Descriptions of body imagery and body parts are evident in expressions of Old Testament texts. Although there is no single term for ‘body’ in the Hebrew mind, the concept of ‘body’ functions in its different parts. As part of anthropomorphic descriptions of God and expressions attached to humankind, body parts have special significance, contributing to the theological dimension of texts. The poems in the Psalter are no exception. Several body parts are mentioned in Psalm 38, an individual lament song. In (...) addition to God’s hand (v. 3) and an allusion to his voice (v. 16), several body parts describe the psalmist’s condition. These include ‘flesh’ (bāšār, 3, 8), bones (‘ætsæm, 3), head (rôsh, 5), loins (kæsæl, 8), heart (lēb, 9, 11), eyes (‘yn, 11), mouth (pæh, 14, 15), and feet (rægæl, 17). In addition, allusions to the ear (14, 15) and injured body (wounds, 6) form part of the psalmist’s lamenting experience.Contribution: This presentation touches on the general meaning of these body imagery in the Old Testament and their specific function and meaning in the text of Psalm 38. A textual analysis will portray their theological significance. (shrink)

Does God have a mind? Western theism has traditionally construed God as an intentional agent who acts on creation and in relation to humankind. God loves, punishes, and redeems. God's intentionality has traditionally been construed in analogy to human intentionality, which in turn has often presumed a supernatural dualism. Developments in cognitive science, however, render supernatural dualism suspect for explaining the human mind. How, then, can we speak of the mind of God? Borrowing from Daniel Dennett's intentional stance, (...) I suggest that analogical reasoning regarding the mind of God be abandoned in favor of an ontologically agnostic approach that treats God as an intentional system. In this approach, God's purposive action is an explanatory feature of the believer's universe, a real pattern that informs our values and beliefs about the world and our place in it. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Kennedy Institute of Ethics Journal 14.1 (2004) 47-54 [Access article in PDF] Ethical Guidelines for Human Embryonic Stem Cell Research*(A Recommended Manuscript) Adopted on 16 October 2001Revised on 20 August 2002 Ethics Committee of the Chinese National Human Genome Center at Shanghai, Shanghai 201203 Human embryonic stem cell (ES) research is a great project in the frontier of biomedical science for the twenty-first century. Be- cause (...) the research involves the use of human embryos, it triggers serious debate on ethical issues. Opponents consider the embryo to be an early form of human life that should be respected and not destroyed. However, the majority of scientists support embryonic stem cell research, believing that it offers good prospects for the treatment of diseases that have remained incurable until now and so will benefit humankind. The Ethics Committee of the Department of Ethical, Legal, and Social Implications of the Chinese National Human Genome Center at Shanghai seriously discussed the ethical debate initiated by embryonic stem cell research. We concluded that we should support the scientists of our country in actively carrying out human embryonic stem cell research for the noble cause of "medicine being a beneficent art." For the healthy and orderly development of human embryonic stem cell research in our country, we put forward the following recommended Ethical Guidelines for Human Embryonic Stem Cell Research as a reference for leaders, administrative departments, and related scientists. Preface Article 1. Human embryonic stem cells are the primitive cells that play the main role in the growth and development of a human body. These [End Page 47] primitive cells have the potential for infinite proliferation, self-renewal, and multi-directional differentiation. If scientists can discover the mechanism of differentiation of human embryonic stem cells, it will be possible to induce differentiation of human embryonic stem cells to form various types of human cells for clinical cell therapy. If human embryonic stem cell research can be integrated with modern biomedical engineering techniques, it also will be possible to make repair and replacement of human tissues and organs a reality. Article 2. There are two ways to classify human embryonic stem cells. One way is to classify them according to their potential for differentiation. There could be three kinds of stem cells: totipotent stem cells, pluripotent stem cells, and unipotent stem cells.A totipotent stem cell has the potential to develop into a whole individual. It can differentiate into the more than 200 cell types in the whole body, construct any tissue or organ of the body, and finally develop into a whole individual. The fertilized egg and the cleavage cells at the very early stage of embryonic development are totipotent stem cells.A pluripotent stem cell has the potential to differentiate into many cell types derived from the three embryonic layers. However, it has lost the capacity to develop into a complete organism.A unipotent stem cell is derived from the further differentiation of the pluripotent stem cell. It can differentiate only into one cell type such as a hematopoietic stem cell, neural stem cell, and others.The other way is to classify human stem cells according to their source. There could be two kinds of human stem cells: embryonic stem cells and tissue stem cells (also called adult stem cells). The former involves experimentation with embryos, which has serious ethical implications. Ethical issues associated with the latter are mainly expressed in the various opinions regarding the allocation of health resources. Article 3. Human embryonic stem cells are the group of cells called the blastocyst inner cell mass during the early stage of embryonic development. They are the main source of totipotent stem cells, and hence the focal and hot point in stem cell research. Studies on the clinical application of embryonic stem cells probably will involve use of the somatic cell nucleus transfer (SCNT) technique, which destroys the early human embryo. At present, the ethical and moral debate is very serious in human embryonic stem cell research regarding whether the research will develop... (shrink)

