The Philosophy of Embodiment forum explores the philosophic ideas behind the thesis that we are dynamic and emergent processes of embodied interaction with the socio-physical environment. The embodied self is the whole human being, being neither a body with a mind or a mind in a body; the whole interactive, co-inhered self. This post-Cartesian study of the human being is a work of cognitive science (specifically, philosophy, linguistics, neuroscience, artificial intelligence (robotics, eg), phenomenology, cognitive psychology, Buddhism, etc; all these disciplines can contribute much to philosophic reflection on what it means to be a person-in-interaction. Philosophy itself, particularly philosophy of mind, existentialism, process philosophy, action theory, as well as psychology and philosophy's sociological partner, ethnomethodology, all contribute tools for this work. The Philosophy of Embodiment is a moderated forum established to generate serious discussion and debate. The forum also publishes news of conferences, journal articles and requests for contributions, new books, lectures, etc. Please send the group anything of relevance for publication on the site. - Elizabeth McCardell |
From my point of view, the concept of living systems should be the overarching concept for all of our educational institutions. In other words, we should be teaching the politics of living systems, the economics of living systems, the science of living systems. All of these things would be united by that central concept. -Elizabeth Sahtouris, web interview with Scott London
Embodiment studies as a theoretical framework
What IS embodiment studies?
At its most general, embodiment studies is an emphasis on understanding human life as the life of a physical body.
Some version of this emphasis has been found within a number of separate sub-cultures: Buddhism (and yoga and other such studies that reconnect internally disconnected bodies and make people more aware of them); European phenomenology (which ultimately, ie several centuries back, also has Eastern origins); a revolution happening currently in philosophy of mind (which draws from neuroscience, computer modeling and complex dynamics); British and North American cultural studies with its critiques of the politics of gender, race and class; and a modernist tradition in literature that has tried to write close transcriptions of lived experience. These different approaches as they are constituted mostly don't pay attention to one another and do not work out of a common framework. There is a common framework latent in these approaches, however, and developing this integrated framework is an exciting and very current enterprise.
That framework should include:
- 1. a workable metaphysics which can imply an epistemology, ie an embodiment metaphysics
- 2. in keeping with an embodiment metaphysics, a workable theory of what a person is, ie a psychology: some notion of attachment, dissociation, defenses, the unconscious, self-communication
- 3. instances of developed styles and modes of human sensing, feeling, thinking, saying that are consisent with this framework (eg Woolf)
- 4. methodologies for bodily reintegration
- 5. implications for community action
More specific commitments of this framework are likely to be:
- 1. in metaphysics/ontology:
- The body and the physical world are real. Body structure/function has evolved through millions of years so that it is adapted and viable in real conditions. Physicality is immensely complex and subtle, and we do not need any sort of non-physicality in our explanatory systems.
- 2. in epistemology:
- Knowing is a structured body. At a base level of perception and action we are evolutionarily adapted to be able to know very effectively. But humans are extraordinarily able to imagine as well as perceive and act, and imagining activity (which includes a lot of language and theory) can be very maladapted.
- 3. in psychology:
- Consciousness is a dynamical effect of complex synchronized activity in the brain. Brain activity can be non-conscious if it isn't part of a synchronized sub-network. A lot of important neural response is normally non-conscious but the conscious network can also shrink drastically as a result of trauma and training. (People respond to trauma by disconnecting internally, so that feeling and knowing response are occurring without awareness.) Intelligence and vitality are reduced as a result of these dissociations. There are ways to reconnect disconnected structure.
- 4. in personal instances of developed modes of being:
- Artists and saints, etc, have found ways to reconnect and get access to their greater human capability, and their work can jump other people into reconnected structure/function.
- 5. in methodologies for bodily reintegration:
- There are also direct ways of working with the body, for instance Buddhist techniques of sitting quietly and feeling what's going on. These allow reconnection because the brain is always trying to get its functional wholeness back. Doing anything that's hard to do can also help with reintegration because it calls on more of the brain.
- 6. in implications for community action:
- There are many possible implications; for example, if humans are adapted to the physical earth they evolved in, then it is probably important to preserve that earth in good condition so humans will have somewhere to be their maximal selves. If humans lose intelligence and capability by dissociating structure from consciousness then it is probably important to figure out how to reconnect them. Etc.
- The body and the physical world are real. Body structure/function has evolved through millions of years so that it is adapted and viable in real conditions. Physicality is immensely complex and subtle, and we do not need any sort of non-physicality in our explanatory systems.
A web search finds that embodiment studies as an academic term is presently associated with:
1. a movement in robotics engineering that emphasizes robots who 'learn' within an environment rather than being fully pre-programmed.
2. a tenet of Buddhist thinking (also prominent in related Eastern disciplines such as yoga, tai chi, aikido) emphasizing sensory and emotional presence. There is for instance a Buddhist Institute for Embodiment Training, and a book called Being Bodies: Buddhist Women on the Paradox of Embodiment.
3. a movement in cognitive science and philosophy of mind, criticizing Cartesian mind-body dualism and working to understand cognitive concepts in terms of evolved bodies embedded in the physical world. Mark Johnson has developed an embodiment concentration in the philosophy department of the University of Oregon. This approach is also called situated embodiment.
4. a second potentially related movement in philosophy, based on Merleau-Ponty, emphasizes the phenomenology of embodiment. Dr Elizabeth McCardell, an independent scholar in Australia, for instance, wrote a dissertation called Catching the Ball: constructing the reciprocity of embodiment. She moderates a usenet group and a webpage on the philosophy of embodiment.
Adrian Harris runs a UK-based embodiment listserve that regularly sends out interesting articles and event notices. You can subscribe here by writing SUBSCRIBE Embodiment Your Name in your email. Or here to correspond with Adrian.
Micahel Zimmerman of Duke University has written an essay arguing that there is a need to add embodiment studies to any college curriculum. He envisages an emphasis on sexuality, gender, emotionality, homosexuality, and mortality, to "discover ways of suffering less and of provoking less suffering in other people." "All this requires deep, demanding, and often terrifying work," he says.
The University of Reading in England has a cultural-studies based embodiment program that is purely theoretical and emphasizes a political critique of existing social attitudes toward body norms.
Janus Head. A Journal of Interdisciplinary Studies in Continental Philosophy,
Literature, Phenomenological Psychology and the Arts is
putting out a special issue (Winter 2006/2007) on "The situated body".