Philosophy of Body

In this chapter, I draw on Merleau-Ponty’s philosophy to explore environmental embodiment—the various lived ways, sensorily and motility-wise, that the body in its pre-reflective perceptual presence engages and synchronizes with the world at hand, especially its architectural and environmental aspects. First, I consider Merleau-Ponty’s interpretation of perception, giving particular attention to his claim that perception involves a lived dynamic between perceptual body and world such that aspects of the world—for example, the heavy hardness of a granite block or the cool smoothness of a chrome railing—are known because they immediately evoke in the lived body their experienced qualities.

Second, I consider the architectural and environmental significance of what Merleau-Ponty calls body-subject—pre-reflective corporeal awareness expressed through action and typically in sync with and enmeshed in the physical world in which the action unfolds. I focus on the taken-for-granted sensibility of body-subject to manifest in extended ways over time and space. I ask how routine actions and behaviors of individuals coming together regularly in an environment can transform that environment into a place with a unique dynamic and character—a lived situation I term place ballet. For both perception and body-subject, I consider how qualities of the physical and designable world—for example, materiality, form, and spatiality—contribute to the lived body’s engagement with and actions in the world.

Note: This chapter was written in 2014 for a proposed edited collection on Merleau-Ponty and architecture. Unfortunately, the editors did not find a publisher(though I was never officially informed of this fact). The chapter has been rewritten, revised, and updated; see the above entry: "Merleau-Ponty, Environmental Embodiment, and Place" (2022)
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Embodied writing seeks to reveal the lived experience of the body by portraying in words the finely textured experience of the body and evoking sympathetic resonance in readers. Introduced into the research endeavor in an effort to describe human experience-especially transpersonal experiencesmore closely to the way in which they are truly lived, embodied writing is itself an act of embodiment, entwining in words our senses with the senses of the world. This article describes the collaborative efforts of faculty and students over a 5-year period to develop embodied writing as an alternative or adjunct to conventional report writing often found wanting in the body's full experience. Seven distinctive features of embodied writing are described and illustrated with examples. Ongoing studies using embodied writing as a means of collecting data, motivating participants, and reporting findings are explored. The author concludes with reflections on the nature of embodiment-lessons learned in developing embodied writing.

Celem artykułu jest prześledzenie pewnego motywu powtarzającego się w kolejnych tekstach Deleuze'a, przede wszystkim tych, napisanych wspólnie z Guattarim. Chodzi mianowicie o dwa typy zagrożeń drążących od wewnątrz każdą strukturę/maszynę. Wątek ten zostanie omówiony wpierw na poziomie czysto ontologicznym, a następnie rozpatrzony na trzech przykładach: myślenia, ciała oraz społeczeństwa. Poszczególne etapy rozważań zostaną uzupełnione strategicznymi wskazówkami jak przeciwdziałać owym zagrożeniom.

The concept of the human being is at the core of the humanities insofar they centre on the human being and humanity. As a core discipline of the humanities, philosophy has always advanced concepts of the human being with its notions of the epistemic subject, the moral subject and the political subject. These notions have traditionally been anthropocentric, disembodied and individualistic, emphasizing autonomy and independence. Environmental ethics has since its beginning as a subfield of philosophical ethics in the late 20th century been based on a concept of the human being as embodied and as embedded in nature and the environment. This concept of the human being yields a relational and contextual concept of the self that modifies strict distintinctions between the human and non-human, man and nature, the subject and the object. The most recent developments within environmental ethics, linked with posthumanism, consist in a further critque of the subject of humanism with its extension of subjectivities beyond the human being. The Kárahnjúkar-debate, an environmental debate that took place in Iceland, will be examined in light of these developments within environmental ethics.

Considerable scholarly discussion has been given to the idea that we are moving toward a state of “posthumanism.” This essay examines some possible implications of a posthuman existence, specifically as it relates to that most basic of human needs—sexuality. I explore the spiritual aspects of sexuality to see what is lost and what is gained in technologically mediated forms of sexuality. To that end, I consider the interplay between sexual behavior and our conceptions of the sacred, how technologies are changing our views of—and realities concerning—our bodies, and the potential for a sacred posthuman sexuality.

