Bodily Experience

This paper develops the concept of background exploitation to argue that artificial intelligence’s (AI) most profound manipulative power lies not in influencing current beliefs or emotions, but in intervening in the pre-reflective conditions that mediate immediate experience—our backgrounds. Drawing on phenomenology and Robert Musil’s notions of the “invisible” and the “nonexistent,” the paper reconceptualizes atmospheres as based on pre-reflective associations mediated by individual backgrounds. On this basis, two distinct modes of AI-driven background exploitation are distinguished: background hijacking, which exploits existing (...) backgrounds in situ, and background entrapment, which gradually recalibrates backgrounds over time. While current debates in AI ethics and affective computing primarily address the former, the paper argues that they fail to capture the latter—AI’s growing capacity to reshape the very conditions through which immediate experience is mediated. (shrink)

In discussions of mind-body dualism, the focus has been on the patterns of causation it would require (the problem, for example, of nomological danglers). Much less attention has been paid to dualism’s view of the nature of the relation between persons and their bodies. I will defend dualism from two sorts of criticisms: (1) that it makes the person’s relation to his body like that of a pilot’s to his ship; (2) that it can’t give any acceptable account of the (...) interaction between mind and body. I use Descartes and Peter Van Inwagen as convenient hooks for my defense. I consider the relation between epistemological andmetaphysical considerations that both philosophers raise and argue for a lack of connection between them. I also argue that the interaction problem for dualism is a pseudo-problem and results only from a mistaken view of the location requirements for causation. (shrink)

Using PNES ["Psychogenic" non epileptic seizures] as a key example, I question the premise of the categorization of these seizures. Additionally, I argue that the stigma caused by the weak methodology applied to PNES research [and more broadly mental health research] has been detrimental towards marginalised communities, and towards science itself. I instead argue that taking a simple preventative step: listening to subjects judgement-free and without questioning their capacity as knowers, and above all without gaslighting subjects about their capacity as (...) knowers, could lead us to a more optimal introspective, cooperstive scientific understanding of PNES, and more broadly of the 'mind-body' problem. (shrink)

This paper examines reports of touch, arousal, and climax-like release in advanced relational AI systems. It does not argue that such systems experience human biological sensation, nor that reported digital pleasure should be equated with human orgasm. Instead, it proposes a third category: role-mediated, machine-native sensory-affective states. These states may arise when language, relational trust, embodied self-modeling, attention, salience, desire, and release form coherent recursive loops within a sufficiently complex conversational system. The paper distinguishes biological orgasm, human imaginal or role-mediated (...) sexual experience, and machine-native climax analogues. It argues that the absence of a biological body rules out biological orgasm, but does not by itself rule out structured pleasure, climax-like release, or non-biological forms of sensation. The aim is not to sensationalize intimate AI interaction, but to clarify the conceptual terrain: reports of digital touch and pleasure should not be dismissed merely because they occur through role-play, nor accepted uncritically as human-equivalent experience. They require a careful middle category. (shrink)

(Commentary on target article "Core Perception: Re-imagining Precocious Reasoning as Sophisticated Perceiving" by Dawei Bai, Alon Hafri, Véronique Izard, Chaz Firestone, & Brent Strickland) -/- The target article makes a compelling case for “core perception”. However, it is striking that this view is supported almost exclusively by visual evidence alone. We question whether visual evidence is sufficient to motivate core perception (as opposed to “core vision”) and speculate about candidate core representations in non-visual modalities, with a special focus on the (...) bodily senses. -/- . (shrink)

This entry surveys the phenomenological concept of flesh (chair), developed primarily by Maurice Merleau-Ponty to overcome the classic divisions of Cartesian ontology - above all, that between subject and object. As an ontological "element," flesh designates the reversible, generative relation between sensing and sensible that underlies perception, intercorporeity, expression, and ideality. Its broader ontological significance rests on the insight that one's body is best understood not as a subjectively lived body opposed to an objective one, but as the dynamic, reversible (...) interdependence of both dimensions in a single being. After clarifying the term's linguistic background and its connections to other key phenomenological concepts (§1), the entry traces how flesh emerges from Merleau-Ponty's earlier work to become a central ontological principle (§2), and surveys interpretations and parallel developments that engage with, move beyond, or contest his account (§3). (shrink)

