The relation between body and language was to a great extent underestimated in the last century, thanks, above all, to Chomsky’s major influence. In 1966 Chomsky published a book significantly entitled Cartesian Linguistics. Descartes is the originator of the idea that language has little to do with the body.[19] The Cartesian thesis on the relationship between language and body implies, on one side, that the body is not a substratum and material of language and, on the other, that language is exclusively a tool that expresses a thought formed independently of language itself. According to Descartes (1642) and the Cartesian tradition in which Chomsky stands, language is a tool through which we manifest an autonomous thought that precedes language—a thought structured by logic but certainly not by language, whose role is circumscribed and downsized to that of being a mere label of thoughts (cf. Hinzen & Sheehan 2013 for a critical discussion of the issue).
The theses informing the Cartesian idea of language are challengeable nowadays. Language makes meaning general, releasing it from the context, that is, from the dimensions of who, what, how, where, and when. Language, in other words, provides us with a unique modality of reference to the world, allowing us at the same time to transcend contingent determinations and to define them at a different level, thanks to the use of concepts like subject, object, time, space, universal, etc. It is perhaps not trivial to notice that such concepts correspond to precise grammatical structures and that, most likely, the use of a grammatically-structured language contributed, by co-evolutionary dynamics, to the structuring of rational thought characterized by such features (Hinzen & Sheehan 2013).
Hence, thanks to language we can speak of humankind without referring in particular to any of the single individuals sharing the property of belonging to the human species. We can speak of a subject aside from the individual embodiments of this attribute, etc. Language, as stressed by Virno, furnishes us with general meanings, that is, meanings valid for everybody but, at the same time, meanings that do not necessarily denote a particular instantiation.
Interestingly enough, according to Giorgio Agamben (2008) what holds “for everybody and nobody” is referable to the Greek notion of paradeigma, originally explored by Aristotle. The paradeigma is a typical form of rhetorical reasoning that moves between individual and individual according to a form of bipolar analogical knowledge. Agamben (2008, pp. 23-24), radicalizing Aristotle’s theses, maintains that the paradigm can only be conceived of by abandoning the dichotomy between individual and universal: the rule does not exist before the single cases to which it is applied. The rule is nothing but its own exhibition in the single cases themselves, which thus it renders intelligible.
By applying the notion of paradigm to the grammatical “rules” of language, Agamben touches upon a central point: the so-called linguistic rule derives from the suspension of the concrete denotative application:
[t]hat is to say, in order to be able to serve as an example, the syntagm must be suspended from its normal function, and, nevertheless, it is precisely through this non-operation and this suspension that it can show how the syntagm works, can allow the formulation of the rule. (Agamben 2008, p. 26)
To better explain the notions of rule and suspension of a denotative application, Agamben refers to Latin declensions. When we want to learn the first declension we inflect a noun, for example “rosa”, “rosae”, etc… In so doing, we are suspending the usual denotative application of this noun and, by means of this suspension, we are showing how the declension works. According to Agamben, “[…] in the paradigm, intelligibility does not precede the phenomenon, but is, so to speak, ‘alongside’ it (parà)” (2008, p. 29). In other words “[…] in the paradigm there is not an origin or an arché: every phenomenon is the origin, every image is archaic” (Agamben 2008, p. 33).
On Agamben’s reading, the Aristotelian paradeigma is a good model for describing the creation of linguistic rules. Starting from Agamben’s intuition and seeking to move one step further, the hypothesis that we want to explore here is that the notion of paradeigma is a good model not only for the creation of linguistic rules but also for the definition of the embodied simulation mechanism. In this connection, simulation allows us, at a sensorimotor level, to hypostatize and reuse what holds “for everybody and nobody”.
To understand to what extent the analogy between embodied simulation and paradeigma works it is necessary to go back to Aristotle. What is meant by paradeigma in Aristotelian thought and in what context does Aristotle make use of this notion?
