THE SEEMING CONTINGENCY OF THE QUESTION CONCERNING THE BODY AND THE NECESSITY FOR AN ONTOLOGICAL ANALYSIS OF THE BODY When we disclose and bring forth, within ontological investigations aimed at making possible the elaboration of a phenomenology of the ego, a probยญ lematic concerning the body, we may well seem, with respect to the general direction of our analysis, to elaborate only a contingent and accidental specification of such an analysis and to forget its true goal.! Up to the present, we pursued the clarification of the being of the ego [2] on the level of absolute subjectivity and in the form of an ontological analysis. Is it not possible that the reasons which motivated the project of conducting the investigations relative to the problem of the ego within a sphere of absoยญ lute immanence may cease to be valid because we might be led to believe that the body also constitutes the object of these investigations and belongs to a first reality whose study is the task of fundamental ontology? Actually, does not the body present itself to us as a transcendent being, as an inhabiยญ tant of this world of ours wherein subjectivity does not reside? If, conยญ sequently, the body must constitute the theme of our philosophical reflecยญ tion, is it not on condition that the latter submit to a radical modification and cease to be turned toward subjectivity in order to be a reflection on
CONTENT
Introduction: The Seeming Contingency of the Question concerning the Body and the Necessity for an Ontological Analysis of the Body -- I: The Philosophical Presuppositions of the Biranian Analysis of the Body -- 1. The Philosophical Presuppositions of Biranian Ontology -- 2. The Transcendental Deduction of the Categories -- 3. The Theory of the Ego and the Problem of the Soul -- II:The Subjective Body -- III: Movement and Sensing -- 1. The Unity of our Senses and the Problem of the Relationship between our Images and our Movements -- 2. The Unity of the Body Interpreted as a Unity of Knowledge. Habit and Memory -- 3. The Individuality of Human Reality as Sensible Individuality -- IV: The Twofold Usage of Signs and the Problem of the Constitution of Oneโ{128}{153}s own Body -- V: Cartesian Dualism -- VI: A Critique of the Thought of Maine de Biran. The Problem of Passivity -- VII: Conclusion. The Ontological Theory of the Body and the Problem of Incarnation. The Flesh and the Spirit -- Index of Authors -- Index of Terms