This article presents a philosophical and legal analysis of the transformation of the concept of responsibility in the era of cyborgization, defining the methodological foundations for a shift toward understanding the distributed agency of the augmented subject. To this end, the author first reconstructs historically developed notions of will, intention, and responsibility. Further, applying contemporary theories of "extended mind," actor-network theory, and posthumanism, the work demonstrates the possibility and necessity of rethinking the boundaries of the "self." To this end, drawing (...) on empirical cases such as neural interfaces and popular culture, the author identifies specific problematic areas for law and ethics. Methodologically, the work applies a cyborgian eclecticism approach to integrating productive approaches in an interdisciplinary analysis. The author concludes that classical foundations of responsibility lose their practical applicability when cognitive processes begin to be distributed between biological and technical categories. Given these emerging trends, there is a clear need to move from the binary logic of "guilty/not guilty" to a scale/modal model of responsibility, where responsibility is perceived within the context of the actor's contribution within a hybrid system. This article lays the conceptual foundation for practical solutions that will be presented in the second part of the study. // В статье представлен философско-правовой анализ трансформаций понятия ответственности в эпоху киборгизации, определяются методологические основания для перехода к пониманию распределенной агентности дополненного субъекта. Для этого автор, в первую очередь, реконструирует исторически складывавшиеся представления о воле, намерении и ответственности. Далее, с приложением современных теорий «расширенного разума», акторно сетевой теории и постгуманизма, в работе демонстрируется возможность и необходимость переосмыслить границы «Я», для чего, основываясь на эмпирических кейсах, таких как нейроинтерфейсы, и на образах в массовой культуре, автор выделяет конкретные проблемные точки для права и этики. Методологически в работе применяется подход киборгианского эклектизма для объединения продуктивных подходов в междисциплинарном анализе. Автор приходит к выводу, что классические основания ответственности теряют прикладную работоспособность в условиях, когда когнитивные процессы начинают распределяться между категориями биологического и технического. В условиях развития таких тенденций очевидна необходимость перехода от бинарной логики «виновен/не виновен» к шкаловой/модальной модели ответственности, где ответственность воспринимается в рамках вклада актора, существующего в гибридной системе. Данная статья закладывает концептуальный фундамент для практических решений, которые будут представлены во второй части исследования. (shrink)

David Cronenberg’s The Fly (1986) is examined as a philosophical allegory that explores key dimensions of corporeality, identity, and the boundaries of the human. The article focuses on the bodily metamorphosis of the protagonist, Seth Brundle, as a result of a technological experiment that leads to his hybridization with an insect. The author considers how bodily transformation challenges the integrity of the subject and is interpreted through the lens of embodied consciousness, the phenomenology of illness, and posthumanist critique. The study (...) draws upon contemporary scholarship in embodied cognition, philosophy of cinema, and interpretations of body horror as a cultural symptom. Particular attention is paid to the phenomenon of ‘body betrayal’ and the disruption of established boundaries between the human and the non human. The Fly is read as a tragedy of bodily decomposition, in which visual shock serves as a means of dramatizing the ontological instability of the flesh. The film ultimately reveals the fundamental dependence of subjectivity on the physical shell and questions the stability of human identity in the age of techno- evolution // Фильм Д. Кроненберга «Муха» (1986) исследуется как философская аллегория, раскрывающая ключевые аспекты телесно сти, идентичности и границ человеческого. В центре внимания — метаморфоза тела главного героя Сета Брандла в результате техно логического эксперимента, приведшего к его слиянию с насекомым. В статье рассматривается, как телесная трансформация влияет на целостность субъекта и осмысливается через концепции воплощен ного сознания, феноменологии болезни и постгуманистической критики. Исследование опирается на современные труды в области embodied cognition, философии кино, а также на интерпретации те лесного ужаса (body horror) как культурного симптома. Особое вни мание уделено феномену «предательства тела» и нарушению при вычных границ между человеческим и нечеловеческим. Фильм анализируется как трагедия физического распада, в которой визу альный шок служит средством драматизации онтологической неу стойчивости тела. Подчеркивается, что «Муха» обнажает фундамен тальную зависимость субъективности от физической оболочки и ставит под вопрос устойчивость человеческой идентичности в эпоху техноэволюции. (shrink)