This chapter explores the representation of the human body, with a particular focus on transgenesis and transgenderism, in Pedro Almodóvar’s La Ley del Deseo (Law of Desire) (1987) and La Piel que Habito (The Skin I Live In) (2011). Although released 24 years apart, both films represent the female body as a construct that mirrors the fluid reality of the postmodern era in which this body is found. Thus, as the physical space of our global habitat has become ever (...) more artificial, fragmented and unfixed so, too, the screened individual is a ‘floating and drifting self,’ a being that has become increasingly hard to define. Known for his unconventional themes and plots, Almodóvar here challenges traditional notions of what is male and female and the two concepts merge. The viewer explores a fluid corporeal and gendered territory as the once biologically male protagonists are subjected to either voluntary or forced sex change, leaving them physically transformed into a female although their thought patterns are still partly male. Gender and body are open to new interpretations as the filmmaker demonstrates how the human body (and skin), in a sexually permissive, socially and culturally less rigid era, can be surgically and bio-medically altered through a number of procedures, a process which by its end result at times reminds of a Deleuzian becoming. The screened individual is physically changeable, body and mind unfixed concepts, as one identity is left behind and another is adopted. Almodóvar’s man/woman/construct resembles what Zygmunt Bauman has called ‘denizens of’ a ‘postmodern habitat’ that ‘have a rootless and inconclusive existence.’ The argument is inserted into a Baumanian and Deleuzian framework and the fluidity of the human being is analysed from a partly postmodern perspective. (shrink)

This article illustrates the practical usefulness of transdisciplinary work for practical theology by showing how input from an occupational therapist informed my understanding and interpretation of the story of Hannetjie, who had been sexually abused as a child. This forms part of a narrative practical theological research project into the spirituality of female adult survivors of childhood sexual abuse. Transdisciplinary work is useful to practical theologians, as it opens possibilities for learning about matters pastors have to face, but may not (...) have knowledge about. A short retelling of Hannetjie’s story is given to provide information about the context of the research. Next, the transdisciplinary process that was followed is mentioned, and the questions that the transdisciplinary team had to respond to are discussed. Following that, I focus more specifically on the occupational therapist’s answers, and the knowledge gained from her contribution, as an example of how a co-researcher from a divergent discipline can inform a theological study. In this case, knowledge was shared about sensory integration and how the brain processes traumatic stimuli, such as sexual abuse. Lastly, the interrelationship between Hannetjie’s body stories, mind stories and spirit stories is discussed to show how the learning received from occupational therapy affected my thinking about Hannetjie’s stories and the relationships between them. Thus, it is concluded that transdisciplinary work has great value for practical theology, especially in the pastor’s daily work with people who are struggling with difficult stories, because we cannot listen to people’s spirit stories in isolation. They are inextricably intertwined with all our stories about ourselves. (shrink)

This is a major new study of Thomas Aquinas, the most influential philosopher of the Middle Ages. The book offers a clear and accessible guide to the central project of Aquinas' philosophy: the understanding of human nature. Robert Pasnau sets the philosophy in the context of ancient and modern thought, and argues for some groundbreaking proposals for understanding some of the most difficult areas of Aquinas' thought: the relationship of soul to body, the workings of sense and intellect, the (...) will and the passions, and personal identity. Structured around a close reading of the treatise on human nature from the Summa theologiae and deeply informed by a wide knowledge of the history of philosophy and contemporary philosophy, this study will offer specialists a series of novel and provocative interpretations, while providing students with a reference commentary on one of Aquinas' core texts. (shrink)

This is the first book in healthcare ethics addressing the moral issues regarding ownership of the human body. Modern medicine increasingly transforms the body and makes use of body parts for diagnostic, therapeutic and preventive purposes. The book analyzes the concept of body ownership. It also reviews the ownership issues arising in clinical care (for example, donation policies, autopsy) and biomedical research. Societies and legal systems also have to deal with issues of body ownership. A comparison is made between (...) specific legal arrangements in The Netherlands and France, as examples of legal approaches. In the final section of the book, different theoretical perspectives on the human body are analyzed: libertarian, personalist, deontological and utilitarian theories of body ownership. (shrink)

The story of the body. Fay Bound Alberti takes the human body apart in order to put it back anew, telling the cultural history of our key organs and systems from the inside out, from blood to guts, brains to sex organs.

