The Phenomenology of Bodily Awareness

This paper examines the relationship between phenomenological accounts of bodily awareness, particularly Merleau-Ponty's Phenomenology of Perception, and contemporary philosophy of mind and scientific psychology. It argues that phenomenological insights into bodily awareness and its role in agency can be illuminated by research on somatic proprioception and motor control. The author presents a taxonomy of different types and levels of bodily awareness and proposes a model of its spatiality, suggesting that bodily locations are given on a non-Cartesian frame of reference, which explains fundamental differences between experiencing one's body and experiencing non-bodily objects. The final section connects this framework to current thinking about motor control.

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Abstract

There is an interesting dialectic between discussions of bodily awareness in the phenomenological tradition and in contemporary philosophy of mind and scientific psychology. It shows, with particular reference to Merleau-Ponty’s Phenomenology of Perception, how phenomenological insights into bodily awareness and its role in agency can be developed and illuminated by research into somatic proprioception and motor control. The paper presents a taxonomy of different types and levels of bodily awareness and presents a model of the spatiality of bodily awareness that explains some of the fundamental differences that Merleau-Ponty identified between our experience of our bodies and our experience of non-bodily objects. The key to these differences is that bodily locations are given on a non-Cartesian frame of reference. The final section shows how this way of thinking about the phenomenology of bodily awareness has interesting and fruitful connections with current thinking about motor control.