The aim of this manuscript is to highlight that from the phenomenology and psychoanalysis point of view, the meaning of the notion of the body is different from the medical biologicist discourse. In psychoanalysis, the body is an erogenized body.
More From giovannicarolo. Giovannicarolo La Etnografia Como Modelo de Investigacion. Feb 17, 2019 - PDF In the following work, it is meditated starting from the search of. De Jean Piaget y la obra de Sigmund Freud en torno al tema de uno de.
It is constituted as an object for another self. Similarly, in phenomenology, the body is an own body in first instance. It is the body of a self, rather than a living body and a material body.
Both positions enable us to understand how this conceptualization of the body is essential in any human field. Especially in the clinic, the position of the subject before the other will lead to a specific form of intervention.
From this understanding of the human body, both phenomenology and psychoanalysis confirm that the biologicist understanding of the body, presumed by all psychological and medical practices, is insufficient. IntroductionThe mind-body relation (psyche-soma) has always been the central topic of philosophical anthropology and psychology. This ancestral and current debate is the irremediable framework when speaking of the body. Succinctly, the central question is whether or not the mental/psychic operations, acts or states (seeing, imagining, feeling, thinking), are different from physical processes (particularly neural processes), and the relation between them. If there is no source of motion other than the physical, then the body can be understood in its entirety only by the study of the body as a biological organism. Such a stance has prevailed in the understanding of the body within medicine, largely because of the philosophical postures that have been adopted in the mind-brain or mind-body problem.
In general, without pretending to include each philosophical position with their nuances, all these postures reduce activity- or the cause of activity- to a material cause.The philosophical positions regarding the question of psyche-body relations through history can be broadly divided into:Dualism claims a real distinction between soul and body. Likewise, the Psychophysical Parallelism usually recognizes some distinction between the mental and the physical but disregards or does not admit their mutual interaction (postures of Leibniz and Spinoza). On the other hand, the Spiritualist Monism denies the notion of body as something really different from the spirit or knowledge (idealism of Berkeley).
Moreover, the Psychological Behaviorism attempts to solve certain inner attitudes within the neurophysiological stimulus-response scheme, subjecting these actions to the rigor of the natural sciences (Skinner), and the Philosophical Behaviorism explains internal processes through external or public behavior (Ryle). Furthermore, the Neurologist Monism, or identity theory, reduces the psychic act and its intentional contents to neuronal activity, so it ends up being called physicalism (Paul and Patricia Churchlan). Then, Emergentism comes about as an opponent to neuronal reductionism, although both positions emerge from a material organization principle (Searle, Bunge). Successively, Computational Functionalism arises as an explanation for mental acts and states contrary to behaviorism and neurologism, arguing that mental operations could be computational functions capable of being realized in multiple ways in various material bases (Putnam-at the beginning). The result is a new extreme dualism, since the mental functions could happen independently of the material structure.
Consequently, body and mind could exist totally separated. Spatiality and bodyFreud , in his manuscript “The Ego and the Id” establishes a guiding principle to understand the psychic apparatus stating that “a person’s own body, and above all its surface, is a place from which both external and internal perceptions may arise.
It is seen like any other object, but to the touch it yields two kinds of sensations, one of which may be equivalent to an internal perception.” (Freud, p. Hence, the internal perception is an immediate reference and constitutes the basis for all perceptions and representations.Phenomenology explains how the internal perception is formed and why is internal and not external. The own body is not constituted as an object of external perception, i.e., as a physical (natural) body, because the subject perceives his body as belonging to him. In contrast, for the subject, the external bodies are always there or absent. The body of a subject is always at the same reaching distance to grasp it, meaning that it is always here whether one sees it, touches it, hears it, or not.
One’s body is always ineluctably present as a full “own corporality”. To be linked or to belong to oneself can never be constituted through an external perception, but always through an internal perception (Cfr. Therefore, in phenomenology, the human corporality is understood mainly as the body of a consciousness. The “own body” is an object that is given to me as a sequence of variable appearances. However, if the giving of my body is compared to the giving of the other physical bodies, then my body is given to my sensibility within very narrow limits.The limits of the sensorial perception of the own body avert a unitary perception, and thus avoid the presence of the body from being like a shapeless mass or an undifferentiated presence. On the contrary, the body is constituted according to the form of sensations, which implies a variable distance from the self.
This variable distance between some parts and the body refers to a zero point of corporeality with respect to the self. One perceives the parts of the body to be further or closer from this zero point, but regardless of the distance the parts belong to one, i.e., they are always internal (Cfr.
122–123).Nevertheless, it is important to note that the body is not the same as the self, because my body cannot be identified with the I. However, the body and the self are linked to the extent that the body is located a zero distance from the I. From this point, the body parts, more or less distanced from the I and simultaneously integrated in what the I is, are considered as part of one’s own body (Stein, pag. Space is mentioned as a reference of the body parts towards the I, because the subject is perceived as a whole unit. Therefore, the outer spatiality related to one’s body is oriented towards one’s corporality.
