Body - Drew Leder

Drew Leder (1990) has contributed to the paradigm of lived-body, through his analysis of how we come to know our bodies by their absence. Until we have our attention drawn to our body, it remains, to all intents and purposes, absent from consciousness. An assumption is made that the body will exist from one lived moment to the next. However, this disappearing act poses a problem which Leder (1990: 69) states: “Why, if human experience rooted in the bodily, is the body so often absent from experience?” He attempts to resolve this by taking the disappearance of the body into the background of consciousness as a significant phenomenon. This, Ledder suggests, is related to bodily functioning. Body absence then becomes essential to normal body function, the body’s ability to conceal itself “will help account for our cultural understanding of embodiment” (Leder 1990:69). Thus, Ledder draws our attention to the visceral body; he highlights the notion that bodily perception ins not always conscious. Strauss (1966) has argued that, phenomenologically, movement and sensation are intrinsically linked. This is contrary to Cartesian thought, which viewed sensation and movement as fundamentally separate.

Here we see that sensation and movement are inextricably linked. It is clear that these perspectives dissolve the argument for mind-body dichotomy.


Notes:

Drew Leder (1990) The Absent Body The University of Chicago Press, Chicago
Strauss EW (1966) Phenomenological Psychology Tavistock, London