This article takes up Adam Dziadek’s somatic approach to literature to explore the theme of erotic experience in two poems by Jarosław Iwaszkiewicz, ‘L’amour Cosaque’ and ‘Amore profane’. With the help of inputs from gender studies and the contemporary theories of the subject it has been possible to profile the ‘I’ of the poems as a deeply fragmented and sexually ambiguous subject, and, upon the evidence of the elusive autobiographical details woven into the text, as a subject suspended in a liminal space, between the real and the fictive world. After analyzing the body represented in the text, both perfect and decrepit, as well as traces of the poet’s carnality that interfere with the text and the reader’s sense of his own soma the article arrives at the following conclusion: in Jarosław Iwaszkiewicz’s lyrics the body seems to project its impressions and experiences onto reality, thus blurring the border between the inside and the outside.

Ausgehend von der Kritik an rationalistischen Handlungstheorien wird Handlungs- macht in feministischen und sozialwissenschaftlichen Debatten nicht als Attribut eines rational agierenden Subjekts ausgewiesen (vgl. Coole 2005, 124ff.;; Reckwitz 2004, 42). Diese Absage an ein souveränes Subjekt geht damit einher, den Status des kartesianischen Körper/Geist-Dualismus zu destabilisieren. Subjektivität wird als verkörperte verstanden, weshalb gerade der Verkörperungsaspekt zentral wird und die Frage nach einer Theoretisierung aufwirft. Diese Kopplung von Subjektivität und Körperlichkeit lässt sich seit Mitte der 1990er Jahre in den Sozial-, Kultur- und Geisteswissenschaften als Wende zum menschlichen Körper beobachten, sei diese Diskursbewegung nun als corporeal, somatic oder body turn bezeichnet (Gugutzer 2006, 9f.). Dabei wird der Körper vielfach sozialkonstruktivistisch als Produkt kul- tureller Normierung rezipiert. Doch ist er damit grundsätzlich normierenden Subjek- tivierungspraktiken unterlegen oder lassen sich auch Formen körperlichen Wider- stands denken? Und, um den Brückenschlag zur Handlungsmacht anzudeuten, lässt sich der Körper als Handlungssubjekt begreifen? In dieser Fragerichtung sind ins- besondere zwei Theoriestränge verfolgenswert: die körperkonzeptionellen Ansätze Judith Butlers und Pierre Bourdieus.

La apariencia física encierra uno de los problemas filosóficos más relevantes y poco discutidos por la filosofía contemporánea. Este ensayo defiende que la apariencia física es una cuestión filosófica porque constituye un problema moral, pues de ella depende la construcción material del sujeto ético.

El sujeto inicia su relación ética consigo mismo y con los otros por medio del cuidado, consciente o inconsciente, de su apariencia externa. Además, la apariencia física es un asunto abiertamente político, ya que la política contemporánea es una expresión de las nuevas formas de aparición y desaparición. La política depende cada vez más de las formas de exposición, de los modos vestimentarios, de los sujetos construidos cosméticamente en un afán por hacer visibles sus propios cuerpos. La piel, el género y el rostro son hoy los vértices articuladores de las demandas políticas. Por último, la apariencia, la vestimenta o el estilo representan una de las formas de estetización más democrática de la vida contemporánea. La elección de cualquier objeto, incluso una apreciación epistémica o metafísica, pasa previamente por un criterio estético de selección. Por consiguiente, las tres dimensiones de la apariencia física —ética, política y estética— constituyen el núcleo filosófico de la cosmética: la producción del sujeto mediante estrategias cosméticas que prueban que el ser es superficie, que la esencia es la apariencia.

We propose to read Francis Bacon's doctrine of the idols of the mind as an investigation firmly entrenched in his mental-medicinal concerns and we argue that an important role therein is played by the imagination. Looking at the ways in which the imagination serves to pinpoint several crucial aspects of the idolic mind permits us to signal the explicit or implicit cross-references between what in Bacon's tree of knowledge appear as distinct branches: the various faculties and their arts; the mind, the body, and their league; natural philosophy, moral philosophy, and the philosophy of man. The consequence of this rich picture of the diagnosis of the mind is an equally rich conception of the cure, which comprises both epistemic and physiological aspects. We extract the features of this integrated view out of Bacon's epistemological and medical natural historical writings, which we propose to read in tandem. We also propose a number of sources for Bacon's views on the imagination, whose variety accounts for the multivalent, sometimes elusive, but surely pervasive role of the imagination in the Baconian diagnosis and cure of the mind.