Similarly, Freud, in his book “The ego and the Id”, considers that “psycho-physiology has fully discussed the manner in which a person’s own body attains its special position among other objects in the world of perception The ego is first and foremost a bodily ego; it is not merely a surface entity, but is itself the projection of a surface (Freud, p. Later in 1926, he adds a footnote to the same document and admits that the I should be considered as a psychic projection of the surface of the body, as well as the representation of the surface of the psychic apparatus (Freud, p. 28, footnote). The own body and the foreign bodyIn phenomenology, the relationship between internal and external perceptions denotes the intentional character of the consciousness, because the consciousness is always owned. Also, this owner cannot be just oneself, the other (the external) is required. Hence, the I is always present in the consciousness. Nevertheless, the i is not constituted as I without the other or the external.
Therefore, the external perception of “other bodies” is required, i.e., the foreign and what the no corporeal of the I, for the identity of the I to be constituted. Consequently, the identity -of the own- would not make sense if the -not own- were not presented. Hence, identity needs alterity.In the dynamics between identity and alterity lies the essential relevance of the internal and external perception. So that, in this dual mode, internal and external, the own body comes alive as the same body (Stein, pag.125), and the foreign body as the not-own-body. Husserl (, §.67) emphasizes the importance of not confusing sensation and perception, because sensation is blind and deaf. In other words, sensation only is meaningful if perceived, because it requires that close relationship between body and consciousness to be constituted in the experience of the I.The language between sensation and perception is particularly narrow, because the own body is given as a sentient and the sensations are the data from the own body.
Sensations are given in an absolute way, since they are always localized. The sensation is always in a certain place of my body, but always distant from the self. It may happen close to the I, but never in I. All this places where sensations are manifested are gathered in a unit that is the own body (Cfr. Likewise, as mentioned before, Freud stated, “a person’s own body, and above all its surface, is a place from which both external and internal perceptions may spring. It is seen like any other object, but to the touch it yields two kinds of sensations, one of which may be equivalent to an internal perception.” (1923 b., pg. Certainly, the own body is perceived through the external sensibility.
However, this perception is not a simple sensation but a perception constituted from the I as a perception of itself. Simultaneously, the laws proper to physical things also constitute perception as they are presented to consciousness. Therefore, my own body is constituted in two ways: as a sentient own body (perceived as own body) and as body of the external word (perceived exteriorly). The own body solipstically constituted, seen from the interior - in the versed approach on the “interior”, is manifested as a free mobile organ (or a system of organs) through which the subject experiences the external world. Moreover, as a bearer of sensations, the own body -and the psyche- form a concrete unit, due to the link it has to the rest of the psychic life (Husserl, §. 162–163).Nonetheless, the internal and external are intertwined as they emerge in consciousness, as Husserl remarks.“Approached from the outside –in the “outer attitude”– it presents itself as a reality sui generis. That is: on the one hand, as a material thing of especial modes of appearance, a thing “inserted” between the rest of the material world and the “subjective” sphere (the subject together with what was just mentioned from within), as a center around which the rest of the spatial world is arranged, and as being in causal relationship with the real external world.
On the other hand, the Body appears here at the same time as a “turning point” where the causal relations are transformed into conditional relations between the external world and the Bodily-psychic subject. And in virtue of that, the Body appears as pertaining integrally to this subject and its properties, both the specifically Corporeal and the psychic ones bound up with them. That which is constituted in the outer attitude is there co-present together with what is constituted in the inner attitude” (, §.42, p.161–162).Therefore, the objective world (external) and subjective world are intertwined inseparably as consciousness arises, but this does not mean they cannot be distinguished, let alone identified.
However, in the subject’s life, or constitution as a psychophysical individual - the constitution of its identity-, this relationship is intentional, of meaning or signification. Thus, the human body, either the own body or the body of other consciousness, cannot be known outside subjectivity, since it would no longer be a body and would be a “thing there”. We give meaning to the “thing there”, but it is not an essential part of our own significance, or identity.Husserl’s research, evidently oriented in a transcendental direction, although at first might not seem that way, grants to the corporeal reality a place in the foundation of the same subjectivity, without leaving it at the level of the “sensible underground”. This transcendental orientation, like the thought of Edith Stein, does not affect the whole phenomenological perspective. Therefore, other postures develop in phenomenology, one of them is the posture of Maurice Merleau, which especially addresses the corporality topic, and adopts a particular perspective through a reinterpretation of the Husserlian program.In the Prologue of “Phenomenology of perception”, Ponty announces: phenomenology is also a philosophy which puts essence back into existence, and does not expect to arrive at an understanding of man and the world from any starting point other than that of their “facticity” (Merleau Ponty, p. According to the philosopher, such a statement has a precise consequence that he explains: “the phenomenological world is not a pure being, but the sense which is revealed where the paths of my various experiences intersect, and also where my own and other people’s intersect and engage each other like gears.
