Chapter: The Hand

Book: The Craftsman by Richard Sennett

Published by Yale university press new haven & London, 2008

ABSTRACT

The following paper is a review on the chapter The Hand from the book The

Craftsman by the author Richard Sennett. In the chapter the author explains on how the

hand is connected to the mind and how sometimes the touch of the hand informs the mind

better than images produced by the vision. While he explains the concept with the example

of musicians, chefs and glass blowers, I attempt to relate them to the art of space making

craft where it is equally applicable.

INTRODUCTION

Richard Sennett is an American author and also a practising professor. In his book

The Craftsman he explains through his chapters how various professionals starting from

Doctors, computer programmers, brick makers, and artists to even parents are involved in a

craftsmans job. He talks about the urge in us to perfect on a skill and explains on how this

can be achieved by concentrating on the job more than ourselves.

I chose to write a review on the chapter The Hand where the author describes in

detail the role of hand in shaping our thoughts and influencing our learning skills. He has

used references and excerpts by doctors, ethnologists, psychologists and so on to explain

the evolution of hand from the past and its role in shaping the culture. He attempts to explain

to us the meaning of the statement The hand is the window on to the mind stated by

Immanuel Kant through this chapter by using the examples of a musician, a cook and a

glassblower.

The Intelligent Hand

How the Hand Became Human

Grip and Touch

 In this section, he writes about Bell who argues that brain receives the most

information from the touch of the hand than images from the eye. Darwin explains the

evolution of hands saying that the brain size in apes and Homo sapiens are larger because

unlike other animals, humans used their two free hands to hold and shape objects. This

thereby led to discovery of tools and gradually to the formation of culture. The findings by

medical doctor Raymond Tallis and researcher John Napier explains the articulation of

thumb from the other fingers in humans and thereby explains the gripping movement

possible by humans. The ethnologist Mary Marzke extends this understanding by describing

the three ways of gripping. First is by pinching small objects between the tip of the thumb

and the side of the index finger. Second, cradling an object in the palm and then moving it.

Third is the cupping grip where a biggish object is held by the rounded hand, thumb and

index finger placed opposite the object and is worked upon by other hand.

This particular theory by Mary Marzke provides me with a good understanding of how

a craftsman grips an object that he works on. By observing a craftsman we can notice the

different ways he uses his hands to work with different objects. For example a craftsman

painting on a pot would cup the pot with his one hand and paint on it with the other. If he is

gripping it wrong, chances are he is not employing the right way of working with the object.

Charles Sherrington a biologist describes the active touch which is the conscious intent

guiding the fingertips. Touch can be proactive as well as reactive. An example is explained

through the medieval goldsmith who rolls and presses the metallic earth to check for

impurities.

Prehension

To Grasp Something

Here in this section Prehension is explained by the author through an example. We

are familiar with the gesture of grasping a glass. Therefore we automatically assume a

rounded shape on seeing a cup. The technical name for movements that the body

anticipates and acts in advance is known as prehension. The philosopher Thomas Hobbes

recorded the verbal results of prehension when he sent a group of children into a dark room
full of unfamiliar objects. Later when asked to explain what they felt inside the room he

noticed their descriptions were much more precise than what would have been if the objects

were to be seen and described. This explains a result of grasping for sense by the

children.

Raymond Tallis gives a full account of prehension whereby he organizes this

phenomenon into four dimensions: anticipation, of the sort that shapes the hand reaching for

the glass; contact, when the brain acquires sense data through touch; language cognition, in

naming what one holds; and last, reflection on what one has done.

Hand Virtues

At the Fingertip

Truthfulness

Here the author criticises the Suzuki method of learning music which is a method of

teaching children by sticking tapes to notes. This he says will not help in forming a habit as

the sensory quality of fingertips is not exercised. Suzuki soon understood that the tapes

would create a false security and therefore should be removed as soon as the child starts

learning. He explains that practising that attends to momentary error at fingertips actually

increases confidence because once they learn to do something correctly more than once

then the fear of that is removed. He explains that technique develops by dialectic between

the correct way of doing something and the willingness to experiment through error.

I understand this concept with the case of craftsmen working in building crafts. An

apprentice learning with a master craftsman cannot learn without making mistakes. He

should not be told the right way to do things all the time because then he will suffer from a

false sense of security. He becomes trained to work only in one way and will not be able to

explore new ways.

The Two Thumbs

From Coordination, Cooperation

The capabilities of the two hands depend on whether one is left handed or right

handed. Even the fingers on the hand are not equally strong. He uses the example of piano
to explain how one assigns starring melodic role to the weakest two fingers and the rock-

bottom harmonic role to the thumb. The theory of lop-sidedness in humans is interesting

whereby humans when reaching for an object reaches for it with the hand they are stronger

at. When working on an object by cupping it with the hand, the weak hand is always used for

the cupping. Therefore some effort has to be made in order to remove this lop-sidedness

and to bring all the parts into a coordinated act to perform a work more efficiently.

Hand-Wrist-Forearm

The Lesson of Minimum Force

Here the author uses the example of a chef to elucidate the combined performance

of the forearm, hand and the cleaver in order to cut food finely. The chef holds the cleaver

with the thumb around the shank; the forearm serves as an extension of the shank, the

elbow as its pivot. The technique here is the amount of pressure applied by the forearm, the

elbow and the moment at which the pressure has to be released in order to cut the food

finely.

In building industry this combined use of hand wrist forearm can be related to many

crafts such as carpentry, stone art and other such craft practises where the amount of

pressure, the moment of release etc. are very important.

Hand and Eye

The Rhythm of Concentration

The author says that attention deficit disorder is a problem that many parents fear in

their child. To overcome this author describes the experience of Erin OConnor a

philosophical glassblower. The craft of glassblowing is such that the molten glass is

gathered at the end of an extended narrow pipe. The viscous glass will sag unless the pipe

is constantly turned. Here the relation of hand and eye is very important. Once she becomes

all absorbed in the act of making the glass by losing awareness of the weight of the hot glass

and stretching her concentration by not taking away her eyes she achieves a relation

between the hand and the eye. The author concludes his chapter by saying that repeating

an action over and over creates a rhythm which thereby perfects the action. A person who
has learned to concentrate well will not count the number of times he or she repeats a

motion at the command of the ear or the eye.

CONCLUSION

The connection between the hand and the mind that the author so clearly defines in

this chapter with examples can be related to building craft, where a craftsman cannot perfect

his work until he has learned from his mistakes. He has to dwell on his mistakes and recover

from it. To produce an efficient piece of art all parts of hands have to work in coordination.

Coordination works when each small part has been perfected and comes together as a

whole. The rhythmic repetition of hand and eye to carry out an action increases

concentration.

REFERENCE

Biography of Richard Sennett

(http://www.richardsennett.com/site/SENN/Templates/Home.aspx?pageid=1)

Suzuki Method

(http://www.dmoz.org/Arts/Music/Education/Methods_and_Techniques/Suzuki_Meth

od/)

The process of Glass blowing (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O1xb48Y6EdA)

Mary W. Marzke and Kathryn L. Wullstein, Chimpanzee and human grips: A new

classification with a focus on evolutionary morphology, International Journal of

Primatology, VoL 17, No. 1, 1996

Submitted By

Varsha M B

MIAD 1st year