The paradeigma, as already anticipated, is a typical is a typical argument form used to persuade and devoted to the discussion of “things that can be otherwise.” Aristotle discusses this argument form, which does not have any demonstrative aim, both in Prior Analytics and in Rhetoric. Argumentation based on the paradeigma, for example, consists in the presentation by the orator of an exemplary case, based on a historical fact or a figment of the imagination, as in the case of fables. It is the juxtaposition of the present situation and an exemplary one that guides, or should guide, the actions of the person to whom the argumentation is addressed. Thus the paradeigma, among rhetorical argumentations, is that which goes from the particular to the particular, from an exemplary case to the present situation. Argumentation based on the paradeigma does not make a claim for universality. The orator is not bound to offer an exhaustive number of cases justifying a universally valid conclusion. One case is sufficient, provided that it is particularly suitable, and precisely exemplary, in relation to the context in which the argumentative discourse takes place.
For these reasons, though resembling inductive reasoning (epagoghé), which proceeds from the particular to the universal, and indeed considered by Aristotle himself as the transposition of inductive reasoning to the rhetorical sphere, the paradeigma conquers its own autonomous space. To confirm this, one need only to think that in Prior Analytics Aristotle (Ross 1978) devotes two separate chapters to paradigm and induction: respectively XXIV and XXI of Book II.
On the one side the paradeigma, which proceeds “from the part to the part” (Prior Analytics 69a, 15), are peculiar aspects distinguishing it from the epagoghé; on the other, it is by all means a form of induction, as Aristotle expressly affirms at the start of Chapter XX of Book II of Rhetoric. According to Piazza (2008, p. 117) there are at least two reasons why the paradeigma can still be considered a form of epagoghé, despite the peculiarities that characterize it. Both these reasons seem interesting, not only for the definition of paradigm that, starting from Aristotle, Agamben discusses in relation to linguistic praxis, but also and above all in the framework of a reflection on the mirror mechanisms enacted in embodied simulation.
Following Piazza’s (2008, p. 117) reading of Aristotle, the first of the characteristics of inductive reasoning also found in the paradeigma consists in always proceeding from what is “best known and first for us” (Aristotle, Analytica posteriora II.19), or from what is for us most immediate and most easily accessible, because being part of our baggage of experiences and knowledge. The second characteristic is, instead, identifying similarities between particular cases.
At another level of analysis, both these features also characterize embodied simulation. One condition for the simulation mechanism’s being enacted is sharing a baggage of (motor) experiences and knowledge. Embodied simulation is enacted starting from what for us is “first,” i.e., what for us is known and easily accessible in terms of motor potentialities and experiences. Sharing a repertoire of practices, experiences, and sensations is therefore an essential condition, since only by starting from what is well known to us it is possible to identify analogies between our actions and others’. We understand the other starting from our own bodily experience, which is what is “best known and first for us”, again using Aristotle’s words. On the basis of this knowledge we identify similar elements in our experiences as well as in those of others.
Embodied simulation, when manifested in the phenomenon of action, emotion, or sensation mirroring always involves an original I-thou relationship in which the “thou” is the term with respect to which the self is constituted. On the other hand, the “self” is the basis on which immediate and implicit understanding of the “thou” is possible.
The analogy with the cognitive mechanism subtended by paradigmatic reasoning appears evident. Indeed, in the case of Aristotle’s paradeigma, an example, a particular case, is understood because it is close to our feeling, our experiences, and our baggage of knowledge. And nevertheless the process does not stop here. This form of understanding of a particular that is not me will lead me to new conclusions and to a deeper understanding of myself, of my particular case, and of my situation. Our experiences are therefore the measure from which we understand others and their experiences (i.e., our previous actions, emotions, and so forth). And others’ experiences (i.e., their actions, emotions and so forth) are for us a condition for deeper understanding of ourselves. Thus, the embodied simulation underpinning my present experience is also a paradeigma from which I can understand what I observe in others and draw inferences from it for others and for myself.
The embodied simulation mechanism, thus defined, is constitutive of the process of construction of meaning. In this connection, embodied simulation enacted while understanding language is not my present experience but the paradeigma in relation to which some of our linguistic expressions acquire a meaning that is rooted in the body. When we read or listen to the description of an action, the process of simulation that takes place in us is not the enactment of the same action; we would be echopractic if we were unable to avoid imitating and reproducing all the actions that we see or whose description we listen to or read. According to our hypothesis, embodied simulation rather makes available to us an exemplary case, a model, in relation to which understanding of language is also realized. If therefore it is true that the symbolic dimension opens up some possibilities for us and creates worlds for us that only linguistic creatures can enter, it is also true that language strongly exploits mechanisms rooted in our corporeality. Enactment of the simulation process in understanding language seems to suggest that the symbolic dimension and the bodily dimension cohabit in linguistic praxis.