I argue that Nietzsche offers us a very robust, if fractured and fragmented, philosophy of the body that gives primacy to the five (or more) senses—and certain organs and body parts in particular—and to the aesthetic realm of which they are the arbiters.  The paper explores the senses and the body in Nietzsche's work  and includes ten original illustrations.

Contemporary philosophy has paid special attention to human corporality. In this article, our intention is to show that the essentially corporeal character of the human being is also a central point of the anthropology of Thomas Aquinas, at different levels. In the first place, the human soul is the corporality of man, as it is the substantial form that makes the body a body. Second, the human body is a living body, that is, an organism. By virtue of this organic character, man is wsubstantially a sexed being. Third, the human body is an animal organism, that is, a body whose organs are the seat of faculties of knowledge and affection. This animal living body, however, is specifically human in virtue of its form and structure, and exists, as in its metaphysical place, within a spiritual soul.

Der von Nietzsche selber zum Leitfaden der Philosophie deklarierte Leib sowie konkrete Leibphänomene, insbesondere Zeugung, Schwangerschaft, Geburt und Tod werden in diesem Beitrag als die primären Modelle benutzt, um Nietzsches Philosophie in ihren Grundbegriffen wie Wille zur Macht, ewige Wiederkunft und Übermensch zu erschließen. Der Geschlechtlichkeit kommt als höchstes Symbol und Symptom einer dionysischen Philosophie dabei eine besondere Rolle zu. Deren Gegensatz zu Schopenhauer und dessen Misogynie wird sowohl an diesem Symbol und Phänomen, dem asketischen Ideal, dem Verständnis der Schwangerschaft, als auch an der Tragödie und dem Zweck des Menschen aufgezeigt. Schlüsselfunktion haben dabei Nietzsches Unterscheidungen zwischen der „großen Vernunft“ des Leibes und der „kleinen Vernunft“ des Geistes, zwischen leiblicher und geistiger Fortpflanzung sowie zwischen bewusster und unbewusster Schwangerschaft. Dadurch wird deutlich, inwiefern Nietzsches Philosophie des Leibes auch eine Philosophie der Zukunft ist.

Major thinkers of the twentieth-century (Husserl, Heidegger, Wittgenstein, Whitehead) explored the conditions for the possibility of perception, language, and thought, and Merleau-Ponty in particular addressed the physical body as a condition of existing and being situated in the world. Although French philosopher Simone Weil (1909-1943 has not been recognized as belonging in this stream of philosophical history, this article seeks to demonstrate that Weil was a pioneering phenomenologist of the body; for remarkably like Merleau-Ponty-yet more than a decade before him in the early 1930s-Simone Weil's thinking centered on the foundational role of the body in structuring thought and ordering the world. The body is the first and primary orderer of experience for Weil: it grasps relations intuitively, pre-linguistically, and mediates action and thought. Weil's body-thinking reconfigures the basis of thinking itself, positing that bodily movement is the factor sine qua non that enables ordered spatial-temporal perception, a perception on which the most abstract reaches of language and thought depend.

In the tradition of philosophy, soul and body have long been separated, while the former is always emphasized. Thus, Nishida Kitaro mentions that “in tradition of philosophy, the problem of body is not sufficiently thought.”
The objective of this paper is to explore the possibility of thinking Nishida’s philosophy of body through a dancing body. The first part of this paper serves as a preparation for the discussion of Nishida’s philosophy of body, by introducing Nishida’s key concept “acting-intuition”. In the second part, I will argue for the dancing body as one of the best illustrations of Nishida description on the lived body, i.e. the organ for “acting-intuition”. In the third part, by considering the breathing in dance, I will show the relationship between body and rhythm. At last, I will conclude by discussing the importance of establishing a philosophy of dance.

Keywords: Nishida Kitaro, acting-intuition, body, dance

This essay explores the assignment and evaluation of gender in Plato's Timaeus. In contrast to claims that Plato's treatment of gender in Timaeus' cosmology is peripheral, I argue that gender is central to Timaeus' project to describe a complete, beautiful, and rational cosmos by examining the representation of the Receptacle, tripartite soul, human form, and the body of the speech.

In this article, I would like to explore the bases of the language from the aspect of the corporality using M ichel Henry’s Philosophy and Phenomenologyof theBody: Essaysabout MainedeBiran.In thistext,Henrymentionssomeconditionsforthinking thebasesof language. He shows corporality according to its fundamental manifestation and natural and reflexible language. Following this, in this article, I would like to point out possible analysis of the language and the corporality.

