Tělesnost a myšlení na pomezí individuálního bytí

• Authors: Pavel Kouba

Title variants

EN

Embodiment and thinking on the border of individual being

• Languages of publication: CS

Abstracts

EN

When we ask what is the relation between embodiment and thinking, it is usual to respond that these two phenomenal spheres are to be understood as radically different, and an attempt is made, at the same time, to find a certain point of contact which they might have in common. Aristotle, on this question, determined that at least the thinking part of the mind, the so-called active reason, is separable from the body, although the same cannot be said of the emotions or of sense perceptions, which are inseparably connected with the body. It follows from this that, in order to fully understand emotionality and sense, it is necessary to properly elucidate the connection between spirit and body, because it is precisely in this connection that emotionality and sense have their place. Descartes also recognised the necessity of clarifying the connection between spirit and body in the context of the problem of the so-called passions, although he had already blocked such a connection with his division of human existence into the spheres of res cogitans and res extensa. The question of the psychosomatic complexity of human existence, however, presents a much more complicated problem than it may usually seem. This complexity can be vividly shown by the phenomenological description of lived embodiment given by Merleau-Ponty in Phénomenologie de la perception, where the phenomenon of the body is understood in the context of the individuality of human existence. A closer examination of the so-called bodily schema, in which the whole of bodily functions are synthesised, displays to us the very borders of individual being. In order to better investigate and understand these borders we wish to place the conception of so-called schizoanalysis alongside this phenomenological treatment of embodiment, which Deleuze and Guattari have worked upon together. In the light of this concept of ‘the body without organs’ it should be shown not only in what sense embodiment goes beyond the boundaries of individual experience, but also that the connection between embodiment and thinking is much tighter than it might seem from the perspective of traditional philosophy which presupposes some kind of difference between the body and the spirit. It may even be said that the spheres of embodiment and thinking come together to such an extent in Deleuze and Guattari that they cannot be practically distinguished from one another.

Keywords

EN

embodiment; thinking

Discipline

• PHILOSOPHY: PHILOSOPHY

• Publisher: Institute of Philosophy, Czech Academy of Sciences
• Journal: Filosofický časopis (Philosophical Journal)
• Year: 2008
• Volume: 56
• Issue: 5
• Pages: 651-668
• Document type: ARTICLE

Contributors

author

Pavel Kouba

• Filosofický časopis, redakce, Filosofický ústav AV ČR, v.v.i., Jilská 1, 110 00 Praha 1, Czech Republic