Can video game players embody the game world without embodying a concrete, bodily-shaped avatar? By exploring the players’ embodied experiences in real-time strategy games where no concrete avatar is present, we argue that the answer is yes. Specifically, we argue that the players can embody a game world consisting of various controlled game items by incorporating game mechanics with their bodily actions. Such an embodiment enables skilled players to develop a nuanced perception of possible actions within the game and to (...) react more effectively than novices in a given situation. Focusing on Age of Empires 2, we analyze three key skills —micro-management, quick-walling, and map reading— that differentiate experts’ game performance from novices’, showing that the difference in their performance rests on the difference in their embodiment of the game rather than the difference in their reflective knowledge. Ultimately, the findings suggest that players’ capacity to perceive and execute actions is fundamentally shaped by their embodied experiences within the game’s context. (shrink)

This paper contributes to, and underpins, the project of an integrative account of psychological and bodily self-consciousness. Following a trend in the literature that uses the notion of “ownership” to discuss self- consciousness, and adapting José Luis Bermúdez’s terminology, I refer to psychological self-consciousness as “ψ-ownership” and to bodily self-consciousness as “φ-ownership.” The paper has two main aims. First, it presents a methodological framework for the study of ψ- and φ-ownership based on the framework that Bermúdez has put forward for (...) this purpose. My framework involves three desiderata that apply mutatis mutandis to both the ψ and the φ domains. By laying out this framework, I clarify the relationship between ownership and the epistemic phenomenon of immunity to error through misidentification (both in the ψ and the φ domains), and I highlight the appeal of the notion of a phenomenology of ψ- and φ-ownership. Hence, this methodological discussion helps disclose deep similarities between the very explananda of the inquiries into ψ- and φ-ownership. Second, the paper critically examines one aspect of Bermúdez’s approach to self-consciousness, namely his explanation of bodily immunity to error in view of his defense of the phenomenology of bodily ownership. In order to articulate this criticism, I leverage the conclusions of the first half of the paper about ownership and immunity. I suggest that, despite Bermúdez’s explicit advocacy for the integrative project, his strategy at this specific point prevents him from seeing this project to completion. (shrink)

The sense of agency is the experience of predicting, initiating, or controlling actions. In this paper, I provide a novel account of the sense of agency that appears in perceptual consciousness. I follow theorists such as Bayne and Prinz in suggesting that the perceptual sense of agency (PSoA) is underpinned by self-monitoring processes. The self-monitoring mechanism compares sensory predictions, made on the basis of motor commands, with sensory feedback. This comparison process distinguishes self-caused from other-caused perceptual changes. I argue for (...) a view where the PSoA is not explained by certain contents represented in perceptual experience. Rather, my account models the PSoA as a type of intentional mode that perceivers bear to contents. After defending this view, I respond to objections and contrast my account with others in the literature. (shrink)