Ottimamente curato da Hans Rainer Sepp, una delle voci più originali nel panorama fenomenologico contemporaneo, questo volume collettaneo, Phänomenologie und Ökologie, condivide con altri recenti lavori la rigorosa passione fenomenologica per temi ecologici, come quelli della natura e dell'abitare - a cura di Sepp, nel caso di Natur und Kosmos in der frühen Phänomenologie, e di Cathrin Nielsen e Sepp, in quello di Whonen als Wertverhältnis. Eugen Fink über den Menschen und die Physis...

Enhancement is a basic principle of modern sport. Their increase of achievement is usually attributed to the sportsmen’s natural assessment, their health, their training methods and their employment. In contrast, increase in output by pharmacological means is outlawed. The modern medical techniques created a whole range, by which sportsmen are supported. Consequently, sometimes difficult decisions with concrete medications develop. It is not always clearly to be differentiated whether something is a pharmacological interference, which serves the therapy or leads however to the outlawed increase in output. At present Enhancement is in discussion, a phenomenon, which is related to doping in sports, but which concerns achievement-increasing use of medicines not only in sportsmen.

[To Quote: Astone, G. (2019), «L’inappropriatezza dell’anarchico. Per una lettura critica dei primi tre capitoli di Creazione e anarchia di Giorgio Agamben», Filosofia Italiana, vol. XIII, n. 2, pp. 75-103.]

ABSTRACT: In this article we will discuss the main topics of the first three chapters of Giorgio Agamben’s Creazione e anarchia. After a short introduction, in the second paragraph our analysis will focus on a new interpretation of the Aristotelian concept of ‘actuality’ by the Italian Philosopher, whereas in the third paragraph we will pay attention to the dichotomization of power into two different categories, the power-of and the power-of-not. In the end, the fourth chapter will be based on three elements that the Italian philosopher has recognized as ‘un-appropriable’: body, language and landscape.

Keywords: Giorgio Agamben, destitution, Act of creation, Deleuze, impotency, Political Philosophy, Italian Theory, landscape

As medical technology continues to progress, we are able to correct deficiencies in the body through means such as cochlear implants and prosthetic limbs. This has led some scholars to argue that we are creating technologized, cyborg bodies. However, these technologies have also enabled us to correct perceived cultural flaws in the body. This article explores the nature of the body through the lens of posthumanism, examining ways that individuals attempt to reshape their bodies through cosmetic surgery and other forms of body modification. Specifically, this article examines the practice of hymen restoration, Genesis Breyer P-Orridge’s artistic endeavours in cosmetic surgery and Stelarc’s cybernetic experimentations. These cases yield three potential visions of the body: the body must be restored; bodies must be unified; and the body must evolve. Such visions have consequences; the ways in which the body is rhetorically constructed influence how people choose to alter their own bodies. By considering the body itself as medium and as an interface with other technologies, we can better theorize what it truly means to be human.

This research explores the carnal, experienced self as processual and becoming, situating life as zoe (as per Braidotti) in the context of the Western culture, characterized by alienation (Fromm, Foucault et.al.). The study first addresses the ontological disposition of the carnal self and then turns to the concepts of life and death (Freud, Fromm), to explicate the link between materiality and discourse conditions. Erich Fromm’s classical distinction of having and being is restated as a distinction of having and becoming, which are then explored as complimentary ontological, cultural and characterological directionalities. A genealogy of their mutual dynamics then allows situating the relations of carnal bodies and inorganic prosthesis (e.g. technologies) in the light of life considered as the necessary synthesis of forces of preservation and perpetual change, beyond subject-object duality.

