Title - Maurice Merleau-Ponty. The Spatiality of the Lived Body and Motility.
Keywords - Spatiality. Body image. Allochiera. Bodily space vs. external space. Association. Position. On, under, beside. Orientation. Movement. Motility. Thought. Recognition. Perception. Representation. Concrete Vs abstract movement.
Thoughts -
Body Image - was at first understood to mean a compendium(summary) of our bodily experiences, capable of giving a commentary and meaning to the internal impressions and the impression of possessing a body at any moment. In his discussion of the spatiality of one's own body and its relation to motility Merleau-Ponty introduces a new notion of "body image". This "body image" is the means by which we locate our body and its different parts in the world. As his analysis is phenomenological or a reflecting back on one's lived experience of embodiment he finds that we do not experience ourselves as a collection of bodily parts and organs (arms, nose, ears, tongue, eyes, etc.) located somewhere in objective space or some sort of global awareness of these parts, but rather we experience our body within the implied context of a bodily project or purpose.
The body image was supposed to gradually arise in the course of childhood in proportion as the tactile, kinaesthetic, visual and articular contents were associated among themselves.
Body image can explain Allochiera.
Allochiera - Imagine being touched on the left arm, but feeling it on the right arm. It is a condition in which a sensation in an area of a limb (arm or leg) is perceived on the limb on the opposite side of the body. The key point here is that the sensation is not perceived where the stimulus was originally presented. Allochiera is a form of a technical sounding condition called Allesthesia, in which sensations are referred to another part of the body. Allocheiria is also known as, allesthesia, allochiria, alloesthesia, and Bamberger sign. Allesthesia comes from the Greek word "allos" meaning "other," and the Greek word "asisthesis" meaning "sensation." Put the two words together and you get "sensation in the other (limb)." We can try and understand the concept of Allochiera by relating it to the body image in terms of cerebral tracks and recurrent sensations, only if the body image becomes law instead of being a residue of habits.
Bodily space Vs. External space - bodily space can be distinguished from external space by enveloping its ‘parts’ instead of spreading them out. The body image is thus a way of stating that my body is in the world.
I am a lived body who experiences space not in terms of its objective position within it but rather I experience space in terms of a particular situation I am in. I experience the spatiality of my body not by associating a multitude of discrete sensations into some sort of perceptual unity and locating it in the objective world, but as a lived body engaged in a situation in a particular way, as the incarnate intentionality of motility.
Top and bottom, right and left, on, under, beside – for the person who has their being in space, do these suggest we should look beneath the explicit meaning of definitions for the latent meaning of experiences?
My body no more than a fragment of space, there would be no space at all if I had no body.
The body in Movement - we can see how the body inhabits space (and time) because movement is not limited to submitting passively to basic significance which is obscured in the commonplaces of established situations.
ImmanuelKant - envisaging my body or surroundings as objects in the Kantian sense, i.e as systems of qualities linked by some intelligible law, as transparent entities, free form any attachment, to a specific place or time, ready to be named and pointed out.
A normal person can, in the absence of movements, distinguish a stimulus applied to his head from one applied to his body.
Concrete Vs Abstract Movement - Abstract movements are deendent on the powere of visual representation, whereas concrete movements, which are preserved as are imitative movement. The distinction between concrete and abstract movement is reducible to the traditional distinction between tactile and visual, and the function of projection, to perception and visual representation.
Science - waits upon explanation, which means looking beneath phenomena for the circumstances upon which they depend, in accordance with the tried methods of induction.
Motile – Biology : Moving or having the power to move spontaneously: motile spores. Psychology : Of or relating to mental imagery that arises primarily from sensations of bodily movement and position rather than from visual or auditory sensations.
Movement - is not thought-about movement, and bodily space is not thought of or represented. Each voluntary movement takes place in a setting, against a background which is determined by the movement itself
My awareness of my body is inseparable from the world of my perception. The things which I perceive, I perceive always in reference to my body, and this is so only because I have an immediate awareness of my body itself as it exists towards them. The body image thus involves a primordial, pre-reflective orientation and motility insofar as I am immediately aware of where my limbs are as my body projects itself towards the world of its tasks. I am always already situated in the world and it is my manner of engaging in particular projects which reveals most clearly the nature of my bodily spatiality
It is in and through our bodyhood that we experience all aspects of our existence whether it be what is traditionally defined as "subjective" i.e. our personal intentions and inner experience, or "objective" i.e. what we encounter "out there in the world". Our bodyhood is what allows for our experience of spatiality, temporality, the intersubjective human world, and the things of the natural world. Stated differently our bodyhood is the basis of all perceptual consciousness.
Read more about merleau-Ponty @ #1 or #2
a little something on OpticalIllusions
| subtopics: |