Phenomenology of the body

Embodiment, Transparency and the Disclosiveness of Failure

by Shaun May

Published in 'Body, Space and Technology' Vol. 11, Issue 1.
Cite as "May, S. (2012) 'Embodiment, Transparency and the Disclosiveness of Failure', Body Space and Technology 11/01

In this paper, I want to argue that embodiment is characterised by a plasticity which entails that it can include both... more In this paper, I want to argue that embodiment is characterised by a plasticity which entails that it can include both the biological limb and the 'artificial' tool, as evidenced by recent research in cognitive science. Moreover, I want to claim that it is only in failure that the embodied limb and tool are phenomenologically distinct. I will go on to argue that this claim is essential for understanding the phenomenon of failed embodiment, such as that found within the clowning tradition, before concluding with a short provocation regarding the social and political implications of such a view.

Epistemological and Phenomenological Issues in the use of Brain-Computer Interfacess

by Richard Heersmink

In C. Ess, & R. Hagengruber (Eds.), Proceedings of the International Association for Computing and Philosophy 2011 (pp. 98-102). Münster: MV-Wissenschaft.

Brain-computer interfaces (BCIs) are an emerging and converging technology that translates the brain activity of its... more Brain-computer interfaces (BCIs) are an emerging and converging technology that translates the brain activity of its user into command signals for external devices, ranging from motorized wheelchairs, robotic hands, environmental control systems, and computer applications. In this paper I functionally decompose BCI systems and categorize BCI applications with similar functional properties into three categories, those with (1) motor, (2) virtual, and (3) linguistic applications. I then analyse the relationship between these distinct BCI applications and their users from an epistemological and phenomenological perspective. Specifically, I analyse functional properties of BCIs in relation to the abilities (particularly motor behaviour and communication) of their human users, asking how they may or may not extend these abilities. This includes a phenomenological analysis of whether BCIs are experienced as transparent extensions. Contrary to some recent philosophical claims, I conclude that, although BCIs have the potential to become bodily as well as cognitive extensions for skilled users, at this stage they are not. And while the electrodes and signal processor may to a variable degree be transparent and incorporated, the BCI system as a whole is not. Contemporary BCIs are difficult to use. Most systems only work in highly controlled laboratory settings, require a high amount of training and concentration, have very limited control options, have low and variable information transfer rates, and effector motions are often slow, clumsy and sometimes unsuccessful. These drawbacks considerably limit their possibilities for transparency and incorporation into either the body schema or cognitive system which is essential for bodily and cognitive extension. Current BCIs can therefore only be seen as a weak or metaphorical extension of the human central nervous system. To increase their potential for cognitive extension, I give suggestions for improving the interface design of what I refer to as linguistic applications.

Rethinking Human Nature and the Place of (Wo)Man in the world: Anthropology between Philosophy and Science. A Manifesto

by Giacomo Pezzano

We are knowing more and more about (Wo)Man, but the determination of her/his nature is still problematic: asking «What... more We are knowing more and more about (Wo)Man, but the determination of her/his nature is still problematic: asking «What is (Wo)Man?» is paradoxically possible only in the space left open by (wo)man’s erasure. Whatever human nature is, (wo)man wants to know her/himself, because if (s)he does not know who (s)he is, (s)he can not know where to go: moving from hominitas to humanitas requires a definition of (wo)man’s nature, of her/his «place» in the world, in view of describing ex-istence as a modulation of the «World Openness» and an attempt to find a way of articulate the possibilities, as intrinsically «medial» and «modal» since it is founded on «referral» and «relationship with the outside»

"La explicación de los transtornos alimentarios: una lección de rigor frente a los trucos del ilusionismo"

by Francisco Vazquez Garcia

en Asclepio. Revista de Historia de la Medicina y de la Ciencia, vol. LXIII (2011), 2, pp. 591-596 (comentario bibliográfico de Moreno Pestaña, J.L.: Moral corporal, trastornos alimentarios y clase social, Madrid, CIS, 2010)

