Practices of remembering a movement in the dance studio: evidence for (a radicalized version of) the REC framework in th
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Practices of remembering a movement in the dance studio: evidence for (a radicalized version of) the REC framework in the domain of memory Carla Carmona1 Received: 30 April 2020 / Accepted: 2 November 2020 © Springer Nature B.V. 2020
Abstract This paper provides evidence for a radically enactive, embodied account of remembering. By looking closely at highly context-dependent instances of memorizing and recalling dance material, I aim at shedding light on the workings of memory. Challenging the view that cognition fundamentally entails contentful mental representation, the examples I discuss attest the existence of non-representational instances of memory, accommodating episodic memory. That being so, this paper also makes room for content-involving forms of remembering. As a result, it supports the duplex vision of mentality advanced by the REC framework. Building on research on the enactive imagination, I suggest that contentless forms of remembering act below content-involving forms. In addition, contentless and contentful forms of remembering a movement are revealed as the product of culturally scaffolded engagements with others and the environment, in which direct perception and mirroring play a fundamental role. It is argued that many of the practices of remembering a movement are best explained as enactments or re-enactments of such direct ecological perceptions. In the process, the dance studio proves to be a paradigm of the extensive mind. This paper is also intended as an invitation to the REC framework to extend the family and explicitly embrace research on sociocultural practices as an equal partner, including dance studies. Given the fundamental role that sociocultural practices play in REC’s understanding of cognition, it is only natural that further radicalization goes along those lines. Keywords Contentless remembering · Dance practice · Memory · Radically enactive cognition · Skilled action Taking John Sutton (2015) up on his invitation to Wittgensteinians to engage in the study of particular practices of remembering, I discuss such practices in the context of Western contemporary dance with the aim of having a hand in the current debates
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Carla Carmona [email protected] Faculty of Philosophy, University of Seville, Seville, Spain
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on the interdisciplinary and integrative study of memory. Like Sutton, I see the need to shed further light on remembering as a public and often collaborative practice by examining actual practices of remembering. However, unlike him, I hold the view that questions about mental representation and content are fundamental to the study of memory and far from being distinct from the strong anti-individualist insights that lie at the core of the major revisionary perspectives in contemporary cognitive theory (Di Paolo et al. 2020; Hutto 2016, 2017; Hutto and Kirchhoff 2014; Hutto and Myin 2017; Hutto and Peters 2018). I engage with both concerns with the help of dance. Aware of the dangers of reifying memory as a storehouse, this paper understands memory as
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