ranaeo f ts UJeS withthe formula: an expression makes something manifest in anembodiment. Both he key erms, manifestation and embodi-

ment , point to necessary conditiOns . I can t.oake somethlhgiiii?nifest by clearing away the obstacles to its being seen. I candraw the curtain and make the painting plain for all to see. Butthis kind of manifestation has nothing to do with expression.On the contrary, my face expresses joy, my words express mythoughts or feelings, this piece o f music expresses sadness,longing, resoluteness. In all these ~ ~ n e ~ h i n g~ ~ ~manifest; but what is manifest is so in w wan callembodiments , and I want to claim that they are essential to

what we call expression.But the kind o f manifestation we call expression is very

special. It s not a sufficient condition of an expression that Xbcmanifest in Y where is not identical to Y For i n s ~seeing your car outside colleJe, I know that you are in today.Your being here is, we might say, manifest to me in your car sbeing in he lot. But your car s being there isn t anexplalion ofyour presence. Expression involves a manifestation o f a}different sort; it iiiwMS twe mipt call d in ct ggjfp-J .tation, not Jeamng on an erence.

Wben I k Ow sometiWig or somethina is plaiD to me73


3/9

S c a n n e

d b y

C a m

S c a n n e r

74 Intention and n t e n t i o ~ t t ~ l i t y

through an inference, there is something else which I know orw h i c h ~plain to me in a more direct way. and which I recognizeas grounding m y inference: in the above example, your car sbeing in the lot. I t is characteristic o f expression that it is notlike this. I sec the jo y on your face, bear the sadness in themusic. There is no set o f properties that I notice from which Iinfer to your emotions or to the mood o f the music. n thosecases where I may have to infer bow you feel (perhaps from aslight trembling o f your bands which rvc earncd to recognizeas signs o f agitation or anger in an otherwise perfectlycontrolled •front you put up to the world)-in these cases, wecannot speak of expression . Your hand-tremble doesn t express your feelings, as your face might i f you let yourself go.

A n expression must a t least offer what we might call a•physiognomic reading . I want to speak o f his , in cases h ~we can see X in Y where is not identical to Y and where thereis not some other feature o f Y F, which permits us to infer to X.We have cases o f physiognomic reading where , for instance, I

look a t a construction and see that it is highly unstable and willshortly fall. I read the impending fall in the upright array; butwhen challenged to say bow I do it, I cannot cite features o fthe array on which I base my judgement which are onlycontingently linked with the impending fall. I may be able topoint to particular sections of the array which reveal its imminent plight most clearly, but I can only characterize these insuch terms as instability , i.e ., in terms which are logically connected with what I see impending . Or ap in , I may be b l ~totell that this painting is by a given painter; and I may even beable to point to the features which are most characteristic; butcan t articulate what they have in common other than in terms

like : •a characteristic flourish o f X .Expression must a t least offer a physiognomic rcadin But

as can be seen from the abOve exampleS, thiS is not a sufficientcondition . The unstable array doesn t express its impendingfall. There are stronger conditions on expression. There are twor d like to adduce here :(i) In s e s ~ fgenuine expression, what is expressed can only

be manJest in the expression; whereas in mere physiognomic reading, the X we read in Y can be observed on tsown. f I m there a t the right time, I can see the

•,

Action s Expr ession 15

construc tion actually fall, or see the painter painting thecanvas . Here I observe in a way free o f physiognomicreading what I formerly read in the array or canvas. Butthe joy you now see in my face, the thoughts my wordsnow make evident for you, the sadness or resolution in theface o f fate that you bear in this music; all these could bemanifest in no other sort of way. True , they might findsome other expression : I might dance for joy; speak toyou in another language ; and resolution in the face of atemight be expressed in someone's demeanour . But thesethings can t be made manifest in a way which avoidsexpression, as the collapsing constructio n is observed freeo f any physiognomic reading.

(ri) The second difference between expression and whatmerely offers a physiognomic reading can be put intuitively n his way : that in a physiognomic reading, someX can be observed in Y but in a case of genuineexpression, the Y makes X manifest. The expressive object t

can be said to reveal what is expressed in a sense stronger Ithan simply allowing it to be seen.There are two ways in which this distinction can be made less

rough: The first concerns our criteria for determining what isexpresse d/made eVident. n the case of a mere physiognomicreading, some X can be read in Y just in case someone iscapable o f reliably discerning X non-inferentially in Y. Theclumsy array offers a physiognomic reading o f its impendingfall just because you and I can see that it s about to collapse.What is offered here for such a reading is simply a matter o fwhat we can reliably see.