Comenta Nietzsche, en un aforismo incluido en Aurora, que la ciencia funciona al revés que la
prestidigitación.... more Comenta Nietzsche, en un aforismo incluido en Aurora, que la ciencia funciona al revés que la
prestidigitación. En ésta, el mago nos hace ver —haciendo desparecer al sempiterno conejo— una
causalidad simple donde en realidad opera la compleja causalidad del truco y del montaje. La ciencia
en cambio (al explicar algo de aspecto tan corriente como la caída y la puesta de sol, por ejemplo) nos
revela que tras la aparente simplicidad se oculta un mecanismo causal bastante complicado.
Este mismo empeño es el que gobierna la investigación de José Luis Moreno Pestaña. Se trata por una parte de un análisis sociológico de los trastornos alimentarios. En ningún caso se niega la condición patológica de éstos. Frente a versiones más o menos vulgares de Foucault o de la «teoría
del etiquetaje», filtradas políticamente por el feminismo, la queer theory o la antipsiquiatría, se
afirma decididamente que los trastornos alimentarios constituyen una enfermedad. No se está ante
construcciones sociodiscursivas promovidas por un aparato psiquiátrico puesto al servicio de las
fuerzas del patriarcado, el control social o la clase dominante.
Ahora bien, este reconocimiento de la condición patológica inducida por restricciones alimentarias intensas, implica al mismo tiempo recordar que no se trata sin más de patologías orgánicas o psíquicas, sino que hay dinámicas sociales que las propician.

"La explicación de los transtornos alimentarios: una lección de rigor frente a los trucos del ilusionismo"

by Francisco Vazquez Garcia

en Asclepio. Revista de Historia de la Medicina y de la Ciencia, vol. LXIII (2011), 2, pp. 591-596 (comentario bibliográfico de Moreno Pestaña, J.L.: Moral corporal, trastornos alimentarios y clase social, Madrid, CIS, 2010)

Comenta Nietzsche, en un aforismo incluido en Aurora, que la ciencia funciona al revés que la
prestidigitación.... more Comenta Nietzsche, en un aforismo incluido en Aurora, que la ciencia funciona al revés que la
prestidigitación. En ésta, el mago nos hace ver —haciendo desparecer al sempiterno conejo— una
causalidad simple donde en realidad opera la compleja causalidad del truco y del montaje. La ciencia
en cambio (al explicar algo de aspecto tan corriente como la caída y la puesta de sol, por ejemplo) nos
revela que tras la aparente simplicidad se oculta un mecanismo causal bastante complicado.
Este mismo empeño es el que gobierna la investigación de José Luis Moreno Pestaña. Se trata por una parte de un análisis sociológico de los trastornos alimentarios. En ningún caso se niega la condición patológica de éstos. Frente a versiones más o menos vulgares de Foucault o de la «teoría
del etiquetaje», filtradas políticamente por el feminismo, la queer theory o la antipsiquiatría, se
afirma decididamente que los trastornos alimentarios constituyen una enfermedad. No se está ante
construcciones sociodiscursivas promovidas por un aparato psiquiátrico puesto al servicio de las
fuerzas del patriarcado, el control social o la clase dominante.
Ahora bien, este reconocimiento de la condición patológica inducida por restricciones alimentarias intensas, implica al mismo tiempo recordar que no se trata sin más de patologías orgánicas o psíquicas, sino que hay dinámicas sociales que las propician.

