It seems, there is much interest within sociology on the subject of body. Sharma(1996) goes on to suggest that there is a body culture dualism often underlying the sociological and anthropological approaches to the problem of body investigation. This leads to a difficult tangle of dualisms; mind-body, mind-culture and body-culture. An important consequence of addressing the body would, rest on an attempt at corporeal understanding before we are reduced to a state of desiccated consciousness. Would it be holism? Why not? Anyway, I believe this could be the way how Andras Peto was thinking. The problem of the body is highlighted in sociology by Frank when he observed “It [the body] is not an entity but the process of the own being” (Featherstone et al 1991:96).
The notion of the ‘lived body’ arose from the work of Erwin Straus and Maurice Merleau-Ponty and drives us to the field of phenomenology. In ‘The Phenomenology of Perception’ Merleau-Ponty (1962) provides insights into how the body is our means of belonging to our world. We are able to perceive and sense from birth, and the apparatus we have determines the nature of the perception. Both Straus and Merleau-Ponty were influenced by the work of gestalt psychology, which suggested (about gestalt see my blog on 22nd of September 2008) we perceive in groups, in wholes, rather than discrete entities (Clarcson 1989; Rock and Palmer 1990).
In the paradigm of the lived body, they suggest that “ it is the body which first ‘understands’ the world, grasping its surroundings and moving to fulfil its goals… the body is not just a caused mechanism, but an ‘intentional entity’ always direct toward an object pole, a world” (Leder 1984:31). Robert Shaw (1997) points out that the idea of lived body allows for an interaction with our environment, and lends a perspective of dynamism to the body. The body does not merely have things done to it, but takes an active part in engaging with the world; it is a lived-body. An understanding of Merleau-Ponty’s phenomenology of perception takes us away from the Cartesian dualism and suggests that the body is “ the very basis of human subjectivity” (Crossley 1995) If we examine the body from this view we might see bridging the gap between individual and collective subjectivity, since we all have bodies, and come to know of them in both a self-reflexive manner, as lived-body experience, and also in relation to other bodies and their reaction to us.
It will be continued…
The notion of the ‘lived body’ arose from the work of Erwin Straus and Maurice Merleau-Ponty and drives us to the field of phenomenology. In ‘The Phenomenology of Perception’ Merleau-Ponty (1962) provides insights into how the body is our means of belonging to our world. We are able to perceive and sense from birth, and the apparatus we have determines the nature of the perception. Both Straus and Merleau-Ponty were influenced by the work of gestalt psychology, which suggested (about gestalt see my blog on 22nd of September 2008) we perceive in groups, in wholes, rather than discrete entities (Clarcson 1989; Rock and Palmer 1990).
In the paradigm of the lived body, they suggest that “ it is the body which first ‘understands’ the world, grasping its surroundings and moving to fulfil its goals… the body is not just a caused mechanism, but an ‘intentional entity’ always direct toward an object pole, a world” (Leder 1984:31). Robert Shaw (1997) points out that the idea of lived body allows for an interaction with our environment, and lends a perspective of dynamism to the body. The body does not merely have things done to it, but takes an active part in engaging with the world; it is a lived-body. An understanding of Merleau-Ponty’s phenomenology of perception takes us away from the Cartesian dualism and suggests that the body is “ the very basis of human subjectivity” (Crossley 1995) If we examine the body from this view we might see bridging the gap between individual and collective subjectivity, since we all have bodies, and come to know of them in both a self-reflexive manner, as lived-body experience, and also in relation to other bodies and their reaction to us.
It will be continued…
Please do not worry, at the end of this topic I wish to give a full reference of authors and their works. Thanks for your patience.
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