But the criteria for determining what an expressive objectexpresses are somewhat stronger . I t s not a sufficient conditiono f Y's expressing X that someone be able reliably to sec X noninferentially n Y. I may know you we a and be able to see fromyour latest sketch that you were very tired o r under stress whenyou did t But this is not for all that what your work expresaes .The work may by contrast be giving expression to a serenevision o f th inp , o r to a view of thinp as alive with energy.

The point here is that we see the expressive object not ust u Ipermitting us to see something but in a I Doi as sayiDasomething. The word 'sayinK may not soUDd quite riabt iD


4/9


5/9

S c a n n e

d b y

C a m

S c a n n e r

78 Intention and Intentionalitys m i l e ~link o manifesting openness is anterio r to the framingo f ~ mtentlons to communicate anything . The smile plays acrucial role ontogenetically in our being able to enter into~ m m ~ n i ~ t i o nas human beings in the first place . Its cxpressmg friendliness cannot thus just be a matter of its beingdeployed with that intent ; although of course a smile may godead , become a grimace, or look sinister , i f he intent is absent.

We might sum up the above discussion by saying that for agenuin e expressive object, Y its expressing X can t be reducedeither to its offering a physiognomic reading o f X or to its

> being emittedjcreatedjuttered with intent to communicate X.And we might add that it can t be reduced to the sum of theseconditions either . f contrive to make something manifest in aphysiognomic reading, it still doesn t amount to expression .Thus I might work all night, so as to look tired, so as to get thepoint across to you that you ought to be nicer to me . But thisstill docsn t make my tired expression into an expression in thestrong sense.

So to sum up this first p ~ I ve tried to articuJate theconditions that something must meet to be an expression. I vetried to come closer to an adequate account by stages. Anexpression manifests something, but in an embodiment; andnot any kind o f manifesting-in..embodiment will do, but onethat offers a physiognomic reading; and not any .kind o fphysiognomic reading will do, but one that is suchthat:(1) what is manifest cannot be observed in any other way than

a physiognomic reading ; and(2) some verb o f utterance can be attributed to the object, and

not ust o f he agent in emitting/creating the object, so that:

(a) what it expresses is not just a matter o f what can bephysiognomically read in it; and (b) we can apply adverbsof utterance to it.

Part 0

So what to make o f he idea that our action is an expression o fdesire ( tryinfto get an expression of wanting )?

There are some things we could think o f wh ich arc unpro-blematicaJJy ex_pressions o f desire : I want some tasty food

ction s Expression 79

which I sec over ther e: I mime, lick my chops, make by eyes likesaucers, rub my stomach, say ummmm . Or else, I can say, · r dlove a piece of that delicious layer-cake . .

Another thing I might do is just go up to the plate, cut a.pieOCof ayer-cake, and cat it with relish. Is this also an expresston o fthe desire?

We resist assimilating the action to the mime and verbal

statement. This is because these two are clearly expressionsin

the strong sense. They manifest my desire, and this in a sensewhich is irreducible either to their just offering a physiognomicreading of he desire, or to their figuring in a sucoessful attempton my part to make my desire evident to you .

They arc irreducible in the first way, because mime andstatement arise as part of our activity of communicating, ofbeing open with each other. Gestures and words are shaped bytheir role in communicating. And so there s a question o f whatthey say which is not reducible to what can be read n h e ~Thecase of mime shows the contrast perhaps most strikingly;because it builds on certain natural reactions which do allowmere physiognomic readings o f desire (or perhaps even n somecases inferential readings). Wben I am very hungry and I seegood food, my eyes get bigger, I salivate (making 1D : lick mylips), my stomach rumbles, etc. These are natmal react:lons; thestep from them to the exaggerated c r i c ~is ttJ : step tocommunication; it has a place in the way o f ife of beings whohave to be in a sense open with each other. It manifests tbedisposition to communicate .

