Metaphors, analogies, statistics, and narratives: Four ways to reason about the rhythmicity of change

Tehching Hsieh - One Year Performance 1980-1981 (detail) (MoMa, New York City, 2018) (Photography: M. Alhadeff-Jones)

Considered from the point of view of thought processes, rhythmic intelligence implies different forms of reasoning. At least four of these can be retained here, corresponding to as many ways of making intelligible the relations that exist, or are likely to exist, between experienced or observed changes (Alhadeff-Jones, 2018, pp.28-29).

Metaphorical reasoning

A first form of reasoning is metaphorical. It puts in correspondence heterogeneous phenomena of change based on images that allow us to think about their organization. It is used, for example, when differentiating « levels » of temporality (e.g., Adam, 1994; Lesourd, 2006; Roquet, 2007). Thus, the distinction between the « micro » level of temporalities of action, the « meso » level of biographical temporalities, or the « macro » level of institutional and historical temporalities is a metaphor that distinguishes different forms of change according to a « scale » that is applied to them in order to distinguish their scope, magnitude or relations of inclusion. The same applies to the idea of « growth », which evokes temporal phenomena (development, evolution, etc.) by linking them to physical changes deployed in an observable space. The reference to « levels » of temporality or to the idea of « growth » thus refers to spatial metaphors that make it possible to describe phenomena that remain otherwise entangled, invisible or imperceptible to our senses. When we consider the changes experienced or observed, from a rhythmological point of view, there is a whole body of sensible or pictorial references that we are likely to refer to. The use of rhythmic theories, developed in particular in the arts, thus offers words and representations (swing, ritournelle, rhyme, motif, melody, harmony, syncopation, etc.) with an evocative power to represent the plasticity, the dynamics of organization and (re)shaping of the phenomena under consideration. If the appeal of metaphorical reasoning lies in the richness of the vocabulary and the imaginary to which it gives access, as well as in their evocative power, it obviously has its limits. The most significant probably lies in the fact that the use of metaphors does not make it possible to explain in a factual manner the nature of the processes of change experienced or observed. Thus, establishing correspondences between images and temporal phenomena makes it possible to describe, compare and even categorize them, but without making it possible to account for or explain the nature of the phenomena that constitute them. The main obstacle of metaphorical reasoning is that it does not allow logical or rational correspondences to be established in a factual manner. In the perspective of the development of a rhythmic intelligence, the use of metaphorical reasoning, using a pictorial vocabulary to describe phenomena, is not only inevitable, but also desirable, insofar as their symbolic and evocative power constitutes a privileged means of representing and formulating some of the characteristics specific to the changes experienced or observed. From a critical point of view, however, this evocative resource must be accompanied by the ability to reflect on the symbolic significance of the metaphors employed and on the limits of the representations they convene, in a given context.

Analogical reasoning

A second modality of reasoning is analogical. Heterogeneous temporalities and forms of change are related on the basis of similarities or differences that emerge from their comparison. The study of analogies between rhythmic phenomena can be found, in a more or less rational and critical way, at the heart of many theories in the human sciences. This is for instance the case in education, where learning and developmental phenomena have long been considered on the basis of the correspondence between heterogeneous rhythms. For Plato, for instance, musical education provided from an early age is inseparable from the moral development of the individual. According to this conception, exposure to sensitive rhythms (e.g., music, poetry) of a certain quality would thus have a direct effect on personality development. Closer to us, Rudolf Steiner's pedagogy also aims at matching the rhythms experienced in different spheres of existence (aesthetic, biological, discursive, cosmological, etc.) with a view that favors a holistic development of the person (Alhadeff-Jones, 2017, 2018b). In the social sciences and humanities, the notion of « synchronization », borrowed from biology, is also used, particularly in adult education (Pineau, 2000) or in social psychology (McGrath & Tschan, 2004), to account for the relationships of influence, entrainment or domination through which certain rhythms (personal, collective, organizational) impose themselves within educational processes or group dynamics, based on the model of the relationships between cosmological rhythms (circadian or seasonal cycles, for example) and biological rhythms (sleep, reproduction, etc.) Reasoning based on analogy contributes to the understanding of experienced or observed changes, insofar as it favors relationships based on phenomena that are often quite intuitive. Thus, the use of the « wave » analogy to report on the evolution of the COVID-19 pandemic makes it possible to communicate an accessible message about the evolution of a biological phenomenon by establishing a correspondence with a universal physical phenomenon. Like metaphorical reasoning, however, analogical reasoning has its limitations. The logics that underlie the experience of physical (e.g., cosmological rhythms), biological (e.g., physiological or epidemiological functioning), psychological (e.g., learning or personality development), sociological (e.g., group dynamics or relationships of influence), and aesthetic (e.g., dance, music, poetry) phenomena are heterogeneous in nature. This means that despite formal correspondences, they are based on processes of very different natures, between which it is not always easy to establish empirical and rational relationships. From the perspective of analogical reasoning, the development of rhythmic intelligence thus implies the capacity to establish correspondences (similarities, differences, causal relations) based on processes of comparison involving the observation of heterogeneous phenomena, present in all spheres of existence (physical, biological, social, cultural world). Similarly, it presupposes a critical capacity to question the nature and legitimacy of these correspondences, in order to avoid the trap of « panrhythmic » thinking (Sauvanet, 2000) which would tend to reduce the complexity of the phenomena observed to the matching of the rhythmic dimensions that they manifest in a superficial manner.

