The Body Subject: Being True to the Truths of Experience
M. Sheets‐Johnstone
The Journal of Speculative Philosophy April 11, 2020 DOI: 10.5325/jspecphil.34.1.0001 (opens in new tab)
Study at a glance
AI-extracted from the abstract| Characteristics | Theoretical or philosophical paper Peer reviewed |
|---|---|
| Key points | Argues that Husserl's account of animate nature as an "animate organism" or subject body provides the proper grounding for understanding the body subject, and that contemporary phenomenological descriptions anchored in Merleau-Ponty fail to elucidate this body subject, rendering them "phenomenologically wayward" for bypassing Husserlian insights. |
Abstract
abstract:The aim of this essay is to flesh out the body subject in ways anchored in Husserlian phenomenology. In accordance with this aim, it begins with clarifications essential to veridical phenomenological accounts of experience. The specific Husserlian insights that follow these clarifications are grounded in experienced realities of animate nature, a nature Husserl consistently describes in terms of an animate organism, a subject body. The ensuing two sections show how and why various descriptions and claims of contemporary phenomenologists, descriptions and claims commonly anchored in Merleau-Ponty’s writings on the body, fail to elucidate this body subject, and how and why, in bypassing Husserlian insights, the descriptions and claims are phenomenologically wayward.