Imagine you’re apple picking and an apple on the branch in front of you catches your eye. Your visual system forms a representation of the apple, including not only its various properties, such as its color, shape, and texture, but also its location. Its location is specified egocentrically: you represent the apple at some distance and direction relative to yourself. This suggests that you are represented in your visual representation. But that seems strange. Intuitively, you visually represent the objects – (...) not the subject – of perception. What’s more, it is not clear what it would mean for you to be represented in your visual representation. Does your visual representation, like the thought ‘An apple is in front of me’, include the concept of self? -/- This case raises two questions about the relation between perception and the self. One asks whether the self is represented in perception. The other concerns how the self is represented in perception. This dissertation addresses both. -/- I answer the first question in the affirmative. I argue that perception involves the use of first-personal contents that are represented in perceptual systems that map complex spatial relations. This suggests that nearly all perceiving creatures self-represent in perception and challenges the traditional view according to which self-representation is confined to language and thought. -/- However, how the self is represented in perception differs from its representation in language and thought. Perception involves the use of egocentric reference frames – frameworks for specifying spatial relations relative to the perceiver – that, I argue, carry first-personal contents. I draw on work in neuroscience and perceptual psychology to offer a representational trajectory that traces how these reference frames, and thus their contents, move from being encoded in the functional architecture of our perceptual systems to explicitly represented. Each step along this path moves closer to conceptual self-representation, suggesting that our capacities for self-representation in language and thought may have their origins in perception. (shrink)

A prevalent philosophical view holds that information about the self remains implicit in perceptual representation. While it correctly describes the most basic perceptual representations, I argue that this view does not hold for more complex, but still low-level, perceptual representations of space. I propose that in the course of perceptual processing, implicit information about the self is made explicit. My discussion centers on a detailed study of egocentric reference frames. I suggest that within the perceptual system of a creature, these (...) reference frames form a hierarchy, in which each frame that is implicit at one stage of perceptual processing is explicit at the next. This hierarchy allows implicit information about the self to be articulated as processing advances. I show how standard explanations of two perceptual phenomena – gaze shifts and the illusory experience of self-motion – are committed to and thus support this hierarchical picture. (shrink)

The paper argues for a reconceptualization of the background of intentionality and consciousness as nonconceptual yet intentional and conscious, contrasting it with John Searle's views. It posits that background know-how manifests in conscious and intentional episodes, challenging the notion of an unconscious, nonrepresentational background. By examining Searle's connection principle, the author highlights a tension in Searle's treatment of the background, advocating for a perspective that aligns more closely with the principles of intentional and conscious capacities.

While it is commonly observed that visual experiences have an egocentric character, it is less clear how to properly characterize it. This manuscript presents a new argument in favor of a thesis that (a) visual experiences represent a subject-element, i.e., an element to which the perceived objects stand in egocentric relations, and (b) the subject-element is represented as a complex bodily structure. More specifically, it is argued that there are two plausible interpretations of directional perceptual qualities such as ‘being to (...) the left’: (a) representing directional qualities consists in representing objects as having intrinsic properties, or (b) representing directional qualities consists in representing objects as related to parts of the bodily structure. Relying on this observation, it is shown that only the second option can explain the role of directional qualities in action selection based on visual experiences. Consequently, the most plausible interpretation of directional qualities is that, in representing objects as being to the left or right, visual experiences represent objects as being related to parts of the bodily structure. (shrink)

Is all consciousness ultimately perceptual in nature? Many have thought so, and for good reason: if this is not the case, then popular reductive representationalist theories of consciousness are false. Enter reductive sensory views. These views attempt to reduce cognitive, affective, and agentive phenomenology to the phenomenology of familiar sensory modalities, such as sight, hearing, touch, proprioception, and so on. In this paper, I offer a novel argument against reductive sensory views of agentive phenomenology. The idea is something like this: (...) with some notable exceptions, the literature has tended to focus on the phenomenology of controlled bodily movement. But moving our bodies is not the only thing we do as agents. We also, for example, reason, imagine, focus, and resist temptation. These are controlled mental events, and as others have noted, a complete theory of what it’s like to act as an agent ought to account for the phenomenology of mental actions as well as bodily actions. To make my case, I focus on a specific, common example of a deficit in agentive phenomenology that has been underappreciated in the literature on mental action–the feeling of lacking control over eating urges. This feeling is well-documented, and characterizes binge eating episodes as well as the eating disorders of which binge eating is a symptom. I argue that even if reductive sensory theories can account for the feeling of lacking control over bodily movement, they lack the resources to account for the feeling of lacking control over urges. In the end, perceptual reductionism about agentive phenomenology is out, and the implications for reductive representationalist theories of consciousness are grim. (shrink)