In the United States today, the human body defines a lucrative site of reusable parts, ranging from whole organs to minuscule and even microscopic tissues. Although the medical practices that enable the transfer of parts from one body to another most certainly relieve suffering and extend lives, they have also irrevocably altered perceptions of the cultural values assigned to the body. Organ transfer is rich terrain to investigate—especially in the American context, where sophisticated technological interventions have significantly shaped understandings (...) of health and well-being, suffering, and death. In _Bodies, Commodities, and Biotechnologies_, Lesley Sharp probes the ideological assumptions underlying the transfer of body parts, the social significance of donors' deaths, and the medico-scientific desires surrounding complex forms of body repair. Sharp also considers the experimental realm, in which nonhuman species and artificial devices present further opportunities for recovery and for controversy. A compelling scientific investigation and social critique, _Bodies, Commodities, and Biotechnologies_ explores the pervasive, and at times pernicious, practices shaping American biomedicine in the twenty-first century. (shrink)

In this paper I begin to develop an account of the acquaintance that each of us has with our own conscious states and processes. The account is a speculative proposal about human mental architecture and specifically about the nature of the concepts via which we think in first personish ways about our qualia. In a certain sense my account is neutral between physicalist and dualist accounts of consciousness. As will be clear, a dualist could adopt the account I will (...) offer while maintaining that qualia themselves are non-physical properties. In this case the non-physical nature of qualia may play no role in accounting for the features of acquaintance. But although the account could be used by a dualist, its existence provides support for physicalism. (shrink)

The ever increasing ability of medical technology to reshape the human body in fundamental ways—from organ and tissue transplants to reconstructive surgery and prosthetics—is something now largely taken for granted. But for a philosopher, such interventions raise fundamental and fascinating questions about our sense of individual identity and its relationship to the physical body. Drawing on and engaging with philosophers from across the centuries, Jenny Slatman here develops a novel argument: that our own body always entails a strange dimension, (...) a strangeness that enables us to incorporate radical physical changes. (shrink)

The current use of the term ‘Human Enhancement’ implies that it is a modern, new phenomenon in which, for the first time in history, humans are able to break through their god or nature-given bodily limits thanks to the application of new technologies. The debate about the legitimation of ‘HE’, the selection of methods permitted, and the scope and purpose of these modern enhancement technologies has been dominated by ethical considerations, and has highlighted problems with the definition of the (...) relevant norms. For example, ‘HE’ always presupposes that the current state of the ‘natural human’ or ‘healthy’ body is defined in opposition to an ‘artificial human’ or ‘diseased or disabled’ body, and also desirable technologies and methods are not but should be defined on the basis of objective, universally accepted criteria. All these definitions are, however, linked to socio-cultural norms and ideals, which can vary over time and between cultures. It is therefore impossible to arrive at a universal, durable definition of ‘enhancement’ that can be shared and understood globally, and will remain permanently valid. This discussion note contrasts the terms ‘HE’ and ‘Body Modification’ , and their respective strengths and weaknesses. ‘BM’ is a neutral term that is capable of encompassing every kind of modification, be it cultural, physical, psychological or neurological, is not limited to certain techniques and is not reliant on normative sub-definitions . In the light of this analysis, it is proposed that the term ‘HE’ be replaced with ‘BM’ in order to allow a neutral, unprejudiced discussion to take place. (shrink)

The body is both the subject and object of intentionality: qua Leib, it experiences worldly things and qua Körper, it is experienced as a thing in the world. This phenomenological differentiation forms the basis for Helmuth Plessner’s anthropological theory of the mediated or eccentric nature of human embodiment, that is, simultaneously we both are a body and have a body. Here, I want to focus on the extent to which this double aspect of embodiment relates to our experience of (...) temporality. Indeed, to question, does this double bodily relation correspond to a twofoldtemporality of embodied intentionality? In the first part of this paper, I differentiate between the intentional temporality of being a body and the temporal experience of having a body. To further my argument, in the second part, I present examples of specific pathologies, as well as liminal cases of bodily experiences, wherein these temporal dimensions, which otherwise go hand-in-hand, become dissociated. Phenomenologically, I want to argue that Husserl’s differentiation between Leib and Körper corresponds to two genetic forms of intentionality – operative and act intentionality – and that these are, in turn, characterized by different temporalities. Anthropologically, I want to argue that having a body – what occurs as an inherent break to human embodiment – is the presupposition for the experience of a stable and object-like time. I will conclude that the double aspect of human embodiment and in particular the thematic experience of having a body enables both the experience of a past, which is remembered, and a future that is planned. (shrink)

