Tradition as Body

Abstract

Abstract Coming from the perspective of embodied or enactive cognition, this article argues for the bodily roots of all tradition. Given that tradition entails a givenness inherited from the past meeting with interpretation/modification/construction in the present, it examines tradition as an aspect of self-organizing cultural, particularly religious, systems, including in situations far from equilibrium. Building upon Michael Polanyi’s idea that what we tacitly rely upon becomes incorporated into our bodies, the article takes a phenomenological approach to argue that traditions function as part of our bodies through which we meaningfully engage the world. As such, tradition sets limits to our critical penetration, as much of our knowledge is unspecifiable. The Enlightenment ideal that all tradition is thoroughly contestable – open to explicitation and needing justification – remains strong in the academy. The article examines both the pitfalls of critical reflection and when critical reflection is appropriate or necessary.