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Process Model of action-intuition and direct-referent

Tadayuki Murasato Teikyoheisei University

I feel great to be able to make presentation today. I want to discuss a possibility of

crossing of Gendlin’s philosophy and Nishida’s one.

Ⅰ.

In the introduction to the Japanese edition of “Focusing- Oriented Psychotherapy”

Gendlin writes that he thinks Focusing is more familiar in Japan than in West and

the philosophy which produced Focusing is also familiar to the Japanese traditional

culture.

I want to make it clear why this is true, from the view point of Japanese traditional

culture and especially the representative philosopher of modern Japan, Nishida’s

philosophy.

Gendlin said Focusing and TAE(Thinking At the Edge: quite a new way of creative

thinking which often uses Focusing) are produced from his philosophy of the implicit in

our body.

I have practiced and taught Focusing and TAE in Japan and read his philosophy and

Nishida’s one for more than ten years. There seems to be a kind of the coincidence of

things between their philosophies. I found it a need to overcome difficulties of modern

Western culture. Kitaro Nishida（1870～1945）and Eugene T. Gendlin( 1926～) are

thought to have felt a historical requirement from their own contexts to find a

breakthrough of the difficulties arising from Western modern thoughts and technology.

They sought to get a solid ground on which we can build a new house we live in without

anxiety namely not with understanding ourselves as things but with a new, sound

understanding of ourselves.

Nishida started from his “pure experience”, which means an experience before

thinking, which he believed to be a basis on which we make our understandings of

ourselves and our world. Since the Meiji Restoration Modern Japan had had a difficulty

to integrate its success in introducing Western technologies and its traditional

self-understanding. Those days, Japan was in the crisis of its identity. It is said that

only in Nishida Eastern cultural tradition truly met Western reflection for the first time.

His philosophical aim was to explain everything from the viewpoint that the pure

experiences are the only one reality. I think it was a highly practical philosophy in the

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sense that he inquired a new and profounder basis or an openness in which we can truly

have both Western values and Japanese culture. He said “In the Eastern culture there

seems to be a profound difference. When Western culture and Eastern tradition

(which meant Western modern philosophy and practicing Zen Buddhism for Nishida)

can find a profounder basis on which both can truly live, we might be able to fully

develop our humanity through them supplementing each other.”

He developed his thought persistently and made his terms such as “jikaku(self

consciousness)”,”basyo(place or space)”etc. These terms were carefully prepared

through a rather long period of his contemplation to open the openness and make his

concepts build the basis in it. Let me explain these terms by mainly using Ueda

Shizuteru, a good interpreter of Nishida’s philosophy.

“Our self” as” a predicative unity”( whose self is monadological” individual” as

“historical body” and the selves are the elements as “an individual against another

individual” who form our world) is‐in‐“basyo”(a place or a space), which is both a

place of being (our world)and a place of an absolute nothing(infinite margin of our

world), whose mode of being is “action intuition” and the logic of the basyo is “absolute

‐contradictory- self-identity”

These terms of his philosophy are quite difficult to understand, but I think it is because

they came from his difficult trial to find his way.

His way of thinking was metaphysical but it was so practical to keep connection to the

real world. In this point it has very nearness to Gendlin’s philosophy. Gendlin also uses

the words ” monad”, ”body”, ”space” as his important terms. I think that Nishida’s other

terms are also very close to Gendlin’s terms in their contents, for example “a predicative

unity” to” the implicit”, ”action intuition” to “ felt sense” or ”direct referent” etc.

Merleau-Ponty once referred to “a wild sphere” which is not involved by its own culture

and therefore can be crossed to each other. This wild sphere seems to be the pure

experience , ”basyo( a place or a space in our body) ”by Nishida and the implicit, the

body by Gendlin. And what functions in the body is “action intuition” by Nishida and

“direct referent” or” felt sense” by Gendlin.

I want to explain Gendlin’s philosophy, especially his A Process Model by giving you a

rough sketch of his context. His context was a difficulty which Western contemporary

philosophies have confronted. Two main streams of Western philosophy, analytic and

existential, seem to have both run aground to an aporia which might be called

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Postmodernism. The former seemed to get to nothingness and the latter to arbitrariness.

Gendlin and his philosophical friends held a Conference on After Postmodernism in

Chicago University in1997. I pick up some sentences from “A Report” as a kind of

results of the conference:

We are developing a language across the texts.

Theory and practice open each other.

Human bodies ”know” by inhabiting their interactional situations and the universe.

New conceptual models are welcome as tools within a wider context.

A new kind of truth and objectivity

These are able to be looked on as Gendlin’s way of thinking too.

In his late main book, “A Process Model” he wrote “we can speak from living, and we

can make rudimentary concepts from speaking-from, and especially from Focusing and

from the process of explication.” And the 14 steps into which he makes this is “TAE”.

Cambell Purton interprets as follows:

“Gendlin believes that our current ways of thinking don’t really allow for the existence

of human beings in the world. Our current ways of thinking separate the world from

what the world means to us…. So to make room for us in the world, the world has to be

re-thought. Gendlin’s concepts constitute a framework for this re- thinking.”