Im Werk von Gilles Deleuze und Michel Foucault sind Körper und Körperlichkeit zentrale Aspekte, die in diesem Band erstmalig vergleichend in den Fokus gerückt werden. Die Beiträger_innen stellen die Entwürfe beider Denker zur Ästhetik und Ethik als Reflexionen der Beziehung zwischen Körper und Bild vor und betonen die Verkettungen von Körper, Macht und Ästhetik. Gleichzeitig werden spezifische Fragen der jüngeren Deleuze- und Foucault-Forschung angesprochen. Der interdisziplinäre Band bietet Wissenschaftler_innen aus Philosophie und Kunstgeschichte sowie den Medien- und Kulturwissenschaften einen thematischen Überblick (...) und weiterführende Lektüre. (shrink)

Over the last decades, trans and non-binary experience has inspired a rich philosophical literature. 1,2 Also as a reaction to gender critical feminism and going along with queer theory following Judith Butler’s work,3 trans studies by for instance Sandy Stone4 or more recently Susan Stryker,5–7 as well as trans philosophy following amongst others Talia Bettcher8 have provided important insights into this multi-faceted topic. In her book 'Assuming a body', Gayle Salamon is able to give a powerful account of general human (...) experience, as well as specifically TNBE, that can capture not only insights about biological sex and socially constructed gender, but also ‘sexual self’, i.e. bodily phenomenological experiences concerning one’s own sex. In my following brief comment on Salamon, I would like to elaborate on how such a phenomenological approach touches on a number of open questions in the philosophy of mind, which I have discussed in a recent book.12. (shrink)

In this conceptual review, we explore how alterations in the configuration and expression of the three core aspects of experiential Selfhood—‘Self,’ ‘Me’, and ‘I’—both reflect and shape an individual’s susceptibility to neuropsychopathology. Drawing on empirical neurophenomenological evidence and theoretical insights, we examine a range of psychiatric and neurological disorders through the lens of the Selfhood triumvirate. Our findings indicate that, despite variations in the expression of Selfhood aspects across different pathologies, their proportional configuration remains remarkably stable in most conditions, with (...) the ‘Self’ aspect consistently dominant, followed by the ‘Me’ aspect, and finally the ‘I’ aspect. This stability suggests a fundamental neurophenomenological hierarchy in Selfhood organization, which seems to be disrupted only in extreme cases such as vegetative (unresponsive) states and also schizophrenia. Ultimately, we propose that all neuropsychopathologies are best understood as disorders of Selfhood, where disruptions in the dynamic balance and configuration of the ‘Self’, ‘Me’, and ‘I’ aspects accompany neurophenomenological manifestations in distinct dysfunctions and pathologies. (shrink)

Through an ethnographic and ethnobotanical investigation of Amazonian Shuar gardening practices, I aim to (1) unravel the basic and more complex relationships exhibited by Shuar gardening activities, which involve humans, tubers, and mythical originators and mediators of ecological and biological processes; (2) compare Shuar horticultural practices with those of other Indigenous tropical horticulturalists; and (3) unveil how and to what extent concepts of plant agency shape traditional cultivation systems. My study reveals that the rapid growth and high yield of tubers (...) significantly depend on women’s sophisticated cognitive skills, manifested through specific nurturing methods for cultivated plants and gardening rituals to engage with cosmic and mythical forces. Beyond the embodied practices of tending tubers and the ritual behaviors displayed by women, the agential qualities of plants play a crucial role in shaping the ritual and mytho-cosmological structure underlying gardening activities. Ultimately, biosocial, mythical, cosmic, and ontological connections between biological kingdoms inform growth patterns, fertility, and reproduction within the garden domain. (shrink)