Abstract
The  perception  of  body  has  shifted  significance  from  a  commonsensical  and  everyday  fact  to  a  historicized  concept within  the  past  century.  However,  the  extremes  of  the  biological  or  social  theorizations  concerning  body  have  been mutually  dismissive  of  the  other  and  this  has  robbed  them  both  of  their  capacity  to  relate  to  the  lived  body  of experience. The last  model  for considering body,  however, has been expounded in the philosophy of Gilles Deleuze whose postmodern ontology brings the theories of the biological and social body together in a synthesis so as to show how they relate to each other and to the holistic aspect of embodiment called territorialization, which is closer to the reality of the lived body than both of them. In this manner, Deleuze introduces a progress into the study of human body particularly as the object which we not only “have” but actually “are,” that is to say, the deep relation the body has to identity.  This  philosophical  advancement  has  reverberations  in  other  fields  such  as  woman’s  studies  and  literature. Thus,  female  body  and  literary  texts  can  be  scrutinized  from  a  Deleuzian  standpoint  with  two  aims;  the  first  one analyzing the extent to which the literary texts can claim greatness by mirroring the reality of being, and the second one to investigate the manipulation of female body and identity in literature. This paper aims to provide evidence for the improvements Deleuze’s philosophy  has introduced into conceptualizations of body, female body and  identity  in the first place and in the second place how Donne’s love poetry in his Songs and Sonets, as one proven example of great literature,  is  a  mirror  to  “being,”  regarding  the  femininity  of  his  woman-beloved  through  his  treatment  of  the territorialization of the her body and identity.

En este trabajo, mi objetivo es dar cuenta de las objeciones de Michel Henry a Merleau-Ponty en lo concerniente a  la cuestión del cuerpo propio y la carne. A tales efectos,
comienzo por presentar la posición de Merleau-Ponty. Luego introduzco las críticas de Henry, que hacen foco en Fenomenología de la Percepción y Lo visible y lo invisible. A
continuación sopeso estas críticas en general y me concentro, en particular, en la significación que tiene para un balance de este debate el último texto de Merleau-Ponty, dedicado a la dióptrica de Descartes. Considero, para finalizar, que este trabajo inconcluso de Merleau-Ponty abre un canal de diálogo más fecundo que el que las obras criticadas por Henry permitían.

Este artículo se propone mostrar el valor del cuerpo en la filosofía de Schopenhauer. En principio inicia con una problemática teórica que Schopenhauer fundamenta como la distinción entre la ilusión y el conocimiento verdadero. Luego el cuerpo se muestra como premisa teórica para posteriormente dilucidar la importancia filosófica del mismo. En conjunto el artículo intenta exponer una interpretación del cuerpo como un principio activo en la filosofía y su valor en la epistemología de Schopenhauer. Resumen: Palabras clave: cuerpo, actividad, voluntad, sujeto de conocimiento. This article aims to show the value of the body in Schopenhauer's philosophy. In principle, it begins with a theoretical problematic that Schopenhauer establishes as the distinction between illusion and true knowledge. Then the body is shown as a theoretical premise to later elucidate its philosophical importance. As a whole, the article attempts to present an interpretation of the body as an active principle in philosophy and its value in Schopenhauer's epistemology.

Pricujoci clanek predstavlja interpretacijo Merleau-Pontyjeve fenomenologije telesa in zaznave v povezavi s podrocjem medcloveških odnosov in socialne interakcije, ki poteka v intersubjektivnem prostoru cloveškega sveta. Ceprav je za Merleau-Pontyja zaznavanje tisto, kar nas odpira svetu, ugotavljamo, da same percepcije ne moremo lociti od afekcije, skozi katero se nam (intersubjektivni) svet daje. Analizo interakcije z drugimi subjekti, ki so po Husserlu za nas drugi Jazi, Merleau-Ponty predela v analizo konkretne interakcije med živimi telesi, v katere je vpisano predhodno pridobljeno znanje in izkušnje, ki povecini niso vec dostopne predstavljanju in sodbi. Tako je možno pojmovati naše delovanje v socialnem svetu preko primarne »medtelesnosti«, ki je temelj socialne kognicije in empatije. V socialnih interakcijah naša komunikacija in razumevanje drugih torej temeljita na telesnosti, in sicer ne tako, da interpretiramo, simuliramo, reprezentiramo duševna stanja ter namene drugih, marvec na ta nacin v našem lastnem telesu neposredno dojamemo namene, zaznave, obcutke in misli drugih subjektov.
Kljucne besede: Merleau-Ponty, zaznavanje, empatija, telesnost, medosebni odnosi.