A major objection to the view that the relation of persons to human animals is coincidence rather than identity is that on this view the human animal will share the coincident person's physical properties, and so should (contrary to the view) share its mental properties. But while the same physical predicates are true of the person and the human animal, the difference in the persistence conditions of these entities implies that there will be a difference in the (...) properties ascribed by these predicates, with the result that the physical properties that determine the person's mental states will belong to the person and not to the human animal. (shrink)

Mother and Fetus: Rights in Conflict A. INTRODUCTION After fertilization of the female egg (ovum) with male sperm the resulting zygote may implant ...

Upon Scheler’ s death in 1928, Martin Heidegger remarked that he was the most important force in philosophy at the time. Jose Ortega y Gasset called Scheler "the first man of the philosophical paradise." The Human Place in the Cosmos, the last of his works Scheler completed, is a pivotal piece in the development of his writing as a whole, marking a peculiar shift in his approach and thought. He had been asked to provide an initial sketch of his (...) much larger works on philosophical anthropology and metaphysics--works he was not able to complete because of his early demise. Frings' new translation of this key work allows us to read and understand Scheler's thought within current philosophical debates and interests. The book addresses two main questions: What is the human being? And what is the place of the human being in the universe? Scheler responds to these questions within contexts of said two projected much larger works but not without reference to scientific research. He covers various levels of being: inorganic reality, organic reality (including plant life and psychological life), all the way up to practical intelligence and the spiritual dimension of human beings, and touching upon the holy. Negotiating two intertwined levels of being, life-energy ("impulsion") and "spirit," this work marks not only a critical moment in the development of his own philosophy but also a significant contribution to the current discussions of continental and analytic philosophers on the nature of the person. (shrink)

The human self model comprises essential features such as the experiences of ownership, of body-centered spatial perspectivity, and of a long-term unity of beliefs and attitudes. In the pathophysiology of schizophrenia, it is suggested that clinical subsyndromes like cognitive disorganization and derealization syndromes reflect disorders of this self model. These features are neurobiologically instantiated as an episodically active complex neural activation pattern and can be mapped to the brain, given adequate operationalizations of self model features. In its unique capability (...) of integrating external and internal data, the prefrontal cortex (PFC) appears to be an essential component of the neuronal implementation of the self model. With close connections to other unimodal association cortices and to the limbic system, the PFC provides an internally represented world model and internal milieu data of the organism, both serving world orientation. In the pathophysiology of schizophrenia, it is the dysfunction of the PFC that is suggested to be the neural correlate for the different clinical schizophrenic subsyndromes. The pathophysiological study of psychiatric disorders may contribute to the theoretical debate on the neuronal basis of the self model. (shrink)

What is the relationship between our perceptions and reality? What is the relationship between the mind and the body? These are questions with which philosophers have grappled for centuries, and they are topics of considerable contemporary debate as well. Hilary Putnam has approached the divisions between perception and reality and between mind and body with great creativity throughout his career. Now, in _The Threefold Cord: Mind, Body, and World,_ he expounds upon these issues, elucidating both the strengths and weaknesses of (...) current schools of thought. With his characteristic wit and acuity, Putnam offers refreshing solutions to some of philosophy's most vexing problems. Putnam first examines the problem of realism: is objective truth possible? He acknowledges the deep impasse between empirical and idealist approaches to this question, critiquing them both, however, by highlighting the false assumption they share, that we cannot perceive the world directly. Drawing on the work of J. L. Austin and William James, Putnam develops a subtle and creative alternative, which he calls "natural realism." The second part of the book explores the mind-body question: is the mind independent of our interactions with the physical world? Again, Putnam critically assesses two sharply antithetical contemporary approaches and finds them both lacking. _The Threefold Cord_ shows the entire mind-body debate to be miscast and draws on the later work of Wittgenstein, once more advancing original views on perception and thought and their relationship with both the body and the external world. Finally, Putnam takes up two related problems--the role of causality in human behavior and whether or not thoughts and sensations have an "existence" all their own. With Putnam's lucid prose and insightful examples, _The Threefold Cord_ loosens the Gordian knots into which philosophy has bound itself over the issue of epistemology. (shrink)