And” A Process Model” and” Experiencing and the Creation of Meaning”, his early

main book and his many other works are the instances of this re- thinking. There is a

marvelous consistency among them.

And I want to emphasize that Nishida’s philosophy which built a firm bridge over the

deep gulf between Western rational reflection and Eastern body-wisdom is one of the

new ways of thinking Gendlin imagines.

Of course there are clear differences between them. They have had different contexts

in their thinking, G is in the Western tradition of Philosophy namely philosophy of

Being. On the other hand,Nishida was in the Eastern tradition, the philosophy of

Nothingness. But we can find their nearness to each other between their terms

seemingly opposite or different such as G’s evolution and N’s historical work , or G’s

Being and N’s Negation or Nothingness etc.

Therefore we can expect an important crossing will occur between the two

philosophies. To use Gendlin’ s terms, we can say the two philosophies have their own

implying or possibility and can make an important crossing in our history. However,

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why does things like this happen? I want to explain this using Nishida’s terms and

Gendlin’s ones. Our selves are individuals against individuals and have their own

implyings into which things occur. They respond or cross to their environments or the

universe. Our environments, histories and the universe also cross to us through our

bodies. If we are close to our profounder wild sphere, which might be difficult for us to

be so, our interactions will come to be more alive and coincidences of things will come to

be there.

And the work of its crossing has been left for us to do ourselves, as Gendlin invites us

to do so. We might be able to change our world into a better one to live in through

practicing their philosophies.

Ⅱ.

I want to make a closer examination into their thoughts, especially on action-intuition

and direct refernt.

A Japanese Philosopher,Yujiro Nakamura wrote: Nishida’s ”action-intuition” has deep

connections with clinical knowing in a broader sense. In three respects Action-intuition

will contribute to making foundation of the clinical knowing. First: It understands

action and intuition not as one way activity but as interaction between this and that.

Second: looking through action is actually looking through body, through which one can

find most concrete knowing－such as radical experiences. Third: Looking through

action and body is accomplished by “historical body” (the concept is one of Nishida’s

philosophicalterms.” History refers to not only that of human beings but also that of

organisms and this concept corresponds to G’s evolution in PM. Action-intuition itself

is carried out only in its historical world. Therefore Nishida’s action-intuition not only

influenced the broader view of biology structured by Kinji Imanishi but also gives clues

to finding of hidden meanings of “clinical knowing” in the fields of clinical psychology

and cultural anthropology etc. and making of their theoretical foundations.(Kinji

Imanishi is a famous biologist in Japan. He believed Nishida’s concepts such as “ pure

experience” or “action-intuition” to be very useful tools for his biological study)

Nishida wrote in his essay titled “action-intuition”:

Action-intuition: not Plotinos’ intuition nor Bergson’s pure sequences but a basis for

truly actual knowing and all empirical knowledge.

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To establish objective knowledge, action-intuition should inevitably let the knowing

occur in the historical world(in Nishida’s term).

Our action must have developed historically from instinctive behavior through

interactions between a subject and its environments in the way of the unity of opposites.

This unity of opposites ( literally translated as Absolutely-opposite-self identity) form s

and creates everything new in the historical view, and action occurs since we live in the

world of things, which must be seen in relation to Dialectic(For this purpose, Nishida

modified Hegel’s .dialectic.)

The world as a historical present is thoroughly determined by its past but contains

self-negation in itself and goes from the present to the present, in which our action

occurs.

Our actions are inherently species-specific and occur since we look things with our

action-intuition.

In this historically proceeding world subjective individuals define their environments

and the environments define the individuals.

“ Species make their environments “means that they as individuals govern themselves

in their environments and the species themselves are altered and denied by their

environments, respectively and that the world, what soecies and environments make up

together, in turn, makes itself individually. There our body is constructed and we as

historical individuals see things with our action-intuition.

Inevitably we must live up for constructing historically ourselves and our

environments.In other words, to be as human beings is in our historical makings.

Nishida started his long and difficult way of thinking with his terms “pure experience”

and its logic” the unity of the opposites”. His project to find the basis on which human

beings either in East or West can stand in spite of their traditional differences. Then he

got to the theory of “Basyo”(place or space in which pure experiences and “the unity of

the opposites occur ) and “action-intuition”, which corresponds to poiesis and praxsis.

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Now I want to follow Gendlin’s Direct Referent in Ⅷ of PM.

After his philosophical hard work on” symbolic process” and “proto-language”,G. opens

Ⅷ of PM with the quotation from Isadora Duncan’ s “MY LIFE”.

Duncan was seeking something in her body. What was she seeking? Something which

would make her dance in quite a new way. Of course she could dance in the traditional

way of dancing, which belongs to the world of Ⅶ that is related to our traditional

culture.

Duncan was seeking the sequence which could CF the whole situation of her dance. “An

Ⅷ sequence carries the whole forward and is the having of the whole. ”There is also the

new “feel” of the whole.

G. argued the details of the case especially DR and the space in which DR comes

phenomenologically in a sense.