Statistical reasoning

A third modality of reasoning is statistical. It uses quantification and computation to establish correspondences between changes that show some regularity. The evolution of the COVID-19 pandemic has thus contributed over the months to disseminate a rhythmological understanding of the contamination processes, based on statistical analyses highlighting the patterns that characterize the spread of the virus and its variants. In the same way, the increasingly widespread use of sensors measuring and recording body activity (blood pressure, heart rate, movement, etc.) is contributing to the dissemination of an understanding of our health based on the quantification of physical activity, its representation in a mathematical manner (graphs, curves, etc.) and on the correspondences generated by algorithms that can be established between different forms of activity (biological, physical, psychological, etc.). With the advent of research in chronobiology and chronopsychology (Testu, 2008), the study of learning rhythms is also being considered based on the probabilistic correlation between changes in the physical environment (e.g., time of day, time of year) and physiological and psychological changes (e.g., attention span, mood, behaviour), which determine the quality of the educational experience. More broadly, a statistical approach to behavioural rhythms questions the way in which we model the temporal sequences through which certain activities are repeated and succeed one another (Magnusson, 2000). The advantage of a statistical approach to rhythmic phenomena is that it allows relationships to be established on an empirical basis, between phenomena of change that can be modelled. Similarly, it can make it possible - to a certain extent - to anticipate certain phenomena or at least to establish reasonable correspondences between them. Like metaphorical and analogical modalities of reasoning, the statistical approach has its own limitations. First of all, by relating the understanding of rhythmic phenomena to what is quantifiable, it reduces the possibilities of interpretation by limiting them to the numbers, formulas and algorithms it uses to apprehend reality. In so doing, it reduces the rhythms studied to a periodic conception of change that emphasizes an understanding of rhythmic phenomena that privileges the study of frequencies, sequences, periods and tempi that can be measured. On the other hand, by reducing the rhythmicity of observed phenomena to their metric dimension, i.e. measurable, it favours the use of standards (clocks, calendars), norms (units of measurement), or norms (age, frequencies of a behaviour) to capture the observed changes, neglecting all that is of the order of the singularity and the particularity of the ways of flowing (Michon), i.e. what is constitutive of the « movement » of rhythm (Sauvanet, 2000). In this sense, a statistical approach to the rhythms experienced or observed does not allow us to appreciate the qualitative dimension of the changes experienced. From the point of view of the development of rhythmic intelligence, a statistical mode of reasoning complements the metaphorical and analogical modalities considered above. By relying on a computational capacity that can be externalized (formulas and algorithms), it potentially makes it possible to make perceptible phenomena (sequences, correlations) that would otherwise be difficult, if not impossible, to grasp through the senses. The use of this mode of reasoning implies, however, here again, the development of a critical capacity, not only to establish the validity of the measurements and computations produced, but also and above all to point out the limits inherent in the quantification of phenomena of change and their reduction to a metric involving the definition of benchmarks, standards or norms.