And mime and statement are irreducible in the second way.because although closely bound up with the disposition tocommunicate their manifesting my desire is not just a m t ~ rof my i n t e n t i ~ n sin deploying them. I may c¥en i'Ye myselfaway involuntarily, i f blurt out what I want or let oae o f hesegestures o f desire escape me n the other band. I could t youto be aware o f my desire by causing you to be w ~o f mygalvanic skin responses; but these would oot for all that beexpressions o f desire .

So mime and statement are expressions iD tbe strooa seDIO.In the case o f the mime, we may c..-en be temJ*d to adopt tb ttcnn natural expression . Bxc::cptthat this milbtbe mileadiD .sinc::c tbcre is always an dement of the. conwntional lid


6/9

S c a n n e

d b y

C a m

S c a n n e r

80 Intention and Jntentiolllllity

arb itrary in a ll human communication. We have to findacceptable in our culture this kind of self-revelation in order tocommunicate effectively through i t I t might seem grotesque ortasteless in another culture; and this to such a degree that itmight even become hard to read ; it might be mistaken forlewdness, for instance .

But there is still a motive for speaking of the mime as a

natural expression . .Because it builds on what I called thenatural reactions, features that allow a physiognomic readingo f hunger . We might easily by a natural extension of the termcall these natural expressions ' as well, as the reactions whicharc most easily taken up into expression in the strong sense .And this might suggest one construal of he formula that tryingto get is the natural expression' o f wanting. For among thenatural reactions' o f desire, our actions in trying to get occupy

a central place . I t would be quite normal, in our mime o f desirefor the cake, to act out reaching out and grabbing it, stuffingour mouths, etc. In fact a tremendously important range o fgenuine expressions build on what emerges to physiognomicreading in action. I t is the range o f what we might call bodilystyle. By bodily style', I mean what we refer to when we say ofsomeone that he habitually acts cool, or eager, or reserved, orstand-offish , or with much sense o f dignity, or ike James BondTbe style consists in the way the person talks, walks, smokes,orders coffee, addresses strange rs, spe ks to women/men, etc .I t is a matter o f how we project ourselves, something we all do,although some do it in more obtrusive fashion than others.

There can be such a thing as bodily style, as a manner o f selfprojection , embedded in the way we act, just bec use so mucho f how we feel and react to things emerges to physiognomic

reading in our actions . In our action can be seen our hesitancy,our reluctance, our eagerness, our fastidiousness, our ability totake it or leave i t Bodily style builds on this s the cake-desiremime builds on eyes opening and mouth salivating; it shapesthe gesture in order to project, to make a presentation , of whatthe gesture offered s physiognomic reading. f I am semibored, not really engaged in any of my COilvenations, then myvoice will I a ~spirit and animation, I shall speak slowly,without great emphasis; so projecting the bodily style of thecool, self-sufficient, uninvolved person will involve stylizing

.

ction s Expreuion 81

these traits of the voice into a drawl. I f I am enthusiastic ,interested · in thiogst anxious to ~ t ~ p l ea ~ dglad tocommunicate with them, then my votce will be ~ ~ mymanner quick to respond; and this too will be stylized mto the'eagert manner when I come to project myself .

If we wanted to define ' natural expression' a s · ~n a ~ lreactions which offer the moat aocessib e physlOJ WfD Creadings which can be taken up into genwne expresslOf mmime or style ' , then the actions of rying to get o ~ dcertainlybe the mos t important and central natural expressions o f ourdesires, bec use so much of he quality o f our motivation canbe read in our action, s we saw above . , .

This is one sense that can be given to the formula I m trymgto construe . t would respect the reluctance we ~ w~ b o ~toassimilate trying to get to other expressions f ~ l ikt DDIDCand statement which are full-blooded e x p r e s s t o ~ ~ t wouldinvolve using 'expression ' in a ~ sense, .which m w ~merely offering a physiognom1c e a ~ gBut .would restriCtthe term natural expression' to a s ~ yp ~ v i l e g e d~ ofp h ~ i o g n o m i creading, in that what 1t offers JS taken up mtoexpiession in the strong sense . In this sense, it .is c ~ ~ t a(perhaps the central) natural expression of want ing JS t rymg toget. . . . .

1 think that this is t:rue . But tt ts rather UDeKlting.Expression only figures in this. construal in .an · ~ ~ t e dsense· and it is not clear that action h s a specially pnW:egcdp o s i t i ~ nas natural expression. I should ike o push or a ncberconstrual .

