Body (metaphysics)

The definition of a body in terms of metaphysics is a puzzling endeavor. It is likely to connote the notion of some sort of inert physical matter subject to the whims of volition and in kind to physical law. This view is particularly widespread in philosophy when one is dealing with thinkers of the Enlightenment - most famously, Immanuel Kant. John Locke, for example, defines body simply as ".. something that is solid and extended, whose parts are separable and movable different ways." (Nidditch, 1975)

However, the issue becomes more complex than just that. This is illustrated by even the most cursory glance at the philosophical movement of Embodiment. Embodiment as referred to in this article, does not refer to the word as the school of analytic philosophy generally does, i.e., to deal with issues of Philosophy of Mind and artificial intelligence. Rather, Embodiment makes another use of the word which may be found within the school of phenomenology, and the category of Continental philosophy more generally. This usage arose and was dealt with by philosophers such as Edmund Husserl or, even earlier, by Hegel, and it seems to suggest that this body itself is precisely that which is doing the cognition of itself "qua" body, through self-consciousness.

The Oxford English Dictionary literally defines the prefix "meta-" as "'With sense ‘beyond, above, at a higher level,'" and the word 'physical' as "Of or pertaining to material nature, or to the phenomenal universe perceived by the senses; pertaining to or connected with matter; material; opposed to psychical, mental, spiritual." The traditional Enlightenment conception of the body is precisely merely physical rather than metaphysical. Given the questionable connotation of the 'physical' as something "opposed to the mental," it is important to keep in mind that thinkers of the Enlightenment, such as Locke, can not quite give us a metaphysical definition that gets at the complexities involved in the meaning of such a term.

This trend of thought reflects a tendency of Embodiment thinkers to suggest a collapse of Cartesian Dualism into, rather than the traditional mind-body problem, the body-body problem. In phenomenology, the Cartesian problem evolves into a notion first espoused by Edmund Husserl of phenomenological epoche. We must theoretically recover from this if we are to act in the world. Notable Embodiment theorists such as Maurice Merleau-Ponty discuss the extent to which the Cartesian, or even Husserlian mind-body problem is usurped by the primacy of the body in its corporeality.

* P. H. Nidditch (Ed.) (1975). "John Locke: An Essay concerning Human Understanding". Chap. XIII Sect. 11. Oxford: Oxford University Press.