Narrative reasoning

A fourth modality of reasoning is based on the logic of explicitation and narration. The explicitation and narration of changes experienced involve both the enunciation of moments of rupture (epiphany, crisis, break-up, accident, discontinuity, etc.) and the description of phenomena that manifest a certain constancy over time, such as habits, scripts, routines, or rituals reproduced in daily life. They also question the way in which the emergence or repetition of these phenomena is part of the life course and the logics that account for the reproduction of ways of thinking, feeling and behaving at different periods of life (Alhadeff-Jones, 2017). In the social sciences and humanities, this type of reasoning is central to the development of the practices of activity analysis, life history, and biographical research. Thus, the explicitation and narration of lived experience make it possible to envision the temporal fabric of the learning, (trans)formative, and developmental processes, by describing their unfolding and the meanings associated with them, in the life of a person or a group (Dominicé, 1990; Lesourd, 2009). The work of explicitation and narration of lived experience thus appears to be complementary to metaphorical, analogical and statistical modes of reasoning. On the one hand, the work of explicitation refers to a phenomenological approach that questions the ways in which language is used to describe and convey the sensible reality of the changes experienced or observed. On the other hand, the narration of experience presupposes a work of « mise en intrigue » (elaborating a plot) (Ricoeur, 1983) required to elaborate the fabric through which the temporal complexity of one’s existence can be organized and meanings given to it. From the point of view of the development of a rhythmic intelligence, increasing and refining the capacity to explicit and narrate the lived experience is of definite interest. The elaboration of narrative processes indeed questions the relationships between language (discursive complexity), interpretation (hermeneutic complexity) and the ways in which we imagine the succession of changes experienced or observed, as well as the temporalities and rhythms they produce. Moreover, the elaboration of narrative processes participates in a particularly efficient capacity to synthesize and organize one’s experience of time (explanation of the relationships of synchrony and diachrony, chronology) which presents benefits from the perspective of identity development (e.g., awareness of the singularity of the subject) and a proven evocative and communicative power (e.g., instrumentalization of storytelling). Finally, the development of capacities to explicit and narrate processes of change can contribute to highlighting tacit or unconscious dimensions of experience, the formulation of which can contribute to processes that are themselves (trans)formative (Alhadeff-Jones, 2017, 2020).

Metaphors, analogies, statistics and narrations: four modalities of expression and development of a rhythmic intelligence

The ability to elaborate, formulate, analyze, interpret, evaluate, judge, or question metaphorical, analogical, statistical, and narrative reasoning is the cornerstone of the development of rhythmic intelligence, considered from the point of view of language and reasoning. This perspective has the merit of highlighting the discursive and interpretative richness that underpins a rhythmological understanding of the changes experienced or observed. It also demonstrates the importance of a critical capacity that allows us to identify the limits of discourse and reasoning mobilized to understand the processes of change from a rhythmological point of view. Such an approach should not, however, hide the fact that the exercise of rhythmic intelligence cannot be reduced to its linguistic, discursive or rational components. The exercise of a rhythmic intelligence in fact convokes all the senses and implies modes of apprehension of the real that do not mobilize either language or reasoning, even though some of them can be put into words and reflected upon a posteriori.

References

Adam, B. (1994). Time and social theory. Cambridge: Polity Press.

Alhadeff-Jones, M. (2017). Time and the Rhythms of Emancipatory Education. Rethinking the Temporal Complexity of Self and Society. London, Routledge.

Alhadeff-Jones, M. (2018a). Pour une approche rythmologique de la formation. Education Permanente, 217, 21-32.

Alhadeff-Jones, M. (2018b). Concevoir les rythmes de la formation : Entre fluidité, répétition et discontinuité. In P. Maubant, C. Biasin, P. Roquet (Eds.), Les temps heureux des apprentissages (pp.17-44). Nîmes, France: Champ social.

Alhadeff-Jones, M. (2020). Explorer l’inconscient rythmique dans les pratiques d’histoires de vie en formation. Education Permanente, 222, 43-51.

Dominicé, P. (1990). L’Histoire de vie comme processus de formation. Paris: L’Harmattan.

Lesourd, F. (2006). Des temporalités éducatives. Pratiques de formation/Analyses, 51-52, 9-7.

Lesourd, F. (2009). L’homme en transition. Education et tournants de vie. Paris: Economica- Anthropos.

Magnusson, M.-S. (2000). Discovering hidden time patterns in behavior: T-patterns and their detection. Behavior Research Methods, Instruments and Computers, 32, 93-110.

Michon, P. (2005). Rythmes, pouvoir, mondialisation. Paris: PUF.

McGrath, J. E. & Tschan, F. (2004). Temporal Matters in Social Psychology: Examining the role of time in the lives of groups and individuals. Washington DC: APA Publications.