Configuring maternal, preborn and infant embodiment

by Deborah Lupton

An increasing literature on the biopolitics of contemporary maternity and on risk society, individualisation and... more An increasing literature on the biopolitics of contemporary maternity and on risk society, individualisation and parenting has demonstrated the increasing emphasis that has been placed upon pregnant women and mothers to take responsibility for the health and welfare of their children. The ideal female ‘reproductive citizen’ is expected to place her children’s health and wellbeing above her own needs and desires. Here the subject positions of the ‘good mother’ and the ‘responsible citizen’ as they are produced through the discourses and practices of neoliberalism intertwine. This paper looks at the convergence of various influential discourses, images, practices and technologies in configuring maternal, preborn and infant bodies in certain ways in the context of neoliberalism. These include such factors as the growing importance of the concept of risk in relation to preborn and infant wellbeing, the extension of infant identity back into preborn bodies, the emergence of the concepts of the foetal and embryonic (and even the preconceived embryonic) citizen, the precious child and intensive parenting and the symbolic concepts of permeability, purity and danger and Self and Other as they relate to maternal, infant and preborn embodiment.

Off-grid Mobilities: Incorporating a Way of Life

by Phillip Vannini

Published in Transfers: Interdisciplinary Journal of Mobility Studies

Drawing from sensory ethnography, the present multimodal writing—accompanied by photography and digital... more Drawing from sensory ethnography, the present multimodal writing—accompanied by photography and digital video—documents and interprets the mobilities of off-grid living on Lasqueti Island, British Columbia, Canada. The data presentation focuses in particular on the embodied experience of off-grid inhabitation, highlighting the sensory and kinetic experiences and practices of everyday life in a community disconnected from the North American electrical grid and highway network. The mobilities of fuel and energy are presented in unison with ethnographic attention to the taskscape of everyday activities and movements in which off-grid islanders routinely engage. The analysis, based on Tim Ingold's non-representational theory on place, movement, and inhabitation, focuses on how the material and corporeal mobilities of off-grid life body forth a unique sense of place.

Nomos der Merde

by Jean-Pierre Couture

MERDE, Cahiers de l'idiotie, no 5, 2012, p. 295-311.

Cet examen comportera trois niveaux discontinus qui interrogent la civilisation moderne, l'ingénierie sanitaire et le... more Cet examen comportera trois niveaux discontinus qui interrogent la civilisation moderne, l'ingénierie sanitaire et le cabinet quotidien.

Making Bodies

by Liza Griffin

(2007) ‘Making Bodies’ Quest. Issue 5. Autumn, 2007. pp 1-14.

Commuting Bodies Move, Creatively

by Astrida Neimanis

Inter-Integralism ~~~ Critical Perspectives on Advanced and Adequate Phenomenology and “Pheno-Practice” for Integral Research

by Wendelin Kuepers

draft

This contribution investigates the status of phenomenology in integral theory. In particular it will problematise the... more This contribution investigates the status of phenomenology in integral theory. In particular it will problematise the classification of life-worldly phenomenology as a discipline located only in the interior upper-left quadrant or as a Zone 1 perspective in Wilber’s integral model and methodology.
Based on main ideas of classical (Husserlian) phenomenology and its various critiques and further developments, the treatment in integral (AQAL) theory is discussed critically. Especially the ordering of phenomenology into a separate field or zone, the status of consciousness, including the debate related to its structure and states, and inter-subjective dimensions as well as the relation to contemplation and meditation are examined systematically.
Furthermore, then with regard to the more advanced form of phenomenology as developed by Merleau-Ponty its proto-integral potential will be outlined. It will be argued that activating this potential may contributes to correct some of the weaknesses and limitations of conventional integral theory. 
Moreover, it will be proposed that advanced phenomenology provides the foundations for an “adequate phenomenology” in integral research. As part of this more adequate phenomenology and its ontological, epistemological, and methodological dimension some perspectives on what is called integral “pheno-practice” will be offered.
All in all, it is hoped that the critical exploration of phenomenology in its more proto-integral, adequate and pheno-practical forms might enrich integral research, improve its theory building and empirical testing by offering a more inclusive, coherent approach as part of an overarching holarchical ecology of integrative knowledge and practice