A richer construal seems possible e c a ~some l o g u eo fthe two conditions mentioned in the prevwus s e c t i ~which

distinguished full expressioQ., aho seem to hold o f actJon as an.expression of desire . . · fro -

Tbe first point which i s t i n ~ b e dF lUIDCeXpressiO l mwhat merely offers physiopoDUC xeading w s that With thelatter what we read can also be obeened . o u ~o aphysiognomic reading. We can e e ~wall _a.Wng on t t l o ~as i t were, as \Y H as readina its ~ m p e n d i n Jc o ~ J m ~ ~present tilt. But what s expreued can oDiy bo manifat to us man expression. . · li:t.- •

In his regard, the desire-action relation • more uo FJl111Df:


7/9

S c a n n e

d b y

C a m

S c a n n e r

84 lnt« ntlon Clntllmt ntlonalltyUe· ·-en usc m U.HUC ~ n e r n lsen ole o f cnusc. there cnn be u d o ~ t l r ew h t ~ hC ll l be rcucl m nur bchnviour und which ~ t U H O Mlt, und~ h a ~ hn c ~ r l h c l o H t tiN not cxprcsMcd In tho hahn vlour . Thht ht so

' CU CS uf whut huVc been C4allad •dovinnt cuurtnl c h u l n t ~foro x u ~ n l l ~ ,the :'sc .whore l desire wry ~ a c hto l'trnurth your MlngVU8C b c c n u ~ t Cat Wt l lll•Y yma out for hcmg Mo moun to me . Thispowcr .l\•1, tlc:strucuvc desire o f mine makes me su norvou8 tlulttny gnp IS loosened On tho VR &O nnd it Mmnshes Oil the noor.

T his kind o f case has been much disclUisod in the lltcrnture.An .d o ~ course . there is no ngreemcmt on whut to mnke of it. Myclaam as that at shows thut the relation o f nction und desire~ m n o tbe anulyzed with some genen•l category o f cause whichs ulso upplicable to inanimate beings . Rather we can see that

Just what is missing in the deviant case is that relation betweendesire and action that I want to call'expression'. Someone canp h ~ i o g n o m i c a J l y.read my hostility to you in the agitationwhich eventuates 10 my dropping the vase; but this doesn'texpress my desire in the stronger sense, even though by flukethe resulting event (the smashing o f he vase) turns out to havethe same description as the one I wanted to bring about Wecan see from the deviant case that this stronger, more intimaterelation o f expressi on is essential to what we consider normalaction. What is this relation? I t is that desire and action arc in acertain sense inseparable.

To see this we have to lookatwhatonemightcall the normalor basic situation. one in which I act unreluctantly andunconst.minedly. This situation a m be called •basic', becausehere my action ~ n desire are in the relation from which mycL'lssi6cntion of desires is drown . My desires auc lllways

- h ~ r u c t e r i t t dby releren'- ' to t h ~situ•tion, where I am doinawhut I wunt. And t l 1 i ~is the only way that n desire am bec h a r u c t c r i ~ . e d .lf I didn't have this oormul sitwltion us one o fmy pt>ssibilities, und aa L lenst sometimes us un actuality, lcouldn't have the lun&U l&e o f desire thut I huve.

To suy that desire and action are inseparable in tlus situationis not to say ~ t they cun't be cause and effecl On the contrary,they are. Bu-&t does mean that they cannot be identified assepumble components in this situation. My desiring X is notsomething separable from my unconstrained, unreluctantact ion encompassing X And my action encompassing X

,·

.'

Action AJ ExpresJion 8S

Citnnot be COruttrued llS bchuviour which i• brought about bydesire as aome ll()pKrnbly idcntiOublo ~ t n t e c e d e n tIt mu•t beellpcrionced qualitntlvcly dilfcrcnl from reluctant •ction, ornon .l&clion.

Lct'A look more cloiCily ut theiC two clalmt. Firat, the claimthnt deairlna X Ia not •omcthlna tcpearablc in tbc normalt ~ i l u n t i o nfrom the unconJtrained, unnsluctant punuit of X

This would not be true if we could construe desire aa aomeundorlyina neurophysiological stale which iaaued in thlabehaviour, but this we cannot do. Desire is an intentionalatat.e.lt is essentially bound up with a certain awareness of wbat iadesired, of its object.