Pineau, G. (2000). Temporalités en formation: Vers de nouveaux synchroniseurs. Paris: Anthropos

Roquet, P. (2007). La diversité des processus de professionnalisation. Une question de temporalités ? Carriérologie, 11, 195-207.

Ricoeur, P. (1983). Temps et récit 1. L’intrigue et le récit historique. Paris: Seuil.

Sauvanet, P. (2000). Le rythme et la raison (2 vol.) Paris : Kimé.

Testu, (2008). Rythmes de vie et rythmes scolaires. Paris: Masson.

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Cite this article: Alhadeff-Jones, M. (2021, mars 15). Metaphors, analogies, statistics, and narratives: Four ways to reason about the rhythmicity of change. Rhythmic Intelligence. http://www.rhythmicintelligence.org/blog/2021/3/15metaphors-analogies-statistics-and-narratives

Rhythmological approach and rhythmic intelligence

Sybil Andrews, The Winch, 1930 (Source: https://www.british-arts.com/artists/sybil-andrews/)

Rhythmic intelligence presupposes a mode of apprehension of reality which places the emphasis on the rhythmic features that organize lived or observed phenomena. From this point of view, it involves a sensibility that characterizes a « rhythmological » approach. Since the experience of rhythmic phenomena makes it possible to describe and account intuitively for the way time, space and changes are experienced, both from an existential point of view and in the most mundane aspects of daily life, the concept of rhythm is a privileged entry point for envisioning the fluidity of reality (Alhadeff-Jones, 2018b, p.24, my translation):

The concept of rhythm is all the more relevant because it is a nomadic concept that has been deployed, throughout the history of ideas, in various disciplines (Michon, 2005, 2017; Sauvanet, 1999, 2000). Apprehended based on its etymology and the use that has been made of it in Greek philosophy from Archiloque to Aristoxen, the concept of rhythm refers to a critical tension between order and movement, substance and flow. As Sauvanet (1999, p.6) points out, the Greek rhuthmos evokes both the form that a thing takes in time and the form as it is transformed through time. Referring to a « changing configuration » or a « fluid form », the concept of rhythm thus makes it possible to evoke an evolving order without reducing it to a substance or a formless flow.

How then can we envision perceived or lived phenomena based on the « moving forms » that constitute them (Alhadeff-Jones, 2018b, p.24, my translation) ? 

For Sauvanet (2000), the study of rhythmic phenomena supposes to highlight the « patterns » that structure them, the « periodicities » through which these patterns are repeated, and the singular « movement » that characterizes them, with its variations and discontinuities. For Michon (2005), privileging an anthropological lens, the study of rhythmic phenomena implies studying the « ways of flowing » taken by language, bodies and social interactions, as well as their contributions to the processes of individuation and the power relations they translate. 

By crossing these approaches (Alhadeff-Jones, 2017, 2018a), we obtain a first matrix to study some of the rhythms that characterize organized phenomena (Alhadeff-Jones, 2018b, p.24, my translation):

We can thus try to describe the patterns that are constitutive of the discourse, gestures and social interactions around which [they are] organized. We can explore their periodicity, i.e. the modalities of repetition through which these patterns are reproduced, by looking at their frequency, their period and the tempo that characterize them. Finally, we can understand what makes their development unique, by looking at the variations observed or experienced, such as interruptions, events, crises, or accidents, through which the rhythms [that characterize observed phenomena] are transformed and renewed.

Rhythmological approach and rhythmic intelligence

Based on these elements, and by taking up the definition of rhythmic intelligence proposed here, we can now envisage in a synthetic way a reformulation of what this notion implies from a rhythmological point of view. Rhythmic intelligence mobilizes an individual and collective capacity to know, understand and represent (1) the patterns which are constitutive of the ways of feeling, behaviors, speech, gestures, traces or interactions inherent to any organized, observed or experienced phenomenon; (2) the modalities through which these ways of feeling, behaviors, speech, gestures, traces or interactions are repeated over time; as well as (3) the variations and discontinuities which affect their evolution by revealing the singularity of these ways of flowing. Similarly, rhythmic intelligence implies a deliberate, strategic and critical capacity for adaptation and problem-solving, based on the ability to influence the evolution of patterns, periodicities and movements that characterize the observed or experienced ways of feeling, behaviour, speech, gestures, traces or interactions. In doing so, the exercise of rhythmic intelligence may contribute to the development of privileged relationships within a given environment, founded on the capacity to reinforce resonance phenomena involving the (re)organization of the relationships established between the patterns, periodicities and movements characteristic of the ways of flowing, observed or experienced.

