Human Movement from the Semiotics and the Synechism of Charles S. Peirce

Abstract

Objective: to analyze the theory of “Human Movement as a Complex System” (MHSC-UAM), proposed by the Body Movement academic community of the Universidad Autónoma de Manizales, from the semiotics and the synechism postulated by Charles Sanders Peirce (1839-1914). Methodology: from a conceptual analytical approach, the Body-Movement dyad is analyzed from the continuum theory, as well as the MHSC-UAM model from Peirce’s semiotic triangle. Results: it is possible to show the triadic relationship between body-mind, world, and movement, in terms of sign, object, and interpretant. The firstness corresponds to the body-mind, the secondness to the world of life, and the thirdness to the human movement. Supported by synechism, it is shown that human movement is a continuum, that body-mind and movement are not discrete phenomena. In this way, there is no measurable difference between movement and posture, between objective and subjective body, between action and activity, between motor control and motor capacity. Conclusions: consequent to Peircean theory, the visible and the invisible, it is worth saying, the macroscopic and the microscopic, the contextual and the molecular, the body and the spirit, the world and the mind, movement and cognition, movement and motor control, the objective and the intersubjective body, the firstness and the secondness, the object and the interpretant, among many, are interdependent aspects of a continuous, fluid, changing process, semiotic dyads, never Cartesian dualisms.