A Phenomenology of Fetishism: Alienated Production and the Appearance of "Race"

by Anna Carastathis

International Studies in Philosophy 39(2), 2007, 17-33
Special Issue of the Society for Social and Political Philosophy

Being there: Heidegger and the phenomenon of presence in telematic performance

by Martha Ladly

Blurring the boundaries: breastfeeding and maternal subjectivity

by Deborah Lupton

Perception, The Buddha-Nature, and the Brain: A Challenge to Neurotheology on the Dynamics of Spiritual Meaning.

by Jonathan Weidenbaum

This is my talk for the conference: Towards A Science of Consciousness 2012; Tucson, Arizona.

It incorporates insights from my earlier publications and conference talks (including "Between Mysticism and Medical Materialism"), but it is expanded, more general, more up to date, and offers different conclusions.

Neurotheology, the discipline which explores correlations between religious experience and the nervous system, comes... more Neurotheology, the discipline which explores correlations between religious experience and the nervous system, comes in more than one form. While some neurotheologians aim to isolate a specific part of the brain as the foundation for spirituality (i.e. the temporal lobe), others argue for the importance of recognizing myriad components of the nervous system as working in tandem. While a few are anti-religion, others seek, on the contrary, to vouch for both the validity of mystical experience and the value of religious commitment. However, what many neurotheologians seem to have in common is a general interpretation of the nature of experience: namely one in which the brain, as the primary seat of significance, fashions sensory data into structures of meaning. According to many neurotheologians, mystics can therefore alter their reality by provoking the right transformations within the nervous system. The purpose of this essay is to argue that this interpretation of our perceptual and intuitive life fails to account for the felt-character of some of the most venerable types of experience labeled as religious. I do not deny that the nervous system is a necessary condition for all experience, religious or otherwise. I maintain that it is not a sufficient condition, and that the ecstatic feel of religious experiences involves configurations of meaning that are not reducible to a model in which the brain receives and shapes value-neutral bits of stimulation. I argue that this model can also be self-refuting. For instance, in describing how the brain creates reality, the authors of Why God Won't Go Away state that even science is a kind of mythology, a useful fiction (leaving us to wonder why we should accept their conclusions). Drawing upon key American and European thinkers, I suggest that the rich qualities of religious experience are better accounted for through a more nuanced understanding of the relationship between the nervous system, an active and mobile body, and the environment--and not through a concentration upon a priori mechanisms or "God-parts" of the brain. I conclude with a discussion of the implications of my position for the veridicality of different kinds of religious and mystical experience. I hope only to advance the conversation over neurotheology, and not to dismiss it.

‘In the Game’? Embodied Subjectivity in Gaming Environments

by Robert Farrow

Farrow, Robert and Iacovides, Ioanna (2012). ‘In the Game’? Embodied Subjectivity in Gaming Environments. In: 6th International Conference on the Philosophy of Computer Games, 29th-31st January , Madrid.

Human-computer interactions are increasingly using more (or all) of the body as a control device. We identify a... more Human-computer interactions are increasingly using more (or all) of the body as a control device. We identify a convergence between everyday bodily actions and activity within digital environments, and a trend towards incorporating natural or mimetic form of movement into gaming devices. We go on to reflect on the nature of player ‘embodiment’ in digital gaming environments by applying insights from the phenomenology of Maurice Merleau-Ponty. Three conditions for digital embodiment are proposed, with implications for Calleja’s (2011) Player Involvement Model (PIM) of gaming discussed.

‘Going with the flow’: some central discourses in conceptualising and articulating the embodiment of emotional states.

by Deborah Lupton

In Nettleton, S. and Watson, J. (1998) (eds), The Body in Everyday Life. London: Routledge, pp. 82--99.