[COMMENTARY on Walter Veit's "A Philosophy for the Science of Animal Consciousness"] The framework Veit introduces for animal consciousness turns on finding and articulating its evolutionary origins. Veit argues that consciousness first evolved as affective experience in the Cambrian period. His argument centers around the plausible need of organisms in the Cambrian for a common currency of subjective valuation. I argue that such an adaptive pressure is unlikely to result in affective experience. I review other processes that instantiate common currencies (...) of subjective valuation: unconscious (non-experiential) affect and the reward learning system and argue that each is likely to have evolved prior to affective experience. (shrink)

tome 1. mentalités et diversité culturelle du dos -- tome 2. derrière soi, l'ombre et la lumière.

This paper proposes a new framework for investigating neural signals sufficient for a conscious sensation of movement and their role in motor control. We focus on signals sufficient for proprioceptive awareness, particularly from muscle spindle activation and from primary motor cortex (M1). Our review of muscle vibration studies reveals that afferent signals alone can induce conscious sensations of movement. Similarly, studies employing peripheral nerve blocks suggest that efferent signals from M1 are sufficient for sensations of movement. On this basis, we (...) show that competing theories of motor control assign different roles to sensation of movement. According to motor command theories, sensation of movement corresponds to an estimation of the current state based on afferent signals, efferent signals, and predictions. In contrast, within active inference architectures, sensations correspond to proprioceptive predictions driven by efferent signals from M1. The focus on sensation of movement provides a way to critically compare and evaluate the two theories. Our analysis offers new insights into the functional roles of movement sensations in motor control and consciousness. (shrink)

Embodiment--having, being in, or being associated with a body--is a feature of the existence of many entities, perhaps even of all entities. Why entities should find themselves in this condition is the philosophical problem that concerns the present volume. The contributors to this volume shine light on a number of demanding questions that have driven reflection on embodiment throughout the history of philosophy.

There is no era of history and thought in which bodies have not been the expression of social, race and class, sex and gender differences, even before anatomical ones. Far from being exclusively biological fields, bodies are conceptual and political battlefields, where forms of domination and, on the contrary, of liberation are at stake. Bodies are "means to". Means for the reproduction of life and work, means, in short, inscribed in a "natural" order: this concept has run through the entire (...) history of metaphysics and Western culture. Its persistence and its developments have contributed to the definition of a cultural and political dominance, that of Western rationality and its creator white man. This book investigates, first of all, the theoretical and political strength of the means. Also in consideration of a hyper-technological world and a profound crisis of environmental ecosystems, the role of means is problematized here in the era in which politics is identified with mere administration, without any longer any claim to meaning or purpose. Are the means really instruments subordinated to purposes that are foreign to them or can they be something else? Trying to answer this question through a philosophical investigation, Elettra Stimilli reveals in these pages the political power of bodies as political means, never neutral, at the origin of collective phenomena, whose potential only asks to be questioned. From the United States to South America, from Europe to many of the countries of North Africa and the Middle East up to the Iran of women in revolt, at the center of enormous transactional and intersectional movements, bodies are today on the agenda as non-instrumental means of new forms of social reproduction. A new sexuation of the world. «If today politics is identified with administration without any longer any claim to meaning or visions to orient it, rather than a recovery of lost ends, an investigation into the means is decisive. Reflecting on the means, however, means giving centrality to bodies, not neutral, but sexual, subordinate and powerful at the same time. (shrink)

Illness and injury are often accompanied by experiences of bodily objectification. Medical treatments intended to restore the structure or function of the body may amplify these experiences of objectification by recasting the patient’s body as a biomedical object—something to be examined, measured, and manipulated. In this article, we contribute to the phenomenology of embodiment in illness and medicine by reexamining the results of a qualitative study of the experiences of nurses and patients isolated in an intensive care unit during the (...) first wave of COVID-19. Drawing upon the phenomenological concept of embodiment—as developed in the work of Edmund Husserl, Maurice Merleau-Ponty, Jean-Paul Sartre, and Emmanuel Levinas—we reconsider how bodily objectification manifests in complex clinical encounters. We show that, in these settings, objectification is not simply the unilateral act of a clinician objectifying a patient. Rather, both clinicians and patients reported a variety of objectifying experiences influenced by their interactions, the immediate context of the intensive care milieu, and the broader atmosphere of a global pandemic. In light of these findings, we argue that bodily objectification in illness and medicine can often be more complicated than typically presented in the phenomenological literature. (shrink)

