Abstract

How are the sense of ownership and the sense of agency related? Does one need to be able to control one’s body to experience it as one’s own? One may suggest that the sense of bodily ownership is grounded in action-orientated representations of the body. However, this agentive hypothesis cannot explain how one can experience as one’s own a rubber hand that is not under control, while not experiencing as one’s own tools that are under control. The chapter then argues that one needs to distinguish between two kinds of hot body maps: the working body map involved in instrumental actions, and the protective body map involved in self-defence. It is proposed that one experiences as one’s own the body represented in the protective body map, which represents the body that has a special significance for the evolutionary needs of the organism.