‘A Weariness of the Flesh’: Towards a Theology of Boredom and Fatigue

by K Jason Wardley

From: 'Intensities: Philosophy, Religion and the Affirmation of Life' (Ashgate, 2012)

This essay follows two impulses: Jean-Yves Lacoste’s suggestion that philosophy and theology should speak about... more This essay follows two impulses: Jean-Yves Lacoste’s suggestion that philosophy and theology should speak about boredom and about fatigue, just as they do about anguish or joy, and the Swiss theologian Karl Barth’s contention that theological anthropology and philosophy of religion are incoherent without them. Above all, it will try and offer a tentative answer to the question as to what it means to pray when one is tired or bored. To this end, I shall begin by examining some of the traditional theological and philosophical readings of fatigue and boredom (beginning with Jewish and Christian scripture), before turning specifically to Martin Heidegger and Giorgio Agamben, and finally to recent phenomenological accounts, drawing from them some suggestions for a possible theology of boredom and fatigue.

Environmental and Architectural Phenomenology, spring 2011 issue (vol. 22, no. 2)

by David Seamon

Feature essays: ENVIRONMENTAL AND ARCHITECTURAL PHENOMENOLOGY, spring 2011.

Feature essays in this issue... more Feature essays: ENVIRONMENTAL AND ARCHITECTURAL PHENOMENOLOGY, spring 2011.

Feature essays in this issue of EAP focus on landscape restoration and real vs. virtual animal dissections. 

In the issue’s first essay, Canadian educator Norm Friesen demonstrates how a phenomenological perspective contributes to understanding the lived differences between real and virtual realities. He focuses on laboratory vs. digitally-simulated animal dissections and draws on the ideas of Heideggerian philosopher Albert Borgmann to locate some of the pedagogical strengths and weaknesses of reality-based vs. hyperreal modes of learning.

In the issue’s second feature essay, retired Australian educator John Cameron writes a sixth “letter” from his rural home on Tasmania’s Bruny Island. His focus is the ecological restoration of some 50 acres of overgrazed paddocks, and the difficulties and satisfactions, both philosophical and practical, which arise from his decision to return the land to its “natural state.”

Back issues of EAP are now available at:

www.krex.k-state.edu/dspace/handle/2097/1522

David Seamon
Editor, EAP

Bringing the Lived Body to Medical Ethics Education: Learning to See the Suffering Other.

by Kristin Zeiler

Zeiler, K. Bringing the Lived Body to Medical Ethics Education: Learning to See the Suffering Other. Published in: Reconceiving Medical Ethics (ed. Christopher Cowley). Continuum Studies in Philosophy. Continuum: London, 2012, pp 44-55.

Virtue ethical approaches are commonly concerned with the subject becoming virtuous. This requires time and continuous... more Virtue ethical approaches are commonly concerned with the subject becoming virtuous. This requires time and continuous practice. It involves habituation. In this regard, the development of virtues shares features with the development of practical skills. In both cases, we learn by doing.

Despite the fact that the learning of practical skills is an interest for phenomenologists such as Maurice Merleau-Ponty (2006), surprisingly little dialogue has taken place between virtue ethics and phenomenological traditions. Such a dialogue arises in this text. A phenomenological analysis can deepen our understanding of how the practical know-how of virtues can feed into the subject ’ s embodied existence and perception. It can throw new light on the debated phenomenon of moral perception. And it can matter for medical ethics education.

A few previous studies have elaborated a phenomenology of virtue that examines what it is like to be a virtuous person (Annas 2008) or out lined a phenomenology of skill-acquisition where acting ethically is seen as a skill (Dreyfus and Dreyfus 2004). Such studies have contributed with insights as regards the role of moral know-how in moral development. They have not,
however, examined bodily dimension of learning to act ethically and becoming virtuous, in any detail. The chapter examines, phenomenologically, the role of the body when becoming virtuous and what incorporation of virtues-as-skills would mean for perception. This can further explain the phenomenon of moral perception, contribute to the discussion of alternative approaches to medical ethics and particularly so to the discussion of ethical competence and the learning of ethics in medical education.