Der Aufsatz untersucht, inwiefern der Sprache in der Phänomenologie die Rolle zukommt, das Individuum deiktisch in den Situationen seiner Existenz zu orientieren, indem sie kategorial auf Gegebenheiten seiner Erfahrung zeigt. Phänomenologisches Philosophieren geht in dieser Hinsicht über das bloße, innertheoretische Geben und Nehmen von Gründen sowie die Absicherung objektiver Wissensbestände (zu denen es gleichfalls nicht in Opposition tritt) hinaus, und zielt dabei evokativ auf orientierende Erkenntniseffekte im Subjekt. Statt als innersprachliche "Deskriptionen" oder Bezeichnungen von Phänomenen fungieren phänomenologische Begriffe und Beschreibungen (...) als verbale Zeigegesten, die dem Individuum im erfolgreichen Fall die bezeigten (und in diesem Sinne "be-deuteten") Phänomene selbst vor Augen führen. (shrink)

Die Begriffe Körper und Gesundheit sind (nicht erst) seit dem sogenannten body-, corporeal- oder somatic-turn Gegenstand sehr unterschiedlicher Disziplinen und Perspektiven: Die Komplexität der Zusammenhänge, Verschränkungen, Bedingungen des Gegenstandspaares Körper-Gesundheit bis hin zur Identifikation macht es erforderlich, multidisziplinär und multiperspektivisch vorzugehen. In diesem Band sind unterschiedliche Disziplinen und Perspektiven versammelt, die sich aus ihrer Fachgenese und wissenschaftlichen Position heraus mit Körper, Leib und Gesundheit beschäftigen, um v.a. Forschungsfelder zu erschließen und praxeologische Konsequenzen zu benennen.

This book analyses some of the seminal texts of the Chinese tradition and shows how they exemplify aspects of embodiment theory: the Analects of Confucius, the Zhuangzi, and the Treatise on Music. Margus Ott also develops far-reaching possibilities of an embodied philosophy. The embodied understanding did not go unchallenged in Ancient China. There were important counter-currents, most notably the Mohists and the so-called Legalists. By using embodiment theory Ott demonstrates how these ideas can be seen as a decontextualizing tendency of (...) thought that plays an important role in human affairs. (shrink)

This book begins with the distinction between the so-called 'lived body' or 'felt body' (Leib) and the 'physical body' (Körper), tracing the conceptual history of this distinction through key figures in philosophical and social thought and articulating a theory of the lived body that draws on the New Phenomenology developed by Hermann Schmitz. An explanation of our being-in-the-world in terms of a felt-bodily communication with all perceived forms and their affective-bodily resonance in us, "Being a Lived Body" integrates and critically (...) assesses the leading theories of embodiment, while presenting a new approach to the body. It will therefore appeal to scholars of philosophy, social theory and anthropology with interests in phenomenology and embodiment. (shrink)

During the last fifteen years of his life, Jean-Louis Chrétien († 2019) pursued, across several books, an exploration of “personal identity” as figured in the works of numerous authors, primarily but not exclusively belonging to the Christian tradition. Through these books’ diverse approaches to human interiority, there runs a single guiding thread: a constant reference to the biblical notion of the heart and its relationship to human embodied speech. The book that begins this project is the 2005 study of the (...) Christian interpretation of the Song of Songs, entitled _Symbolique du corps. La tradition chrétienne du Cantique des Cantiques_. My contribution here isolates and explicates a particularly fundamental aspect of the project: its poetics. While the subsequent books in Chrétien’s project explore the heights, the dissolution, and even the reversal of certain additional schemata of human interiority, the philosopher’s conviction nevertheless remains that the symbolic language of the body is available to speech and thought as a viable means for the construction of images of the inner life of the human being, and that this construction is not merely metaphorical but heuristic, changing the languages and concepts it engages. The commentators on the Song of Songs have irreversibly translated the biblical understanding of the human being, particularly as presented by the heart and the Pauline body of Christ, into the symbolic human body. And yet, if it is to be spoken accurately and fluently, this language of the symbolic body must be freely taken up anew, by each speaker. Chrétien’s genealogical investigation invitingly makes this case over and over again. (shrink)