Of course, there are unconsc ious desires. But wba t do wemean by these? We mean desires of which our awareness isdistorted. But even these, our hidden or self-unavowabledesires, are manifested in affect o f some kind . I t s just that thisaffect quite misrepresents or distorts or screens what weconsider the real nature o f the desire.

I am not just making the point that the concept o f a biddendesire is parasitic on that o f a desire o f whose object we areaware; that we cowdn•t attribute bidden desires to beings whodidn't have conscious desiles. This is true; but I'm making thestronger point that we couldn't attribute a bidden desire wherethis had no manifestation at all in conscious affect-al thouJhwe may include among conscious affects certain patho)oaicalstates o f ndifference, the inability to feel anythin& in situationswhere feeling somethin& ~ normal. Wbat was utterlyunnumifcsted in atfect eouldn't be a duw (And it s


8/9 S c a n n e

d b y

C a m

S c a n n e r

86 Intention and Intentionality

any visible symptoms at all. But n he case o f desire, there mustbe some manifest affecL t isn t a desire otherwise.

Now i f we take this point that desire is an intentional state,and look back a t what I have called the basic situation, we cansee how desire and action arc inseparable. For n the case whereI act unconstrainedly and unreluctantly, my awareness of my

desire must always include, and can just consist in,tnY

awareness that I am so acting. But since my awareness of mydesire is not some separable symptom, but is essential to mydesire, is part of what it is to have this desire, then so is myawareness of my unconstrained action. Awareness o f what Iwant is inseparable here from awareness of what I am doing.Desire and action are not separable components in the basicsituation.

They begin to come apart when I am constrained fromaction. Then the awareness of desire can take the form merelyo f a formulation to myself, or to you, of what I want; or a senseo f unease, perhaps . But this case is parasitic on the normal case,in that our desires are characterized by reference to the normalcase.

So there must be a context in which my desire can t beseparated from my action . But i f this is so, then the secondclaim must also be true, that my action encompassing my endcan t be understood as distinct from my behaviour in othercontexts just in that it has some special separabl y identifiableantecedent. The awareness which enters into, which can beidentical with, my awareness of desire. must be of a kind ofaction qualitatively ditferent from other contexts. It is happyaction.

I t is because there is and must be such a context where desireand action aren t separable, this context being central to thedevelopment of our language of desire and action, that seeingaction as the natural expression of desire is saying somethi ngstronger than just that action offers a physiognomic reading ofour motivations. It does offer physiognomic reading o f manydesires, o r rather, my total behaviour, demeanour, et c ., does;as it also ofers reading o f my other states: fatigue, distress,nervousness, etc. But in the normal situation, there is a desirewhich enjoys a special status, which s the one inseparable fromthis happy action . To say that th ia is naturaUy exprened in the

Action s Expre3sion 8

action is to say more than just that the latter offers aphysiognomic reading of iL

Rather the claim is that the desire is in the action in astronger sense . For the desire is inseparable from the action inthat the awareness which it essentially involves just is theawareness ofunconstrainedaction. So that in the case o f happy

action, we can say that the form the desire takes is that o funconstrained action. The locus of desiring in this case, as anessentially intentional state, is just in the action. The actiondoesn t ust enable us to see the desire; it s the desire, embodie din public space.

Moreover, this is not just one among many forms the desirecan take. It is in a sense its paradigm form, since the desire isdefined in terms of the action which expresses it in this sense .

esires are defined in terms o f the actions which can embodythem in this way .

Thus action expresses desire in a stronger sense. It doesn tjust make it visible, as it does my fatigue or nervousness, forinstance. Rather happy action is the desire embodied in publicspace, in an action from which the desire is inseparable, andwhich therefore displays its defining characteristics.

We thus have a stronger construal to give our formula thenatural expression of wanting is trying to get than our earlierone which put it on aU fours with formulae like the naturalexpression of fatigue is drooping shoulders , or • ofhunger is salivation , etc. And this relation of expression isessential to action. It is a t its most palpable in what I havecalled the basic situation, where we act unconstrainedly andunreluctantly; but it s present in all action, since even when weact reluctantly or under constraint, our action is expressive o four intention or resolve in the same way that happy actionexpresses desire; that is, our awareness o f our intentionincorporates, and may be nothing more than. our awareoess o fwhat we intentionally are doing.

