Abstract

What is it like to feel one’s body as one’s own? This chapter proposes what may be conceived of as an affective conception, according to which the sense of bodily ownership consists in the awareness of the boundaries of one’s body as having a special significance for the self. This leads to the definition of the phenomenology of ownership as a narcissistic feeling, which arises from the protective frame of reference of bodily experiences, and which should be filed with other affective feelings such as the feeling of familiarity. The chapter then replies to some objections that could be made against the bodyguard hypothesis.