Sensory medical anthropology, and how it analyses embodied Chinese medical perceptions
Elisabeth Hsu, University of Oxford: In this presentation I discuss three different Chinese medical terms relating to particular perceptual processes: (1) with regard to colour term qing in the name of the Chinese medical drug qinghao, I foreground a perceptual process based on its phono-aesthetics, (2) with regard to sound and vibration when it comes to correspondences with the seasons, I foreground Chinese medical ideas of resonance (ganying), and (3) with regard to feelings, I foreground an instance of listening to qi (ting qi) as a perceptual process that educates one’s attention. The argument is that – beyond sense perception – there are subtle modes of perception that Chinese medical scholars recognised and worked with in antiquity and medieval times. The means by which I recognised these processes of perception were anthropological: combining insights of textual scholarship with ethnographies on bodily technologies, in Chinese and other cultural
Elisabeth Hsu is a Professor of Anthropology at University of Oxford. Her research contributes to the fields of medical anthropology and ethnobotany; language and text critical studies; and the history of science, technology and medicine in China and beyond.
Perceiving Nature as Noetic Experience. Some "Plotinian" Suggestions
Salvatore Lavecchia, University of Udine: Plotinus associates nature with a particular modality of contemplation, characterising it as a preconscious manifestation of noetic/rational activity and production of visible forms: in contrast to the activity of an artist, which requires a material substrate, the activity of nature is immobile, yet relational form without matter (III 8, 2-3) - which gives life to matter (III 8, 2, 6-19) -; because of the aforesaid immateriality, the contemplation of nature occurs as a silent activity, as it were in sleep consciousness (III 8, 4, 22-28), in which nature is preconsciously both the subject and the object of contemplation, and as such a directly productive activity (III 8, 3, 16-24 and 4, 15-28). As a consequence, perceiving nature means experiencing a living, althoug preconscious image of the selfconscious, eminently productive contemplation with which Plotinus identifies the supreme goal of human life. Conscioulsy transcending any separation between subjectivity and objectivity, through the attainment of this goal human beings are not only manifesting in the highest form their true self, but are equally able to harmoniously and consciously cooperate in shaping the life of the whole universe (V 8.7).
Salvatore Lavecchia is Associate Professor of Ancient Philosophy at the University of Udine. His main research interests are: the Socratic dialogue; the philosophy of self in Plato and in Platonism; the metaphysics of light; ancient aesthetics.
Programme
09:00 a.m. Lecture Elisabeth Hsu
10.30 a.m. Coffee break
11.00 a.m. Lecture Salvatore Lavecchia
13.00 p.m. Lunch
The Lecture Series is organized by Caroline Gatt and Claudia Luchetti, Core Research Area of the Faculty of Humanities | Perception of the University of Graz. More information: perception.uni-graz.at