This is what underlies the distinction benwcn deviant andnon-deviant chains . n the normal, non-deviant cue, ouraction expresses our desire or intention . This relation is aprimitive, bec:aUJe it invohel inleparability of the two.Consequently,. it ia futile to try to Jiw an account of what non-deviancy amounts to in term1 of a type o f caual ~ l t i o n


9/9 S c a n n e

d b y

C a m

S c a n n e r

88Intention and Intentionality

between separably identifiable terms This ight serveneuroph · 1 · · u u as adist in . s t ~o g t ~ lreductive account o f what underlies the. ction., bu t i f w want to talk about what the distinction18

. ~ b o ~ tm our e x p e ~ e n c ewhat underlies the intuitivedis?nc t ion between deVtant and non-deviant chains, this kindo mdependent- tenn-causal account just must be barking upthe wrong tree .

The point is missed because in the objectivist orientation o fm u c h co':ltemporary philosophy, we allow ourselves to cons ~ e e s ~ s some underlying state, not necessarily intent i o n ~It 1S something which may issue in (perhaps distortedconsctousness or avowal, as well as in action. But theunderlying state is seen as independent from its results, inthought or action . On this view, the relation o f action anddesire in the basic situation isn't even seen as a possible option.Happy act ion is not seen as a special case, where desire andaction interpenetrate; but rather ust as a situation marked bya n absence of conflict, and perhaps also an absence o f othersymptoms o f desire than action, for example introspectiveawareness o f longing, etc. On this view, action is no moreintimately linked with desire than any o f the other symptoms .

From this perspective, desire becomes the cause o f action ina normal, Humean way; and it makes sense to t ry to find whatspecial conditions distinguish deviant from non-deviant cases.But his way o f alking s a muddle. t won't allow for the necessary intentionality of desire. t s an attempt to give an accounton the psycholog ical level, with terms like 'desire' and 'action'while operating with a logic that would only be applicable ~the reduced, physiolog ical level. The result is confusion.

A t the centre of our ordinary understanding o f action is thusan expressive relation stronger than what is involved in ouraction and demeanour offering mere physiognomic readings o four feelings and condition. Trying to get is indeed the naturalexpression o f desire, not just as offering the most readilya vailabJe physiognomic access, but also as what is inseparablefrom it by nature', i.e., the fundamental factsaboutthehumancondition Which are determinative for our language.Unconstrained, unreluctant action is the paradigm form o fdesire; the form o f its self-awareness which is remembered inall other forms; its natural outlet.

I ~ 1

.;

Action s Expression 9

But is it a natural expression of desire? Nothing in the abovediscussion closes the gap with what I called genuine expression,where the object can be understood to say something. In thatsense, what we say in mime and speech is always expression in asense which mere unconstrained action can' t match. In thatsense our original reluctance to speak o f expression herestands.

But although it s not genuine, full-blooded expression, thereis a reason to speak o f action as the natural expression o fdesire. t s not just that it manifests desire by embodying it inpublic space , whic h gives a t least some minimal ustification forusing the term. It is also that this relation is in a sensefoundational for genuine expression.

We have genuine expression, as we saw, when we canattribute verbs o f utterance to expressive objects. But to get tothis stage we have to be able to recognize the disposition tocommunicate as embodied in gestures o r artefacts in publicspace, as for instance human beings can recognize and respondto a smile. Without this recognition, we would never have thepredicament of mutual communication which all our expressive activity presuppos es, in which alone verbs of utterancehave sense. But in order to recognize reciprocally the disposition to communicate, we have to be able to 'read' eachother, our dispositions and e e l i n ~have to be potentially open,in public space. Our desires have to be manifest to others, to thepotential community

This is a kind o f manifestation which is foundational forgenuine expression, in that it is presupposed by it. This is the'natural' level o f expression, on which genuine expression

builds, always with some degree o f the arbitrary and theconventional Mime and style take this up and make alanguage in which we can say to each other, as i t were, what webelieve ourselves to be . But there would be nothing to take up,i f we weren't already open, i f our desires weren't embodied inpublic space, in what w do and try to do, in the naturalbackground o f self-revelation, which human expression endlessly elaborates.

Action as Expression

Documents

Transcript of Action as Expression