Walking is at the heart of Western culture
Jean-Jacques
Rousseau is supposed to have said, "I can only meditate when I am walking.
When I stop, I cease to think; my mind only works with my legs" (Rebecca
Solnit, Wanderlust: A History of Walking.
Available in hardcover, paperback, Kindle,
and audio). Did he really mean walking
helped him ruminate? I've read that meditation is emptying one's mind of
distractions, but, if walking was a favorite activity of philosophers, did they
engage in that kind of discipline or did they walk to jump start their thinking
of particular topics?
Some saw walking as
a cultural act that began with Rousseau and traced it back to Greeks to
legitimize it. They pointed out the school in Athens had a covered colonnade
called peripatos that facilitated
walking. Today we see peripatos in words
like peripatetic.
Here's a summary of
the relationship between walking and philosophy:
Location
|
Setting
|
Activities
|
People
|
Athens
|
Grove that
predated Aristotle's school
|
Taught rhetoric;
delivered information and ideas to public
|
Sophist (sophia =
wisdom) philosophers
|
Athens
|
Area with shrines
to Apollo and Muses
|
Teachers and
students wandered among the classes
|
Called Peripatetic
philosophers
|
Athens
|
Vicinity of stoa
(colonnade)
Greek architecture
accommodated walking groups
|
Exchanges between
teachers and students while walking
|
Stoic philosophers
|
Europe
Philosophers
copied the Greeks and walked
|
Philosophenweg
(Heidelberg)
|
Walked to think
and relax
|
Hegel
|
|
Philosophendamm
(Konigsberg)
|
To take a break
from writing
|
Kant
|
|
Philosopher's Way
(Copenhagen)
|
|
Kierkegaard
|
|
|
Favorite
activities: reading, music, walking
|
Nietzsche
|
I read some time ago
that people involved in highly cognitive verbal activities like writing,
teaching, and even politics, tended to take up less verbally-intense activities
like painting or low level physical exertion activities like walking. In my
personal experience, I've had ideas come to me while driving, which is very low
intensity and the most physical exertion involves managing the steering wheel.
Given Rousseau's
statement, walking promotes an active mind. In fact, to call walking a cultural
act is to see in it a vigorous quality that relaxes the body while invigorating
the mind.