Phenomenology of the Body and the Relationships with Others. Intersubjectivity through Intercorporeality
Abstract
The article presents an interpretation of Merleau-Ponty’s phenomenology of
the body and perception in relation to the field of interpersonal relationships and social interaction taking place in the intersubjective space of the human world. Despite Merleau-Ponty’s statement that perception is what opens us to the world, we find that perception itself cannot be separated from the affect through which the (intersubjective) world is given to us. The analysis of the interaction with other subjects, or “alter egos,” according to Husserl, is transformed by Merleau-Ponty into the analysis of concrete interaction between living bodies, wherein already acquired knowledge and experiences are inscribed, most of which are no longer accessible to representation and judgment. In this way, it is possible to understand our daily functioning in the social environment through the primary intercorporeality, which is the basis of social cognition and empathy. In social interactions, our communication and understanding of others are based on corporeality, not by interpreting, simulating, and representing the mental states and intentions of others, but by directly perceiving the intentions, perceptions, feelings, and thoughts of other subjects in our own body.
Keywords: Merleau-Ponty, perception, empathy, corporeality, interpersonal relationships.

Performing politics, practising transdisciplinarity, translating cultures:
The scholarly embodiment of knowledge as a network of living ecosystems

If the scholarly persona like other species “brings forth and specifies its own domain of problems” (Varela, Rosch and Thompson 1991), the practice of transdisciplinarity is an act of performing politics. The increasing “fragmentation of the disciplinary universe” (Nicolescu 2002) demands that we further develop the transdisciplinary organisation of knowledge (Brier 2008+2018). Situated at the interface of cognition and culture, translation (Sonesson 2014) is more than a unilateral act of encoding ready-made knowledge. In order to foster interparadigmatic understanding between languages, cultures and “performative conventions” (Steiner 1989), this paper investigates scholarly organism-environment relations as a dynamic network of cyber-ecosemiotic relations. The “’objective’ embodiment” of meaning in an “operative paradigm” (Kuhn) (Rosa 2012) can be supplemented by Arendt’s theory of (political) personhood (Švec 2020) for discussing analogies with the “performative disclosure” of scholars. Drawing inspiration from Buddhist phenomenology (Lusthaus 2002) I propose to understand the transdisciplinary scholar as the embodiment of a “willingness to understand” (echoing Arendt). The sensorial textures and intertexts of scholarly embodiment imply an “inventory of traces” (Braidotti 1994), a flow of action (Czikszentmihaly 1975) and an “ecology of mind” (Bateson) that reveal “patterns of interaction” rather than isolated entities (Waldron 2002). In keeping with the “interconnectivity of knowledge” (Kaviraj 2005) and the Buddhist “dharma of natural systems” (Macy 1991), let us embrace the cooperative principle of forming open systems (Hayward 1987) and conceptualise knowledge as a “living form” (Langer 1953), including such “interrelated, interdependent centers of activity” (Langer 1957) as the “living ecosystems” of education (Laszlo 2018).

Статья посвящена обозначению контуров и выявлению специфики анархистской онтологии тела из перспек-тивы либертарной концепции субъективности, противопоставляемой марксистской традиции, с одной сто-роны, и традициям правого дискурса – с другой. В работе осуществляется рефлексия о таких феноменах, как угнетение, освобождение, тело и субъективность, на основании чего разрабатываются альтернативные трактовки уже существующих в культуре практик освобождения (например, связанных с концептом " body positive "). В целях обнаружения оптимальных траекторий разработки заявленной проблематики в статье производится междискурсивный анализ философии тела (на материале текста Ю. Мисимы «Солнце и сталь», концептуально составляющего контрастный фон для уточнения либертарных концепций).
Ключевые слова и фразы: онтология тела; анархизм; угнетение; освобождение; правый дискурс; либертарная оптика.

L’histoire de la médecine n’a engendré que très peu de figures d’une dénégation radicale des bienfaits et de l’utilité de la douleur. Jusqu’au XXe siècle, la plupart des médecins et chirurgiens, par une équation biaisée, déduisaient de l’utilité de la douleur (fonction d’alarme qui prévient l’organisme des dangers) le fait qu’elle était précieuse. Au tout début du XIXe siècle, Hyppolite Bilon présentait la douleur comme « bienfaisante » et « nécessaire » et l’érigeait au rang de « sentinelle de la vie ». Vingt ans plus tard, en 1823, Jacques-Alexandre Salgues, chirurgien à Dijon, louant l’importance des douleurs de l’accouchement, écrivait « qu’il n’est pas un médecin vraiment digne de ce nom, qui se permît d’administrer des médicaments narcotiques pour anéantir ces douleurs ».
Pourtant, c’est en 1780 que la première figure d’un refus absolu de la douleur apparut en la personne d’Ambroise Tranquille Sassard, chirurgien principal de l’hôpital de la Charité de Paris. Il publia cette année-là un article qui tranchait singulièrement avec les positions médicales de l’époque, allant jusqu’à s’interroger sur l’utilité même de la douleur, considérée par ses pairs comme le guide infaillible de la main du chirurgien. S’il ne remet pas totalement en cause son utilité, Sassard est néanmoins le seul à désigner la douleur comme scandale dont les effets sur l’homme sont insupportables. Invitant son lecteur à remettre le malade au centre du dispositif médical, Sassard annonce les positions humanistes qui seront celles de René Leriche dans les années 1930. Son article, comme le remarque Jean-Pierre Peter, « est né du refus d’accepter l’invivable douleur des opérés  » et à ce titre, il pourrait tenir de lieu de tout premier manifeste anti-douleur.

