Alexander Technique as Art: Pragmatic Nishida

Alexander Technique as Art: A Pragmatic reading of Nishida

In this essay I will show how the 19^th century American philosophical school of Pragmatism links Nishida and Alexander Technique, explain how Nishida’s ideas appear to raise Alexander Technique to the level of great art, and use the main idea of pragmatism to argue that they can both be true (and complementary). At the end I will link the ideas I’ve explained to my own ideas about art and life – I agree with both Nishida and Alexander, but want to emphasise individual expression.

To explain the link with pragmatism, first I’ll introduce William James (1842-1910), pragmatist and source of perhaps the most important concept in Nishida’s system – Pure Experience. Then I’ll explain a little about John Dewey  (1859-1952), famous pragmatist and free thinker, and how he was influenced by the philosophy of Frederick Matthias Alexander, the founder of the Alexander Technique, practising it for most of his life and writing introductions to almost all Alexander’s books.

William James – an introduction to pragmatism

According to James, ‘pragmatism’ was developed by his friend and colleague Pierce in an 1878 paper, but not debated until James defended the idea in a University of California debate in 1898. Pierce’s “principle” is this:

“Consider what effects, which might possibly have practical bearings, we conceive the object of our conception to have. Then, our conception of those effects is the whole of our conception of the object.”[1]

This is something of a vague statement, and it isn’t surprising that different thinkers took it in different ways.

James’ pragmatism is a methodology for clarifying concepts, and avoiding empty metaphysical disputes. At the same time, it is a syncretism, which allows room for both scientific and religious theories about the world. Much like “Occam’s Razor”[2] it is a way of deciding between two  competing theories, but unlike the razor, where there is no practical difference between two theories, it admits both.

James gives an example of pragmatism in action in his 1907 explanation[3]: 

A squirrel hangs on one side of a tree, and an observer on the other. The observer tries to catch the squirrel by running around the tree clockwise, however the squirrel also runs clockwise, and they complete a full circuit of the tree. Two observers argue about the ‘metaphysical’ question of, “has the observer ‘gone around’ the squirrel, or not?”.

James’ pragmatic solution to this puzzle is to analyse what is meant by “go around” – if you are thinking in ‘objective’ terms like compass points, the observer has indeed travelled to the north, east, south and west of the squirrel, so he has “gone around”. If you are thinking in terms of relative location – “in front of”, “behind” etc, then the observer has not “gone around” the squirrel.

But, crucially, whichever theory you accept, it makes no practical difference to the world, so both are admissible. Once the two have realised that their dispute is rooted in slightly different, but compatible, assumptions, they will cease to argue.

In other words, the idea is whatever its practical consequences are, and two theories that predict the same consequences can both be true.

James’ pragmatism is very similar to empiricism – a focus on experience – on the practical consequences of theory and concepts.

It also views theories and concepts as tools, rather than absolute statements of reality. James thought things were true so long as they help us to understand the world.

“Ideas … become true just in so far as they help us to get into satisfactory relations with other parts of our experience.”^[4] 

So two very different theories can both be true so long as they don’t predict contrary things, and they both help us to understand the world.

This will be important, because it is the principle I’ll use to argue that Nishida aesthetics and the philosophy of Alexander technique can both be true.

Pure Experience – Nishida and James

When William James published his “A World Of Pure Experience” in 1904, he thought that he was going to completely change the way people did philosophy, and thought about the world. Particularly, he was excited by the idea that experience, “overflows and surrounds”[5] logic and conceptual thought.

The basic idea is that there is a near infinite amount of information in experience – we process it using the concepts that we have, but this does not extract all the information. Clearly if we could extract all the information in experience using our current set of concepts, we could never experience new things from, for example, looking at the same picture twice. We wouldn’t be able to  generate new concepts that aren’t combinations of old concepts.  There must be experience which is non-conceptual, since we are ‘experiencing’ all that is there – everything is hitting our sense organs – but we are only processing part of it in terms of concepts. The information our senses deliver always runs ahead of the ability of ourselves to describe and define in terms of concepts.

Nishida gives another (I think better) argument for pure experience: Babies experience, but they don’t appear to have concepts at birth – so their experience must be pre-conceptual or ‘pure’.[6]

For James, this idea of “pure experience” showed that experience is the most fundamental thing – more fundamental than any concept, including the ones we take as basic, like logical concepts. Those who take concepts (abstracted from Pure Experience) to represent reality as it is, (as do some rationalists and logicians) are mistaken. They are absolutising one static and abstract limitation of the infinite and dynamic reality – when in fact reality must be dynamic, and it must be lived.

