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Document Details : Title: The Intentionality of Gestures and their Role in Monological Thinking Subtitle: Some Remarks Following Husserl Author(s): BEJINARIU, Alexandru Journal: Tijdschrift voor Filosofie Volume: 84 Issue: 3 Date: 2022 Pages: 435-456 DOI: 10.2143/TVF.84.3.3291500 Abstract : In this paper, I offer a phenomenological account regarding self-oriented gestures, i.e., gestures that we use along with our inner monologue. I begin by discussing Husserl’s early account in his First Logical Investigation of signs and expressions in monologic use to show that self-oriented gestures are neither expressions nor signs. I further investigate the specific traits of gesture intentionality by reconstructing Husserl’s later theory (1914) of mimical signs, according to which gestures in communicative use function like transeunt symbols (e.g., hieroglyphs), that is, they imitate and thus point out to others the inner or outer processes meant by the speaker. I argue that in their monological use gestures lose this dominating transeunt intention and function like images that, thanks to their pictorializing moments and sensuous diversity, offer a higher degree of fulfilling to the initial meaning-intention. Finally, in an interdisciplinary framing, I explain this kind of gestural fulfilling by considering some classical theses in gesture studies as well as a new hypothesis regarding the role of gestures for thinking. |
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