In ancient times, the records show, thinkers and the cultural practices have given great emphasis on mind, soul or self over against body. This, most importantly, signifies the dualism maintained by those thinkers and cultures regarding body and mind. Thus the Samkhya Darsana has kept a dualism between Purusha and

Starting with Antonin Artaud's radio play To Have Done With The Judgement Of God, this article analyses the ways in which Artaud's idea of the body without organs links up with various of his writings on the body and bodily theatre and with Deleuze and Guattari's later development of his ideas. Using Klossowski (or Klossowski's Nietzsche) to explain how the dominance of dialogue equals the dominance of God, I go on to examine how the Son (the facialised body), the Father (Language) and the Holy Spirit (Subjectification), need to be warded off in order to revitalize the body, reuniting it with ‘the earth’ it has been separated from. Artaud's writings on Balinese dancing and the Tarahumaran people pave the way for the new body to appear. Reconstructing the body through bodily practices, through religion and above all through art, as Deleuze and Guattari suggest, we are introduced not only to new ways of thinking theatre and performance art, but to life itself.

It may not only be that for several centuries “humanism” has been confused with European identity, but that despite its quite ambitious and holistic pretensions it amounts to a rather selective, ethnocentric, and ultimately ethnocidal take on what it means to be human. But have we truly moved elsewhere or are we still trapped in its logic? And which conceptual limits should we trespass to escape it in terms of historical and social reflection?

In this paper I will discuss the role of self-tracking technologies in debates around the relation between a self and a body. In particular, this paper aims to address the question of how self-tracking technologies mediate the relation between the self and the body.

«Com'è fatta l'esperienza? E come diventa possibile?» Attorno a queste domande ruota l'indagine della filosofia dal momento in cui Kant le ha poste nella loro radicalità. Facendo uso del pensiero di Gilles Deleuze e Félix Guattari, il libro intende provare a rispondere proponendo una teoria dell'esperienza che sia all'altezza del contemporaneo e che prenda in considerazione componenti fondamentali quali le sensazioni del corpo, la costruzione del linguaggio e il disegno di un orizzonte di senso condivisibile. Proprio a partire da questo aspetto si può arrivare a vedere che le condizioni di possibilità dell'esperienza non sono eterne, ma cambiano con il variare degli assetti sociali e politici. Così una politica dell'esperienza avrà anche la vocazione non tanto di operare una scelta tra alternative date, bensì di trasformare i confini stessi di ciò che è possibile, attraverso un uso ambiguo del mito e una liberazione della potenza dell'immaginazione, per iniziare a pensare una prassi al contempo d'analisi e di partecipazione.

In this article, a thinking about the concept of touching has been tried. This article finds its center within the philosophical interpretation of Jean-Luc Nancy‘s towards a narration in the Bible. The main concern here will focus on the sentence of ―Noli me Tangere‖. It has been examined how this sentence is understood within different contexts. Lastly, it has been tried if a genuine interpretation is possible or not.

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A recent widely reported study found that some participants would prefer to self- administer a small electric shock than be bored. This flawed study serves as a departure point to diagram pain and sensation beyond the boundaries of the individual body, consisting of four sections. First, in terms of laboratory-based experimentation and auto-experimentation with pain, there is a long history of viewing pain and touch through introspective means. Second, later theories of pain successively widened the scope of the physiological mechanisms and external influences on the organism, such as Melzack and Wall’s cybernetics-influenced gate control theory. Third, we briefly consider the nervous system as a homeostatic system, which finds an historical parallel in explanations of the milieu inte ́rieur of the organism, via Claude Bernard and Kurt Goldstein. Fourth, pain helps tip the organism as a whole from perception to action, but also operates beyond the organism as a biopsychosocial phenomenon.