The turn to descriptive studies of ethics is inspired by the sense that our ethical theorizing needs to engage ethnography, history, and literature in order to address the full complexity of ethical life. This article examines four books that describe the cultivation of virtue in diverse cultural contexts, two concerning early China and two concerning Islam in recent years. All four emphasize the significance of embodiment, and they attend to the complex ways in which choice and agency interact with the (...) authority of tradition. In considering these books, this article examines the relations between our academic claims concerning the self and ethics, conceptual or theoretical claims made in the elite writings of traditions, and the lived experiences of the people we study. The conclusion turns to our methodological foundations for studying these topics both comparatively and constructively. (shrink)

This book is a discussion of the most timely and contentious issues in the two branches of neuroethics: the neuroscience of ethics; and the ethics of neuroscience. Drawing upon recent work in psychiatry, neurology, and neurosurgery, it develops a phenomenologically inspired theory of neuroscience to explain the brain-mind relation. The idea that the mind is shaped not just by the brain but also by the body and how the human subject interacts with the environment has significant implications for free (...) will, moral responsibility, and moral justification of actions. It also provides a better understanding of how different interventions in the brain can benefit or harm us. In addition, the book discusses brain imaging techniques to diagnose altered states of consciousness, deep-brain stimulation to treat neuropsychiatric disorders, and restorative neurosurgery for neurodegenerative diseases. It examines the medical and ethical trade-offs of these interventions in the brain when they produce both positive and negative physical and psychological effects, and how these trade-offs shape decisions by physicians and patients about whether to provide and undergo them. (shrink)

A timely and uniquely compelling plea for the importance of nurture in the ongoing nature-nurture debate. In this era of genome projects and brain scans, it is all too easy to overestimate the role of biology in human psychology. But in this passionate corrective to the idea that DNA is destiny, Jesse Prinz focuses on the most extraordinary aspect of human nature: that nurture can supplement and supplant nature, allowing our minds to be profoundly influenced by experience and (...) culture. Drawing on cutting-edge research in neuroscience, psychology, and anthropology, Prinz shatters the myth of human uniformity and reveals how our differing cultures and life experiences make each of us unique. Along the way he shows that we can’t blame mental illness or addiction on our genes, and that societal factors shape gender differences in cognitive ability and sexual behavior. A much-needed contribution to the nature-nurture debate, Beyond Human Nature shows us that it is only through the lens of nurture that the spectrum of human diversity becomes fully and brilliantly visible. (shrink)

Science once had an unshakable faith in its ability to bring the forces of nature—even human nature—under control. In this wide-ranging book Anson Rabinbach examines how developments in physics, biology, medicine, psychology, politics, and art employed the metaphor of the working body as a human motor. From nineteenth-century theories of thermodynamics and political economy to the twentieth-century ideals of Taylorism and Fordism, Rabinbach demonstrates how the utopian obsession with energy and fatigue shaped social thought across the ideological spectrum.

This chapter contains section titled: The Emergence of the Philosophers' Self The Illusion of the Philosophers' Self The Body The Relationship Between Human Beings and Their Bodies.

The severe shortage of organs for transplantation and the continual reluctance of the public to voluntarily donate has prompted consideration of alternative strategies for organ procurement. This paper explores the development of market approaches for procuring human organs for transplantation and considers the social and moral implications of organ donation as both a gift of life and a commodity exchange. The problematic and paradoxical articulation of individual autonomy in relation to property rights and marketing human body parts is (...) addressed. We argue that beliefs about proprietorship over human body parts and the capacity to provide consent for organ donation are culturally constructed. We contend that the political and economic framework of biomedicine, in western and non-western nations, influences access to transplantation technology and shapes the form and development of specific market approaches. Finally, we suggest that marketing approaches for organ procurement are and will be negotiated within cultural parameters constrained by several factors: beliefs about the physical body and personhood, religious traditions, economic conditions, and the availability of technological resources. (shrink)

What is a human being? The twentieth and twenty-first century tradition known as 'philosophical anthropology' has approached this question with unusual sophistication, experimentalism, and subtlety. Such innovations as Arnold Gehlen's description of humans as naturally 'deficient' beings in need of artificial institutions to survive; Max Scheler's concept of 'spirit' (Geist) as the physically and organically irreducible realm of persons and spiritual acts; and Helmuth Plessner's analysis of the way human embodiment transcends spatial locations and limitations ('ex-centric positionality') have (...) inspired generations of European intellectuals. This edited collection from an international network of scholars critically engages the philosophical anthropologies of Scheler, Plessner, Gehlen, Blumenberg, and others in unparalleled detail, showing their applicability to the themes of nature and naturalism, organic life, comparative primatology, cultural anthropology, paleoanthropology, the body, addiction, and death. The volume sets a new standard for Anglophone scholarship on this tradition and will be required reading for specialists in twentieth-century philosophy, history of the human sciences, history of the life sciences, and philosophies of human nature. (shrink)

