Premium
A Different World: Embodied Experience and Linguistic Relativity on the Epistemological Path to Somewhere
Author(s) -
WatsonGegeo Karen Ann
Publication year - 2004
Publication title -
anthropology of consciousness
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.117
H-Index - 14
eISSN - 1556-3537
pISSN - 1053-4202
DOI - 10.1525/ac.2004.15.2.1
Subject(s) - embodied cognition , interpretation (philosophy) , trace (psycholinguistics) , epistemology , perception , linguistic relativity , limit (mathematics) , sociology , theory of relativity , psychology , philosophy , linguistics , mathematics , cognition , mathematical analysis , physics , neuroscience , classical mechanics
This article explores the role of limit experiences (Tracy) and linguistic relativity (Whorf) in shaping our ontological and epistemological understandings of the world. Specifically, I trace the transformations in embodied understanding I have undergone in three situations across my life course–in Hawai'i, Solomon Islands, and as an acutely ill and disabled patient in a live‐in clinic in Dallas, Texas. I give examples of how our perceptions, conceptions, and proprioceptions are positioned, constrained, opened to interpretation, and even denied by our culture and language. Limit experiences, however, open the possibility for transformation of understanding and recognition that there are probably infinite manifest and unmanifest realities.