It is thus inseparable from subjectivity and intersubjectivity, which find their unity when I either take up my past experiences in those of the present, or other people’s in my own” (Ponty, p. The French thinker proposes to start the research again in order to work differently from what has be thought so far according to some precise categories. If at the end of the cited Prologue we read an invitation to recover a sense of philosophy that is not the recognition of a previous reality but relearning to see the world, surely this task is radicalizes in his following work “The visible and the invisible”.Maurice Ponty considers the body as a fundamental structure, especially chiasmic, that allow us to place ourselves within the, happy term, “flesh” of the world (Merleau Ponty, p.134).
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This locality reveals the body as the only possibility of subjectivity and communication. In this few statements, in a way, the transcendental Husserlian posture is already broken, because there is no ontological primacy of the spiritual over the material and instead the flesh of the world is the fundamental element. ConclusionsAs we have shown, both the psychoanalysis and the phenomenology consider that the human body cannot be explained rigorously from the human corporality, leaving behind its subjective dimension, which implies that the body is a constitutive and inseparable part of the conscious subject complex.
Thus, the binomial-psyche cannot be separated when addressing the human body thoroughly.Both psychoanalysis and phenomenology assert that the subject’s body is always an “own body”, since it bears a unique character in spite of the organic similarities among all bodies. The “own being” of the subject cannot be explained from the causality of material things, because they are always external to the subject, they are world and follow a rigid law, they are physical. If the explanation of the subject’s body is limited by considering its movement mode only from the physical causality, then the “free movement” inherent to it, the fact that it is not subjected only to rigid physical laws, would not be explained. Consequently, such an explanation would dismiss the position of the corporality of the subject before the world, and that it is not in the world just as a “thing there”.The individuality, or rather ipseity, which presumes having an own body, could not be explained from natural sciences, given the dependence of causalities on natural law. If one restricts the understanding of human corporality to its biological-physical dimensions, then one would have to accept that this consideration, by method, has left aside the dimension of the subject, and therefore cannot make any assertion regarding its subjectivity. Thus, in this understanding, the approach to an inert body, or an animal body, or a dead body, would be the same, since it is restricted to not consider the movement of that body, and cannot distinguish the difference between them.Given the arguments presented in the current manuscript, we need to state that the natural sciences, limited by the experimental scientific method (positivist), can know the human corporality exclusively as a material body, in their causal relations and as physical substances.
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Consequently, the proper of the human is left out of the scope of natural sciences, thus they are incapable of giving a complete and unified view of the human corporeality. The human body cannot be considered as an organic entity exclusively, because in doing so it leaves out the subjective production that implies, concerns and affects the body, which is equally constitutive of the subject and inherent to the body.The above mentioned could explain the inefficiency and inefficacy of current medicine to “heal” the body, even more so to explain the psychic sufferings from the biochemistry or neuroscience understanding. The methods proper to the experimental sciences nullify the possibility of approaching the understanding of the mental processes and their therapeutic. These sciences make classifications under statistical arguments intended to establish a synonym between the observable behaviors and their presumed correlative mental processes, as is the case of the DSM-V. Thus, they leave behind the central object of study, that is, the subjectivity that coexists with the human body. This subjectivity that makes the own body - as it has been sustained in this article- cannot be reduced to matter, or factual data.
If the human body is not considered as the origin of movement and different from matter and physical principal, then, yet again, we neglect that which distinguishes the world from consciousness, that which gives meaning to everything that surrounds the man and prevents the body to be reduced to a “ being there”, to a mere object, meaningless, to an “object” to be used as something there. Also, it is neglected that which makes the body being owned, an incarnated spirit, a body of a subject that interpellates subjectivity to recognize the other as another subject like the I.However, if cognitive neuroscientists escape reductionism and acknowledge the diverse philosophical postures, then they could have a better approach to the study of consciousness by reformulating their experimental question and hypothesis even if their experimental procedures are limited to the physical. PMF: She has substantially contributed in the analysis of the subject exposed from the point of view of Phenomenology and Psychoanalysis, and has been involved in drafting the manuscript. MCR has substantially contributed in the analysis of the subject exposed from the point of view of Psychoanalysis. SS: He has substantially contributed in the analysis of the subject exposed from the point of view of Phenomenology. FMF: She has substantially contributed in the analysis of the subject exposed from the point of view of Neurosciences, and has been involved in the drafting and translate the manuscript.
All authors have made substantial contributions in the development of the topic, and have made a synthesis of both approaches to arrive at the exposed conclusions. All authors have made substantial intellectual contribution to the analysis and have been involve in revising it critically. All authors read and approved the final manuscript.
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