OPINION IS DIVIDED as to whether the "qualitative characters" or "qualia" of conscious sensory experiences such as color perceptions and pain sensations genuinely constitute a major obstacle to the success or tenability of contemporary physicalist theories of mind. Do the enormous complexities of human brain activity--conceived more or less as we now conceive it--alone suffice to account for our conscious sensory experiences, and thereby show how the experiences are nothing over and above the brain activities, or must there be (...) some further kind of thing, if we are to account for the existence of our kind of consciousness? This issue, representing perhaps the most profound division of opinion in contemporary philosophy of mind, cannot possibly reach a genuine resolution in the absence of a satisfactory answer to a question which has suffered astonishing neglect in the extensive debate on this issue: What exactly is the qualitative character of a conscious sensory experience? What exactly is it about color perception, for example, that makes it so distinctive in a "qualitative" respect, allegedly making trouble for contemporary theories of mind? (shrink)

It is a commonplace of contemporary thought that the mind is located in the brain. Although there have been some challenges to this view, it has remained mainstream outside of a few specialized discussions, and plays a prominent role in a wide variety of philosophical arguments. It is further assumed that the source of this view is empirical. I argue it is not. Empirical discoveries show conclusively that the brain is the central organ of mental life, but do not show (...) that it is the mind's location . The data are just as compatible with a view where mentality is a human capacity on the model of circulation or respiration, with the brain playing the same kind of role as the heart or lungs. The standard conception of the brain as the locus of mind stems, I claim, from the imposition of a Cartesian conception of the self on a materialist ontology. Recognizing that the empirical data do not justify such a move casts doubt on the foundations of a number of philosophical discussions and raises new questions about the nature of the psychological subject. (shrink)

Current debates on human rationality are divided between what Matthew Boyle calls the additive and transformative approaches. My concern is not with the current debate, but with Boyle’s alignment of Descartes and Aristotle with the modern approaches, directing his criticisms against the former, and his defence in support of the latter. What motivates my enquiry is whether Boyle’s use of the two philosophers’ theses stands up to scrutiny and consequently whether his alignments are cogent. I focus primarily on Descartes’ (...) position, examining Boyle’s criticisms. Towards the end, I turn to Aristotle’s position and raise two central questions omitted by Boyle. (shrink)

The human body can be regarded in at least two ways: objectively, as a physical and organic body; and subjectively, as the center of orientation and lived affective unity. However, this distinction can lose sight of the fact that the ‘lived body’ is not reducible to subjective idiosyncrasies. Trans-individual norms are embodied too, as Michel Foucault and Judith Butler have shown. Phenomenological investigations of normalization and habitualization help bring these two important dimensions of embodiment together and overcome simplistic oppositions (...) between phenomenological and poststructuralist approaches. These investigations lead into issues of female body optimization and control that we take to be characteristic of contemporary neoliberalist embodiment. (shrink)

RESUMEN Este artículo propone reinterpretar la noción de cuerpo en la filosofia de Nietzsche contrastada con dos perspectivas relevantes de los estudios nietzscheanos en habla hispana: primero, la idea de que el cuerpo es sinónimo de naturaleza; y segundo, la idea de que el cuerpo es causa del sujeto. Pasando la mirada sobre una parte de la obra -publicada e inédita- de Nietzsche posterior al año 1885, se observa que la noción de cuerpo funge el papel de una metodologia que (...) permite llevar a cabalidad una renovada tarea de su filosofia, a saber, la tarea de conocerse a si mismo. Asi, la noción de cuerpo en Nietzsche, más allá de ser un concepto innovador o reivindicado, es una herramienta interpretante que le permite al autor establecer nuevas dimensiones "entre" el conocer y la experimentación corporal. ABSTRACT This paper proposes a re-interpretation of the idea of Body in Nietzsche's philosophy to distinguish it from two important perspectives of Nietzsche-studies in Spanish: The first one maintains that the Body is comparable with Nature, and the second one, states that the Body is a cause of subjectivity. Analyzing part of Nietzsche's work after 1885 -published and unpublished- shows that the idea of the Body works as a methodology that allows Nietzsche to accomplish a new task of his philosophy, such as the task of self-knowledge. In this way, the Body in Nietzsche's philosophy, besides being an innovative and redeemable concept, is a performative tool that establishes new dimensions "in-between" human knowing and bodily experimentation. (shrink)

