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Abodyschema is an agent's model of its ownbody that enables it to act on affordances in the environment. This paper presents abodyschema system for the Learning Intelligent Decision Agent (LIDA) cognitive architecture. LIDA is a conceptual and computational implementation of Global Workspace Theory, also integrating other theories from neuroscience and psychology. This paper contends that the ‘bodyschema' should be split into three separate functions based on the functional (...) role of consciousness in Global Workspace Theory. There is (1) an online model of the agent's effectors and effector variables (CurrentBodySchema), (2) a long-term, recognitional storage of embodied capacities for action and affordances (HabitualBodySchema), and (3) "dorsal" stream information feeding directly from early perception to sensorimotor processes (OnlineBodySchema). This paper then discusses how the LIDA model of thebodyschema explains several experiments in psychology and ethology. (shrink)

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Body image andbodyschema are two phenomenological concepts which generated a revival of Maurice Merleau-Ponty’s philosophical heritage. In the present text I intend to inquire on the relation between these two concepts and that of Logos of life, another challenging point in the Merleau-Pontyan thought.In order to delineate the correlation betweenbodyschema,body image and my understanding of a logic of life, I will first explore how what I term “schematism of the (...)body” is connected to an inherent model of life and living and how this schematism is reflected in thebody image. I will turn further to the relation betweenbody and world and highlight how the life of thebody defines itself as meaningful in the context of both the surrounding world and the lifeworld. In a third part of my analysis I shall point out how the relation betweenbody schematism and motile intentionality redefines corporeal inten-tionality. I shall conclude by noting the role of the Logos of life, through which corporeity, in its position of meaning project, is instituted asbody schematism.Los conceptos fenomenológicos de imagen corporal y esquema corporal han dado lugar a un resurgimiento del legado filosófico de Maurice Merleau-Ponty. En este texto pretendo investigar la relación entre estos dos conceptos y el de Logos de la vida, otro elemento estimulante del pensamiento Merleau-Pontiano.Con el fin de trazar la correlación entre es-quema corporal, imagen corporal y mi interpretación de la lógica de la vida, exploraré en pri-mer lugar cómo el término “esquematismo del cuerpo” está conectado con un modelo inheren-te de vida y de vivir, y cómo este esquematis-mo se refleja en la imagen corporal. Consideraré después la relación entre cuerpo y mundo y remarcaré cómo la vida del cuerpo se define como significativa en el contexto tanto del mundo circundante como del mundo de la vida. En la tercera parte de mi análisis señalaré cómo la relación entre esquematismo corporal e intencionalidad moto-ra redefine la intencionalidad corporal. Concluiré destacando el papel del Logos de la vida, a través del cual la corporeidad, en su posición de proyecto significativo, se instituye como esquematismo corpora. (shrink)

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This chapter presents an account of Merleau-Ponty’s interpretation of thebodyschema as an operative intentionality that is not only opposed to, but also complexly intermingled with, the representation-like grasp of the world and one’s ownbody, or thebody image. The chapter reconstructs Merleau-Ponty’s position primarily based on his preparatory notes for his 1953 lecture ‘The Sensible World and the World of Expression’. Here, Merleau-Ponty elaborates his earlier efforts to show that thebody (...) class='Hi'>schema is a perceptual ground against which the perceived world stands out as a complex of perceptual figures. The chapter clarifies how Merleau-Ponty’s renewed interpretation of the figure-ground structure makes it possible for him to describe the relationship betweenbodyschema and perceptual (body) image as a strictly systematic phenomenon. Subsequently, the chapter shows how Merleau-Ponty understands apraxia, sleep, and perceptual orientation as examples of dedifferentiation and subtler differentiation of thebody-schematic system. The last section clarifies how suchbody-schematic differentiating processes give rise to relatively independent superstructures of vision and symbolic cognition which constitute ourbody image. It, moreover, explains how, according to Merleau-Ponty, the cognitive superstructures always need to be supported by praxic operative intentionality to maintain their full sense, even though, in some cases, they have the power to compensate for praxic deficiencies. (shrink)

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Following on from Shaun Gallagher's influential 2005 book How theBody Shapes the Mind, this volume brings together leading experts from the fields of philosophy, neuroscience, psychology, and psychiatry in a productive dialogue, exploring key questions and debates about the relationship betweenbodyschema andbody image.

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The distinction between thebodyschema and thebody image has become the stock in trade of much recent work in cognitive neuroscience and philosophy. Yet little is known about the interactions between these two types ofbody representations. We need to account not only for their dissociations in rare cases, but also for their convergence most of the time. Indeed in our everyday life thebody we perceive does not conflict with thebody (...) we act with. