Tradition as Body

What is it about?

The Enlightenment and its legacy, still strong in the academy today, tends to doubt traditions and to assume that traditions can be so thoroughly analyzed that all of a tradition can become explicit. Primarily drawing upon Michael Polanyi, a scientist and philosopher of how we come to know things, this article argues for the necessity of tradition. The perspective of enactive, embodied cognition holds that all knowing, all truth and value, stem from the engagement of our bodies with our world. Thus, traditions stem from our embodiment (ironically, even those that are anti-body). Tradition as body means that we incorporate traditions into our bodies, that we extend our bodies in and through our traditions. As that which we inescapably rely upon, much of a tradition is tacit and some of any tradition is unspecifiable--we can't spell it all out, so to speak. This does not mean, though, that critical reflection is never in order. This article offers some guidelines for when to accept traditions, especially religious traditions, and when to call them into question.

Featured Image