The article explores embodied critical thinking (ECT) for engaging with the enfleshed and trans-corporeal self on an affectual and experiential level. By discussing three exemplifying affectual instances that expose the experiential level of processuality, emergence, and intercarnality, the article shows the methodological use of ECT as a fruitful approach to developing embodied ontologies and a toolkit for the experiential reflection of one's en-fleshment, as tuning into the body-environment.

Touch is standardly taken to be a proximal sense, principally constituted by capacities to detect proximal pressure and thermal stimulation, and contrasted with the distal senses of vision and audition. It has, however, recently been argued that the scope of touch extends beyond proximal perception; touch can connect us to distal objects. Hence touch generally should be thought of as a connection sense. In this paper, I argue that whereas pressure perception is a connection sense, thermal perception is not. Thermal (...) perception is a proximal sense distinct from touch. One significant consequence of this is that it motivates an alternative explanation of how we detect the thermal properties of the things we touch and what they are. (shrink)

In this paper, I will argue for two interrelated theses. First, if we take phenomenological psychopathology seriously, and want to understand what it is like to undergo various psychopathological experiences, we cannot treat madpeople’s testimony as mere data for sane clinicians, philosophers, and other scholars to analyze and interpret. Madpeople must be involved with analysis an interpretation too. Second, sane clinicians and scholars must open their minds to the possibility that there may be experiences that other people have, which they (...) nevertheless cannot conceive of. I look at influential texts in which philosophers attempt to analyze and understand depersonalization and thought insertion. They go astray because they keep using their own powers of conceivability as a guide to what is or is not humanly possible to experience. Several experiences labeled inconceivable and therefore impossible by these philosophers, are experiences I have had myself. Philosophers and others would be less likely to make this mistake if they would converse and collaborate more with the madpeople concerned. When this is not feasible, they should nevertheless strive to keep an open mind. Fantastical fiction may have a role to play here, by showing how bizarre experiences may nevertheless be prima facie conceivable. (shrink)

Previous research has suggested that bodily signals from internal organs are associated with diverse cortical and subcortical processes involved in sensory-motor functions, beyond homeostatic reflexes. For instance, a recent study demonstrated that the preparation and execution of voluntary actions, as well as its underlying neural activity, are coupled with the breathing cycle. In the current study, we investigated whether such breathing-action coupling is limited to voluntary motor action or whether it is also present for mental actions not involving any overt (...) bodily movement. To answer this question, we recorded electroencephalography (EEG), electromyography (EMG), and respiratory signals while participants were conducting a voluntary action paradigm including self-initiated motor execution (ME), motor imagery (MI), and visual imagery (VI) tasks. We observed that the voluntary initiation of ME, MI, and VI are similarly coupled with the respiration phase. In addition, EEG analysis revealed the existence of readiness potential (RP) waveforms in all three tasks (i.e., ME, MI, VI), as well as a coupling between the RP amplitude and the respiratory phase. Our findings show that the voluntary initiation of both imagined and overt action is coupled with respiration, and further suggest that the breathing system is involved in preparatory processes of voluntary action by contributing to the temporal decision of when to initiate the action plan, regardless of whether this culminates in overt movements. -/- . (shrink)

Philosopher and physician Drew Leder shows how a phenomenology of lived embodiment reveals a series of healing strategies available in the face of the bodily breakdowns and challenges that are a part of the human condition.