Soon after James published his first writings on pure experience, Nishida Kitaro took the concept and placed it at the heart of his own young philosophy in his first work A Study of the Good (1911). He noticed the potential for this idea to be fused with Zen Buddhism, and he appreciated its ability to transcend logic and conceptual thought, while at the same time remaining immediate and active.

While James appears to have believed that the subject-object distinction is necessary to pure experience (probably because he conceived of the idea of “experience” as requiring a subject to experience, and an object to be experienced), Nishida makes Pure Experience a non-dual metaphysical principle. Both object and subject of experience are seen as pure experience- i.e. pre-conceptual experience. So, from the standpoint of pure experience there is no way to tell subject and object apart. “From the standpoint of Pure Experience, there is no such thing as an object divorced from the subject”[7] The normative undertones in James’ theory are brought out – “Meanings and judgments are an abstracted part of the original experience, and compared with the original experience they are meager in content."[8] This formulation shows a shift from the original idea of Pure Experience as a basic kind of experience, to the idea of pure experience “more real”. Nishida refers to this idea of Pure Experience as “ultimate reality” by the term Absolute Nothingness.[9]

-          Body-mind Unity – static nothingness

Self and body are “ambiguous” intersections between inner and outer, situated within the constant becoming that is pure experience, or absolute nothingness. As opposites they define one another, and so are not seperable. But ultimately (from the standpoint of pure experience) they are not distinct (despite being opposites). This mind-body unity will be seen to be a key part of Dewey’s philosophy, and of the Alexander Technique.

-          Action-intuition – moral nothingness

Experience on the level of ‘pure experience’ is no longer a subject interacting with an object, it is “acting-intuition”, a selfless type of action in which “the world becomes the self’s body”.  This is also what Nishida would have to call good action – since it is rooted in the experience of a self that has become the world – it is the world’s action (or one could say God’s action) and everything that the world does is by definition right.

Let us simply note this here, and come back to it after we have looked at Dewey and Alexander Technique.

Nishida is certainly not a traditional pragmatist – he spends a lot of time explaining his complicated metaphysical system.[10] But his system is pragmatic in that it situates the person very much in the world, in its focus on action and activity, in its ability to explain away traditional unsolvable problems of metaphysics by showing how they are based on a false dichotomy, and in his acceptance of contradiction, and rejection of any absolute conceptual reality.

Freedom and Unity – Dewey and Alexander

Dewey called himself an “instrumentalist” not a pragmatist and saw himself as explaining the ‘logic and ethics of scientific enquiry’. He (and to an extent James) saw themselves as the enemies of rationalist philosophers who believed that knowledge of reality must have some justification, divorced from experience and practice. Dewey thought that knowledge can only come through practice, and that if there is no practical reason for questioning a belief, no justification is needed for that belief. He emphasised the role of the community and collective, seeing art as necessarily embedded in nature, defending democracy, and expounding radical ideas about education, like seeing the teacher’s role as facilitating the child’s learning.[11] 

So Dewey’s pragmatism has an emphasis on collective action, and moves away from James’s epistemological and metaphysical focus to a greater emphasis on politics and education.  It isn’t surprising then that he saw the mind as something closely connected to the body, the system within which it is located – and that he was impressed by the practical results of the Alexander Technique -  “My theories of mind-body, of the co-ordination of the active elements of the self and of the place of ideas in inhibition and control of overt action required contact with the work of F.M. Alexander, and in later years his brother, A.R. to transform them into realities.”^[12] Dewey studied the technique for 35 years, and wrote introductions to three of Alexander’s books. Dewey seems to have seen the technique as practical philosophy Dewey draws explicit links between Alexander’s ideas and his own on a wide range of subjects such as morality, education, and free expression.[13]

So practise of the Alexander Technique (AT) appears to have helped Dewey to concretise his own philosophy – let me explain a little more about the central ideas of AT.

Alexander Technique

The Alexander technique was founded in the 1890s by the Australian actor  F. M. Alexander as way to cure problems he was having with his voice. It is primarily known as a system of relaxation that improves posture, breathing and movement – it is popular with musicians and athletes because of its demonstrated effectiveness at helping to avoid injury and improving performance. This is how it is known – I’d like to introduce the deeper aspects of AT through introducing its core principles.