The present contribution is mainly intended to illustrate how some recent discoveries in the field of neurosciences have revolutionized our ideas about perception, action and cognition, and how these new neuro-scientific perspectives can shed light on the human relationship to art and aesthetics, in the frame of an approach known as "experimental aesthetics". Experimental aesthetics addresses the problem of artistic images by investigating the brain-body physiological correlates of the aesthetic experience and human creativity, providing a perspective that is (...) complementary, and not in opposition, to the humanistic one on the arts and the aesthetic. (shrink)

This work has been selected by scholars as being culturally important, and is part of the knowledge base of civilization as we know it. This work was reproduced from the original artifact, and remains as true to the original work as possible. Therefore, you will see the original copyright references, library stamps (as most of these works have been housed in our most important libraries around the world), and other notations in the work.This work is in the public domain in (...) the United States of America, and possibly other nations. Within the United States, you may freely copy and distribute this work, as no entity (individual or corporate) has a copyright on the body of the work.As a reproduction of a historical artifact, this work may contain missing or blurred pages, poor pictures, errant marks, etc. Scholars believe, and we concur, that this work is important enough to be preserved, reproduced, and made generally available to the public. We appreciate your support of the preservation process, and thank you for being an important part of keeping this knowledge alive and relevant. (shrink)

A large, diverse sample of adults was interviewed about their conception of the ontological and functional properties of the mind as compared to the soul. The existence of the mind was generally tied to the human lifecycle of conception, birth, growth and death, and was primarily associated with cognitive as opposed to spiritual functions. In contrast, the existence of the soul was less systematically tied to the lifecycle and frequently associated with spiritual as opposed to cognitive functions. Participants were (...) also asked about three ethical issues: stem cell research, life support for patients in a persistent vegetative state and cloning. As expected, participants' beliefs about the ontology and function of the soul were linked to their judgments about these ethical issues whereas their beliefs about the mind were unrelated. Overall, the findings show that many adults do not espouse a simple body-mind dualism, and any tendency toward such dualism is unlikely to explain their beliefs in an afterlife. Instead, afterlife beliefs appear to be associated with the idea of an immaterial essence, potentially dissociable from the biology of life and death. (shrink)

Plato's reflection on the relationship between soul and body has attracted scholars' attention since antiquity. Less noted, but worthy of consideration, is Plato's thought on music and its effects on human beings. This book adopts an innovative approach towards analysing the soul-body problem by uncovering and emphasising the philosophical value of Plato's treatment of the phenomenon of music. By investigating in detail how Plato conceives of the musical experience and its influence on intelligence, passions and perceptions, it illuminates the (...) intersection of cognitive and emotional functions in Plato's philosophy of mind. (shrink)

Improving human characteristics goes beyond compensating for an impairment. This book explores the rich and complex relationship between enhancement and impairment, showing that the study of disability offers new ways of thinking about the social and ethical implications of improving the human condition.

A human being is the carrier of two different ideas, and there is no direct relation between them. One of these ideas refers to the body. The body itself is a system genetically coded and programmed in advance. On the other hand, one part of the body – the brain – appears to be the carrier of another idea that reflects the whole Universe – the Cosmos. Due to the function human (concretely, brain) is Microcosm, regarded as epitomizing (...) the universe. So human brain or widely to say, human itself is the carrier of the ideas of body parts, and essence-idea of whole body, as well as passive idea of whole cosmos. In a practical life of the human being only very little part of this cosmic idea is actualized and used. Untraditional reflections of this great potential as a result of unusual events beyond ofstandards are also possible. Then knowledge, information-ideas that a human being was ignorant and that were not acquired as a result of his sensual practice throughout his real life, may be activated and these cases are regarded as mystery and sensation. While all human beings possess this potential, capacity, we have not yet acquired well the mechanisms of activation of these passive ideas. Studying the ways of the activation of the passive ideas of our brain is one of the main tasks nowadays. (shrink)