To open this new sequence one must stop the sequences of Ⅶ.( I suggest that for

Nishida this stoppage represents Negation) But where does it happen?

“In a new space generated by this new kind of sequences.”But “A direct referent does not

always form.” “Direct referent comes”,”It can come only if we let come.” “the new

sequence does not begin with the DR.” ”DR is a datum,a new kind of object ,which forms,

falls out from the sequence.

( Nishida wrote before that a thing came and illuminated him. And Where is he who is

illuminated? Where does the occurring like this occurs? Nishida answered “ in Basyo”

Basho means a place or a space in the ordinary meaning but it is an important term of

Nishida’s philosophy. I think this parallels to a space in Ⅷ of PM. Anyway, in the both

cases what comes is important to the person and we can say that here occurred the two

phenomena close to each other. ”

G.wrote: When a person does engage in direct referent formation and then speaks, we

can understand and “recognize” not literally what was there before, but more exactly,

what now forms from what was there.

Ｇ.pays tribute to the wholeness of a problem in DR formation and the whole carries

forward namely the solution of the problem.

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Each bit of our new sequence changes “everything”, and from this string of changed

versions, the new ”feel”, the direct referent falls out and is had, felt.

Holding the situation, relevance, the point, the sense of the whole thing, the same and

waiting and letting the felt sense come is the attitude we must keep.

Gendlin continues his thorough explanations on DR, which occupies most of Ⅷ of PM.

He has made a model on the coming of DR and the space into which DR comes, the

occurring as its result etc. with his radical experiences and insistent and strong

thinking. I think we have not had thinking about the implicit like this. G. seems to be

helped by his experiences in the field of clinical psychology in the respect that his

thinking is both phenomenal and metaphysical, and both sides made the other side

stronger each other. Nishida’s way is much more metaphysical and abstract and

sometimes seems to lack concrete and detail elements to be used.

I continue my quotation from Ⅷ：

The direct referent is a perfect feedback object.

The self corresponds to the space , not the object merely. The body-feeling as DR is now

the object, “the perception”, the specific facet of the environment. But the body implies

the whole new kind of environment, the whole space.

G uses “monad” and explain it: Monad is the term I use for how a DR applies to

everything.

(It reminds me that N used it as a self :” the self, as a monad, is mirroring the world”.)

G claims the new”universality” of the DR.

The DR can be an illustration or example of countless generalities, new categories.( this

is an example IOFI principle.

Without Direct-refernt-formation, one cannot state the problem or be aware of the lack

that one is instancing.

There is a quite clear difference between novelty in Ⅶ and Ⅷ. A novelty is quite slow

in Ⅶ and cultural contexts last so long and individual cannot change by deliberate

planning and decision alone….It will all instance the problem rather than instancing a

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solution. ( we have to remember the sentence : “the whole (of DR) carries forward

namely the solution of the problem. )

A DR can monad only because of jelledness, i.e. having fallen out from Ⅷ

-carring-forward.

IOFI space is not without this DR-formation.

Self is “separate” from the content being carried forward,in the space of the Ⅷ

sequence.

From any DR-formation very many new universals can form, but any of these in some

use a new DR-formation can occur too.

G .asks to himself :

“But what did it mean, how can we bring it home to ourselves, to say that monading

from all DRs is “true”, or “valid”? I mean that it can be lived in the world, that the world

can be changed and lived in this way; I mean at least that.

G closes his PM with an impressive heading, ”Conclusion and Begging” He say s that

the PM will continue to develop many terms to solve the problems we now have. And he

thinks of an old way of thinking and its concepts by Plato and Aristotle. That is Plato’s

Dialectic and this is Aristotle’s beautiful system of fundamental concepts such as time

and space, motion, life-process, self and other, individual and society, history and art

etc.

He says:

I wish to be my own Plato and Aristotle. He needs both method and concepts and he

thinks it is possible for us to establish our model and prevent beautiful concepts from

containing ourselves within Ⅶ.

Referring to Heidegger he continues :Heidegger, having completed his consistent

model(Being and Time) refused to use it and proceeded instead to the generation of new

concepts, vague and vital.” But “ it was a great error.” “He ought to have done or

invited the job I have done here”. He did not solve the problem of how to have, if you like

this way of saying it, continuous philosophy , that is to say a continuous undercutting

and re-examining, a continuous concept-formation, fresh emergence of form and also

still have consistent connected bodies of knowledge.

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I’d like to conclude my presentation on the possibility to cross two philosophers’

thinking by sharing with you that nearness of their thoughts in several respects

suggests me the beginning of the crossing.

Nishida’s context of thinking and G.’s one are quite different of course, but we can also

find the nearness between their thoughts in several profound respects. Our age might

have implicitly asked someone of us to open the heavy door to quite a new and deep life

of human beings , in which we can live our inherent possibility.

They are both a radical empiricist to find the profound basis on which we can live.

I think they are such a person who feel themselves happy when they can open a heavy

door to our human being’s better life. And this makes me happy too.

Thank you.

Now I’ll be grateful to have comments, questions from the floor.