References

Alhadeff-Jones, M. (2017). Time and the rhythms of emancipatory education. Rethinking the temporal complexity of self and society. London: Routledge.

Alhadeff-Jones, M. (2018a). Concevoir les rythmes de la formation : entre fluidité, répétition et discontinuité. In P. Maubant, C. Biasin & P. Roquet (Eds.) Les Temps heureux des apprentissages (pp.17-44). Nîmes, France: Champ Social.

Alhadeff-Jones, M. (2018b). Pour une approche rythmologique de la formation. Education Permanente, 217, 21-32.

Michon, P. (2005). Rythmes, pouvoir, mondialisation. Paris : Presses Universitaires de France. 

Michon, P. (2017). Elements of rhythmology (Vol. 1 & 2). Paris: Rhuthmos. 

Sauvanet, P. (1999). Le rythme grec d’Héraclite à Aristote. Paris : Presses Universitaires de France.

Sauvanet, P. (2000). Le rythme et la raison (2 vol.) Paris : Kimé.

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Cite this article: Alhadeff-Jones, M. (2021, March 8). Rhythmological approach and rhythmic intelligence. Rhythmic Intelligence. http://www.rhythmicintelligence.org/blog/2021/3/8/rhythmological-approach-and-rhythmic-intelligence

Process-oriented approach and rhythmic intelligence

“General Dynamics, Undersea frontiers - Electric boat” by Erik Nitsche (1960) (Source: https://www.galerie123.com/en/original-vintage-poster/36614/general-dynamics-undersea-frontiers-electric-boat/)

Rhythmic intelligence presupposes a mode of apprehension of reality that places the emphasis on the movements that are constitutive of it. From this point of view, it involves a sensibility that is found in « process-oriented » approaches. In order to grasp some of its features, I reproduce below a excerpt, translated from a 2018 article I published in the French journal Education Permanente*. This text summarizes some of the main assumptions that characterize a process-oriented approach and more specifically a processual approach to education and formation. 

*Source: Alhadeff-Jones, M. (2018). Pour une approche rythmologique de la formation. Education Permanente, 217, 21-32.

Towards a process-oriented approach to adult education

Since Antiquity, a long filiation exists in philosophy, emphasizing the volatile and fluid aspects of phenomena, rather than their stable or substantial dimensions. In Western cultures, with thinkers such as Heraclitus, Leibniz, Bergson, Peirce, James or Whitehead, has thus emerged what some researchers identify as a process or processual philosophy, an approach that can be found nowadays in various academic disciplines (Helin et al., 2016; Nicholson and Dupré, 2018; Rescher, 2000). According to this perspective, understanding the world is based first and foremost on the study of the active and changing aspects that make up our reality, rather than on what constitutes its substance. Ontologically, the assumption is that every being (an object, a knowledge, a person, an organism, etc.) is not only the product of processes, but more fundamentally its manifestation. A process thus refers to a phenomenon « that consists of an integrated series of connected developments unfolding in programmatic coordination: an orchestrated series of occurrences that are systematically linked to one another either causally or functionally » (Rescher, 2000, p.22). The interest of this concept is that it allows one to relate phenomena that are constitutive of the real, which human mind tends to separate. Thus, a process refers to a complex set of occurrences having a temporal coherence that manifests itself by an organized sequence of events, involving in turn entangled processes.

Education and training are processes. This goes without saying, and yet it is often observed how they tend to be reduced to what they mobilize or produce (settings, knowledge, schemes, skills, identities, etc.), to the « abstractions » that symbolize them (titles, programs, policy), to the « objects » that materialize them (physical layout, infrastructure, etc.), while considering them, along with the subjects they affect (the learner, the working team, the company, etc.), as stable – even static – « persons », « elements » or « entities » endowed with relative autonomy and an intrinsic « nature ». From a processual perspective, the products, abstractions, objects and subjects that are constitutive of adult education should be conceived first and foremost in terms of the processes (ordered) and dynamics (disordered) from which they emerge and in which they participate, rather than in terms of the forms of equilibrium and stability that pre-exist them or that they express at a given moment in their evolution. From this perspective, the products, abstractions, objects and subjects that participate in adult education, as well as the environments in which they evolve, are to be conceived as being in perpetual movement: from the circadian cycles and seasons that punctuate the curricula, to the biological and psychological rhythms that animate the learners, including the alternating phases of learning, paced by schedules and calendars, social interactions or the succession of discourses, norms and social conventions, through which any educational setting (dispositif) and policy develops and evolves throughout history.