Humans have undergone a long evolutionary history of violent agonistic exchanges, which would have placed selective pressures on greater body size and the psychophysical systems that detect them. The present work showed that greater body size in humans predicted increased knockout power during combative contests (Study 1a-1b: total N = 5,866; Study 2: N = 44 openweight fights). In agonistic exchanges reflective of ancestral size asymmetries, heavier combatants were 200% more likely to win against their lighter counterparts because they were (...) 200% more likely to knock them out (Study 2). Human dominance judgments (total N = 500 MTurkers) accurately tracked the frequency with which men (N = 516) knocked out similar-sized adversaries (Study 3). Humans were able to directly perceive a man’s knockout power because they were attending to cues of a man’s body size. Human dominance judgments—which are important across numerous psychological domains, including attractiveness, leadership, and legal decision-making—accurately predict the likelihood with which a potential mate, ally, or rival can incapacitate their adversaries. (shrink)

_Bodies for Sale: Ethics and Exploitation in the Human Body Trade _explores the philosophical and practical issues raised by activities such as surrogacy and organ trafficking. Stephen Wilkinson asks what is it that makes some commercial uses of the body controversial, whether the arguments against commercial exploitation stand up, and whether legislation outlawing such practices is really justified. In Part One Wilkinson explains and analyses some of the notoriously slippery concepts used in the body commodification debate, including exploitation, harm (...) and consent. In Part Two he focuses on three controversial issues outlining contemporary regulation and investigating both the moral issues and the arguments for legal prohibition. (shrink)

Profoundly important ethical and political controversies turn on the question of whether biological life is an essential aspect of a human person, or only an extrinsic instrument. Lee and George argue that human beings are physical, animal organisms - albeit essentially rational and free - and examine the implications of this understanding of human beings for some of the most controversial issues in contemporary ethics and politics. The authors argue that human beings are animal organisms and (...) that their personal identity across time consists in the persistence of the animal organisms they are; they also argue that human beings are essentially rational and free and that there is a radical difference between human beings and other animals; criticize hedonism and hedonistic drug-taking; present detailed defenses of the prolife positions on abortion and euthanasia; and defend the traditional moral position on marriage and sexual acts. (shrink)

This paper suggests that during severe and prolonged traumatic experiences such as trauma type II, one may develop disownership toward the entire body. In this situation one’s body becomes a pure object and as such an integral part of the hostile environment. This article applies Merleau-Ponty’s approach to perception in order to improve our understanding of this process.

Since the seventeenth century, mind-body dualism has undergone an evolution, both in its metaphysics and its supporting arguments. In particular, debates in seventeenth- and eighteenth-century England prepared the way for the fall of substance dualism—the view that the human mind is an immaterial substance capable of independent existence—and the rise of a much less radical property dualism. The evolution from the faltering plausibility of substance dualism to the growing appeal of property dualism depended on at least two factors. On (...) the one hand, there was an increasing recognition of the causal and ontological interdependence of mind and body. Important here was a growing appreciation of the dependence of thought and perception on complex activities in the brain. On the other hand, there was a reconceptualization of the nature of matter; no longer inert and passive, matter came to be viewed as active in its own right. The old arguments lost much of their force, opening the door to a new sort of argument. Rather than appealing to the supposed immaterial nature of mental substance and volition, arguments for dualism began to appeal to the subjective nature of conscious experience—and its inexplicable emergence from the brain—as proof of the ontological distinctiveness of conscious properties. Consequently, the nineteenth and twentieth centuries saw the ascent of a more plausible, but still very problematic, property dualism, a position that to this day enjoys significant support. (shrink)

Being in the bodily presence of others facilitates important perceptual, social, and informational advantages. For example, it enables direct access to other subjects’ embodied perspectives, motivates intersubjective engagements, and is involved in the construction of shared experiences and joint actions. These advantages are based on and gained through attending to and with others, i.e. they rely on social attention. It is no surprise, therefore, that a growing body of empirical data indicates that social attention is a special attentional state that (...) involves specific behavioral and neural-cognitive properties. Another important feature of the human capacity for social attention, which is highlighted in this article is that in everyday environments social attention considerably extends and enriches the subject’s attentional field. This idea draws on phenomenological considerations and on findings from cognitive science research that suggest that subjects can attend to more than in the center of their attention and that under normal conditions we can gain more features and more situations when attending to the movements, gestures, and facial expressions of others. The influence of others on the structure of our attentional field is evident from situations where others are absent from our daily surroundings. In these circumstances our attentional field narrows and the world transforms into an unfamiliar and sometimes uncanny place. Intriguingly, the same most likely occurs in social pathologies such as BPD and SAD, in which the bodily presence of others does not generate the emotional response we see in healthy humans even though the subject’s basic capacity for social attention is intact. (shrink)