Heidegger on the notion of Dasein as habited body

 

 

Akoijam Thoibisana

 

 

---

ABSTRACT

Heidegger is often attacked for his failure to offer a thematic account of the body in his Being and Time (Aho, 2005). The general misunderstanding of Heidegger's negation of body arises from the different meanings associated with the term 'body'. Body can be understood from two perspectives: body in terms of corpse and body in terms of lived-body. Doctors study body as corpse or object because that is required in their training and education. Heidegger's Being in his Being and Time ruled out all dichotomy of the body. The aim of this paper is to understand the Heideggerian perspective on Dasein as not a negation of bodilyness but a phenomenological understanding of Dasein body, and as such to highlight the dimension of lived-body in Heidegger's Being and Time. The paper will re-examine how Heidegger's philosophy of Dasein contributed to the phenomenology of lived-body in terms of his analysis of habitual body.

---

 

 

“Full text available only in PDF format”

 

 

References

Aho, K. A. (2005). The missing dialogue between Heidegger and Merleau-Ponty: On the importance of the Zollikon seminars. Body and Society, 11(2), 1-23.         [ Links ]

Askay, R. R. (1999). Heidegger, the body, and the French philosophers. Continental Philosophy Review, 32(1), 29-35.         [ Links ]

Bialystok, L (1997). My heart, myself: Using a phenomenological model to understand the body. Retrieved July 8, 2008, from http://www.utmj.org/issues/84.1/Phenomenon.pdf        [ Links ]

Bynum, C. (1995). Why all the fuss about the body? A medievalist's perspective. Critical Inquiry, 22(1), 1-33.         [ Links ]

Carman, T. (1999). The body in Husserl and Merleau-Ponty. Philosophical Topics, 27(2), 205-226.         [ Links ]

Cerbone, D. R. (2000). Heidegger and Dasein's 'bodily nature': What is the hidden problematic? International Journal of Philosophical Studies, 8(2), 209-230.         [ Links ]

Deutsch, E. (1993). The concept of the body. In T. P. Kasulis, R. T. Ames & W. Dissanayake (Eds.), Self as body in Asian theory and practice (pp 5-19). Albany, NY: SUNY Press.         [ Links ]

Gronda, H. (2002). Dance with the body you have. Proximity, 5(3). Retrieved July 6, 2008, from http://proximity.slightly.net/v_five/v5e3a2.htm        [ Links ]

Hanley, C. (1999). Heidegger on Aristotle's 'metaphysical' God. Continental Philosophy Review, 32(1), 19-28.         [ Links ]

Heidegger, M. (1962). Being and time (J. Macquarrie & E. Robinson, Trans.). New York: Harper & Row. (Original work published 1927)        [ Links ]

Marcum, J. A. (2004). Mechanized bodies or embodied persons? Alternative models of the patient's body in modern medicine. In. P. L. Twohig & V. Kalitzkus (Eds.), Perspectives on health, illness and disease (pp. 35-50). Amsterdam/New York: Rodopi.         [ Links ]

Svenaeus, F. (2000). The body uncanny: Further steps towards a phenomenology of illness. Medicine, Health Care and Philosophy, 3(2), 125-137. Retrieved July 5, 2008, from http://www.springerlink.com/content/        [ Links ]

Svenaeus, F. (2001). The phenomenology of health and illness. In S. K. Toombs (Ed.), Handbook of phenomenology and medicine (pp. 87-108). Dordrecht, The Netherlands: Kluwer Academic Publishers.         [ Links ]

Rosser, S. V. (2001). Now the body is everywhere [Review essay]. National Women's Studies Association [NWSA] Journal, 13(2), 142-148.