Principles of Alexander Technique:

Release / inhibition

There are a number of principles in Alexander technique, but the most fundamental is that of “letting go” (or “inhibiting” habitual responses). In the course of our lives, each of us develop “habits” – ways of dealing with the world that have perhaps served us well in certain circumstances, but become unconscious responses that reoccur in circumstances where they are not desirable. You may well have had the experience of realising that you tense your shoulders when typing, or always step out with the same foot causing an imbalance. If you are able to “let go of” or “inhibit” these kinds of habits and nervous tension, you will be able to use your body much more effectively. The Alexander technique teacher asks the learner to allow the teacher complete control of their body, as a first step to the learner realising that they themselves have the power to bypass bad habits and tension.

This simple process relies on the idea that knowledge of how to do things is already around – all one has to do is avoid doing things wrong, and the right action will start to shine forth. This may take time. As Patrick Macdonald, one of Alexander’s most influential disciples puts it, “Remember you are slowly eliminating the wrong. Finality, for most of us, and that includes me, is not in sight”[14]

Primary Control / Unified Self

The goal of Alexander technique is sometimes called “primary control” – it is the state of allowing yourself to be steered by the “something” within you that “knows” how things should be done. Simultaneously this allows you to accomplish what were previously your goals in a easier and free-er way. In physical terms this is describable as a certain ratio between the head, neck, and spine – but this is always changing and AT encourages one to learn it not by memorizing what it is, and trying to do it, but by cutting out your bad habits, and letting your body (which already understands it) guide you back.

As Macdonald explains:

“Any emotional involvement in trying to learn what to do, or in what is going on should be avoided”[15] This is because emotions connect to the body, and feeling emotional will lead to tension in the body.

The goal of Alexander technique is “primary control” an open body and mind that gives us the possibility to act in any way we choose. “Trying” to get to such a goal will be counter-productive, because mental states manifest themselves in physical changes (mind-body unity) and the act of trying will destroy the “letting go” you are trying to achieve. Similarly trying to keep primary control once it is found, will cause it to slip through your fingers as your mental state changes your physical state.

As Macdonald puts it, “This is a practical demonstration of the value of the old esoteric saying about having to die in order to come alive. When you feel something that you know to be right, do not try to keep it. Any trying of that kind will smother it immediately. When you get something good, let it alone. Some of it might stay with you.”[16]

Primary Control, the goal of Alexander technique, is similar to nothingness. It is best described in negative terms: “removing tension” or “removing habits”  (while nothingness is ‘non-conceptual’). It can be described by some apparently positive terms like “freedom” or “letting go” but these are actually hidden negative terms e.g. “freedom” is “absence of constraint” and “letting go” is “absence of tension”. (like “emptiness” or “nothingness” or even “buddha-nature”)  Primary Control is the type of goal you can only achieve if you don’t want to achieve it. (like nothingness – all desires are based on concepts) And Primary Control is something active – it is definitely practise and not mere theory. (Nishida’s idea of nothingness is definitely active – e.g. acting-intuition)

-          Application of Alexander Technique

When used by musicians, Alexander technique brings us closer to the instrument, and to the music. Alexander technique seeks to “inhibit” or cut out the barriers between the musician, the instrument, and the music. Just as AT seeks through Primary Control to make your body something you can use with freedom by inhibiting the barriers created between you and your body, so it seeks to make the instrument feel like an extension of your body by removing the tensions and habits blocking musicians from using the instrument to their full potential. This is not just mind-body unity, this is becoming the instrument.

For someone takes Alexander Technique seriously, a good musical performance first and foremost simply is one demonstrating Primary Control. In other words, no matter how technically accurate a performer is, the Alexander technique philosophy will not credit them as a good musician unless their body is free. Practitioners claim to be able to literally “hear” the tension in a performers playing. They say that it is “painful” to watch some performers because of the strains they are obviously placing their bodies under. So, the condition of the body, in terms of AT, becomes another criterion by which to judge a performance.

You can extend this to areas beyond music – Alexander believed that Primary Control was a kind of absolute good – because of the deep connection between mind and body, freedom and ease of the body lead to freedom and ease of the mind – a society based around Primary Control could be expected to be more enlightened, happier, and less violent etc.

So, when pursued to its logical conclusion, the idea of primary control becomes a moral imperative – to be free, and to act freely.  It can be seen as an end in itself, because use of the body/mind is ultimately necessary for all other things.[17] Like Nishida’s acting-intuition, Primary Control is a ‘good’ due to its naturalness and unity.

Through inhibiting your everyday self (or letting go), you awaken to the underlying unified reality (or state of primary control), and this shows you a better way to conduct yourself.

I’ve introduced the core ideas of Alexander Technique – Inhibiting everyday concepts to get to a state of Primary Control: A kind of “active letting-go”, which is best described in negative terms, and which can only be achieved by releasing the very desire to achieve it. I’ve also shown how it can be seen as a moral imperative, and how practise of Alexander Technique can result in not only mind-body unity, but unity of performer and instrument.