Like so many propellers, each « element » of education – whether formal, non-formal or informal – is in perpetual motion. From a processual perspective, its effects are to be conceived through the flows (physical, biological, psychological, social, cultural, informational, etc.) that are simultaneously distinct, variable and intertwined, that animate it and that emerge from it. Such an approach thus emphasizes the patterns that relate observed or experienced actions, rather than the nature of the aspects associated with them. One can then conceive of a educational process (certification, professionalization, emancipation, etc.) as being intertwined with learning processes, whose repetition and organization participate in transformational processes, whose emergence and succession contribute to developmental processes that recursively influence the other educational processes with which they interact. Such an approach therefore emphasizes what relates the different aspects of education (learning a gesture, changing perspective, the development of a professional identity, etc.) by focusing on the configurations through which they organize themselves over time, rather than considering the states or entities that pre-exist or emerge from them.

Process-oriented approach and rhythmic intelligence

The excerpt reproduced above opens up possibilities to envision the development of rhythmic intelligence. From a processual perspective, rhythmic intelligence refers to the ability to adopt an understanding of phenomena experienced or observed, centered on their changing and fluctuating nature, rather than their stable and substantial features. Such a posture thus implies a critical capacity to question the «substantialist» assumptions that are omnipresent in the contemporary imaginaire. It suggests being sensitive to the dynamics involved in the apparent stability of phenomena. More specifically, it supposes a particular attention to flows, patterns, complex causal relations, and the temporal organization of sequences of events, which are simultaneously distinct, variable and intertwined.

References

Helin, J. et al. (Eds.) (2016). The Oxford Handbook of Process Philosophy and Organization Studies. Oxford: University Press.

Nicholson, D.-J., & Dupré, J. (Eds.) (2018). Everything Flows. Towards a Processual Philosophy of Biology. Oxford: University Press.

Rescher, N. (2000). Process Philosophy. A survey of Basic Issues. Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press.

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Cite this article: Alhadeff-Jones, M. (2021, March 1). Process-oriented approach and rhythmic intelligence. Rhythmic Intelligence. http://www.rhythmicintelligence.org/blog/2021/3/1/process-oriented-approach-and-rhythmic-intelligence

Rhythmic intelligence as a specific form of intelligence

The term « intelligence » is borrowed from the Latin intellegentia, which evokes the action or faculty of knowing (connaître), understanding (comprendre), comprehension (entendement). The term derives from intellegere (-inter "between" and -legere "to pick, to gather") which refers to the capacity of the mind to choose, to appreciate and to understand (Rey, 2000, p.1855). According to this meaning, the term is used today to evoke the capacity to organize an understanding of reality and the ability to adapt the conduct of an action. The word also refers to a second meaning that evokes a more or less secret complicit relationship, characterized by a good understanding with another person or a thing (ibid.) One refers for instance to the fact of being in intelligence with a close person or with nature. On the basis of these meanings, the following sections explore the use of the term intelligence to refer to the understanding and the regulation of rhythmic phenomena, experienced or observed.

A capacity to comprehend the organization of reality in thoughts or in acts

The meaning attributed to the word « intelligence » in philosophy, and later in psychology, suggests one to envision the phenomena it relates to as being associated with a mental function organizing reality in thoughts or in acts. The term thus evokes the « whole of the psychological and psycho-physiological functions contributing to knowledge, to the comprehension of the nature of things and the meaning of facts... » found in human beings. It also suggests an aptitude for knowing, the development of intellectual capacities or the act of understanding with ease or having a thorough knowledge of something (Trésor de la Langue Française Informatisé, 2021, para. I.A., my translation). According to these meanings, the notion of rhythmic intelligence evokes the ability to know, understand and have a representation of the rhythmic dimensions inherent to any organized, experienced or observed phenomenon. Nevertheless, recognizing the mental dimension of a form of intelligence does not presuppose that it should be reduced to individual psychological processes. As it appears through the notion of collective intelligence, the capacity to understand rhythmic phenomena can also emerge from shared processes of elaboration, requiring the involvement of several people in the understanding of a phenomenon that would be difficult to apprehend individually. Furthermore, rhythmic intelligence should not be reduced to the treatment of strictly discursive (language) or logical (deduction) representations. It should also be envisioned, in congruence with research conducted on multiple intelligences (Gardner, 1983), through different concrete or symbolic modalities of apprehension of the real, such as those expressed through music, in space, through movement, on an affective or relational level.