Nevertheless, the nature of this relationship is still not entirely clear, nor is the confine between the bodily dimension and the typically or exclusively symbolic dimension. Can it be hypothesized that corporeal knowledge also plays a role in understanding logical operators such as, for instance, negation or disjunction, or that it plays a role in understanding the interrogative form? The whole symbolic nature of these linguistic structures appears in some respects beyond question. Research on these issues is now open (Kaup et al. 2006, 2007; Tettamanti et al. 2005; Christensen 2009; Tomasino et al. 2010; Liuzza et al. 2011; Kumar et al. 2013) and today many wonder about the possibility of identifying mechanisms that can anchor such structures to our bodily experience. We take this to be the real challenge for the embodied cognition approach to the role played by language in human social cognition.
Let us once more return to the Aristotelian notion of paradeigma and appraise other possible hints for substantiating the analogy with the embodied simulation mechanism. The understanding that the rhetor calls for through reasoning based on the paradeigma should lead the citizen to choose what is best for him in various circumstances. The goal of such reasoning is to determine understanding of a present situation, by analogy with a historical example or a fable, and, on the basis of this more informed knowledge, to guide the human being’s choices. In other words, the rhetorical example or paradeigma is knowledge whose main goal is practical and not theoretical.
A practical aim also characterizes embodied simulation. Embodied simulation is always aimed at “navigating” in the world and, therefore, eventually at acting. It was hypothesized that embodied simulation allows us a direct, experiential way of understanding other people’s actions and experiences and, on the basis of this understanding, it allows us to regulate our actions and our experiences. These goals are always practical. In some respects, the process of embodied simulation that is enacted, for instance, when reading a novel (see Wojciehowski & Gallese 2011), also has a practical aim. Literature recreates a world of emotions and experiences: the emotions and the experiences of the literary characters inhabit the fictional world of the novel. The simulation mechanism helps us to “navigate” that world, even if it is a fictitious world; it allows us to understand and, in part, to relive the emotions of the protagonists and their vicissitudes. The aim in this case is practical insofar as the simulation mechanism allows us to approach the fictitious other with a second-person epistemic perspective (Gallese 2014).[20]
Embodied simulation makes implicit knowledge about others immediately available, with the aim of regulating our interactions with them. Our understanding of the literary other is almost always second-person, based on the possibility of perceiving analogies between our own experiences and others’ and made possible through a hypostatization of our experiences that is achieved through the simulation mechanism (Wojciehowski & Gallese 2011).
In the end, what is embodied simulation if not a suspension of the application of a process? Let us think of when mirror neurons are activated in observing actions performed by others; or of when canonical neurons are activated while we are looking at the keyboard of a computer thinking about what we want to write; or when cortical motor neurons are activated when we imagine ourselves writing on that keyboard. These responses on the part of motor neurons manifest the activation of implicit knowledge, that is, bodily motor knowledge expressing the motor potentialities of the bodily self mapped by the motor system in terms of their motor outcomes.
Reuse of motor knowledge, in the absence of the movement that realizes it, as exemplified by embodied simulation, is an example of “paradigmatic knowledge.” Thus, embodied simulation is a case of implicit paradigmatic knowledge. According to our hypothesis, embodied simulation allows us to naturalize the notion of paradigm, anchoring it at a level of sub-personal description, whose neural correlates we can study.
Our openness to the world is constituted and made possible by a motor system predisposing and allowing us to adapt our daily and contingent pragmatic relationships with the world against the background of a prefigured but highly flexible plan of motor intentionality. Such a plan, intended as the sum of our motor potentialities, provides its coordination to any single contingent modality of relation with the world, that is, to any single action we perform, in which it continues to actualize itself. This aspect seems important to us because it shows how specific aspects of human social cognition are made possible and scaffolded upon processes not necessarily specific to humans, like embodied simulation.