Now I’d like to explain how Nishida’s ideas about Art and ‘the good’ – rooted in his concept of Pure Experience – bear a striking similarity to the ideas of the Alexander technique. I’ll go on to argue that as they don’t result in different predictions about the world, they are pragmatically compatible.

Nishida says that “Art is an explosion of Life”[18] – “Calligraphy and Music are ‘the expression of the rhythm of a free lifeforce’”[19].

“Artistic pleasure can only come about in a ‘lofty state of self-lessness’”[20] For true art to come about, it is necessary to “submerge oneself into the action itself”[21], or “submerging yourself in it, through becoming one with it, you first grasp it.”[22]

This sounds less like a definition of art, and more like a description of action in the Alexander technique – clearly this is based in Nishida’s idea of Pure Experience as a normative concept – action that is closer to pure experience is better (i.e. that imposes less human concepts on the unity of reality and simply *is* in the midst of pure experience). So true art is not about making a pretty tune, it is about becoming one with the instrument, and the artwork.

It is interesting how general his description of art is – it would almost seem that anything done in the right state of mind could fit Nishida’s definition. I would venture to suggest that he might have considered anything done with Primary Control – inhibiting everyday concepts – in a state of freedom and unity with the action, as artistic.

There are further parallels with Nishida’s idea of “active-intuition” – through letting go of our bodies, and inhibiting previous fixed conceptions about the world, Alexander encourages us to let “something” (i.e. the non-expressible in conceptual terms) guide us to the correct way of doing things. It is very tempting to read this as a practical guide to “acting-intuition” – retuning to pure experience through letting go of current conceptual reality, and finding a new way of interpreting reality – re-defining self and other. It is further possible to think of Alexander Technique’s way of utilizing instruments as literally incorporating them within ones-self, since Nishida’s self is flexibile enough to incorporate anything that brings with it consciousness of self. Nishida often talks of “seeing without a seer” and “seeing by becoming”  - this is active-intuition.

-          Pragmatic Interpretation

So, Nishida’s writings on art bear some striking similarities to action with primary control – action using Alexander Technique. Since the two theories don’t appear to contradict one another, pragmatically they can both be true if they are both useful to understand the world – I would argue they both are – Alexander Technique is practical, and Nishida is theoretical. What is more, I have a strong suspicion that Nishida himself would have appreciated the Alexander technique – in a similar way to the way he appreciated Zen. By doing it, mastering it, incorporating into the very fabric of the way he looks at the world, but never mentioning it by name.

My Ideas

I said at the beginning that this was not just going to be a look at these theories, but also an exploration of my own ideas. And it has been – but just to make it clear, I’ll now talk in a bit more detail about what I believe.

Art is about revealing truth – and stripping away the decorations which ordinarily obscure it. Art is to limit yourself to a committed action – revealing its inner truth. Art has to be a simple affirmation of life without fear or fixed concepts – it should release the underlying magma of life. And, in the end I don’t think this just applies to art – I think this is what life should be – If art is an explosion of life, then all life should be art. Art is not just something we go to watch, it is what a good life should be.

But I worry that Nishida’s theory is perhaps too general. It almost seems like anything could become art under his definition. So ugly music, if done with primary control, or in pure experience could be seen as good art. I don’t agree with this. I think primary control has to reveal the beautiful and the happy. I think it is about stripping away fear and pressure and revealing your underlying lust for life. I’ve learned this through my practical experience of Alexander Technique, and I think this is somewhere that AT can really complement Nishida’s philosophy.

So in this way, I completely agree with Alexander Technique because I’ve done it for many years and it feels right. When I practice, I let my body and hands free – I remove all concepts and forms regarding my playing. This allows me to experience the music more deeply, experience the composer, and experience myself through the music. When you remove all the barriers between you and the music, when you become one with the music, your whole being becomes the truth of the world, and the magma of life is revealed most purely. In order to put this into a beautiful form, you need to direct yourself according to how you want to receive the music.

But at the same time I completely agree with Nishida that the world is absolute nothingness, and a good life, an artistic life, is just revealing this absolute nothingness and letting it free (of course in a beautiful way). And I think that both are compatible, and probably that both are getting at the same thing, but that they supplement one another – pragmatism is a theory that both links the two through chains of related thinkers, and links them for me because it allows me believe both. I’m happy to have had the chance to study a little to read some great thinkers and try to work out a theoretical background for some of my most deeply-held beliefs.

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