An ability to adapt to the requirements of a situated action

As the definition of the term suggests it, intelligence refers not only to an ability to think, but also to the « mental function of organizing reality into acts ». It thus suggests « [the] aptitude to apprehend and organize the details of the situation, to link procedures to be used with the goal to be reached, to choose the means or to discover the original solutions that allow adaptation to the demands of action. » (Trésor de la Langue Française Informatisé, 2021, para. I.B, my translation). In the common sense, the term thus evokes « [the] ability to take advantage of circumstances, ingenuity and efficiency in the conduct of one's activity. » In this sense, rhythmic intelligence, like other forms of intelligence, refers to a capacity for adaptation and problem-solving that involves not only "science and consciousness » (Morin & Le Moigne, 1999), knowledge and reflexivity, but also an ability to feel and act in order to influence the rhythms that make up the physical, living and human environments in which it is exercised, in a deliberate, strategic and critical manner. The notion of rhythmic intelligence can thus be conceived in relation to the research conducted on « complexity thinking » elaborated by Morin (1990/2008) and on the « intelligence of complexity » evoked by Morin and Le Moigne (1999). From this point of view, it can be envisioned as a capacity to establish connections and relations (reliance) that is exercised in a deliberate and pragmatic way in a given environment, based on the exploration and linking of the dynamics and processes through which phenomena identified as complex are organized, while at the same time maintaining a critical awareness of the limits of human understanding. 

An ability to relate, understand each other and be in harmony with others and the surrounding world

Finally, the term intelligence refers to the mutual understanding that is established between people who know and relate well with each other. The word thus evokes « [the] action of getting along, of understanding each other [or the] result of this action » (Trésor de la Langue Française Informatisé, 2021, para. II, my translation). It refers to forms of tacit agreement or relationship, with people or things, that may suggest some form of connivance, or harmony. From this perspective, rhythmic intelligence can be conceived as the means or product of an organized, and therefore rhythmical, process of mutual accommodation and understanding that would contribute to the development or nurturing of special relationships with others. Similarly, it suggests an ability to enter into resonance, through processes of synchronization, with phenomena, natural or social, that are likely to increase the quality and understanding of the lived experience.

An attempt to define rhythmic intelligence

On the basis of these elements, we can consider the notion of rhythmic intelligence as a function based on the individual and collective ability to know, understand and represent the rhythmic dimensions inherent in any organized, observed or experienced phenomenon. It implies concrete or symbolic modalities of apprehension of the real, which integrate and go beyond discursive and logical aspects. Rhythmic intelligence also supposes a capacity of adaptation and problem-solving which implies an ability to feel and act, in order to influence the rhythms that make up the physical, living and human environments in which it is exercised, in a deliberate, strategic and critical manner. More fundamentally, it refers to a capacity to establish and explore the relations and the connections that characterize the dynamics and processes through which rhythmic phenomena, identified as complex, are organized, while maintaining a critical awareness of the limits of human understanding. Finally, rhythmic intelligence can be envisioned through the function it fulfills in the development of privileged relationships within a given environment. It thus presupposes an ability to enter into resonance with others and with natural or social phenomena, likely to increase the quality and understanding of the lived experience.

References

Gardner, H. (1983). Frames of mind. New York: Basic Books.

Rey, A. (Ed.). (2000). Intelligence. In Le Robert - Dictionnaire historique de la langue française (pp.1855-1856). Paris.

Trésor de la Langue Française Informatisé (2021). Intelligence. Accédé le 25.1.2021 à l’adresse: http://atilf.atilf.fr/tlf.htm

Morin, E. (1990/2008). On Complexity (S. M. Kelly, Trans.). Cresskill, NJ: Hampton Press.

Morin, E., & Le Moigne, J.-L. (1999). L’Intelligence de la complexité. Paris: L’Harmattan.

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Cite this article: Alhadeff-Jones, M. (2021, February 22). Rhythmic intelligence as a specific form of intelligence. Rhythmic Intelligence. http://www.rhythmicintelligence.org/blog/2021/2/22/rhythmic-intelligence-definition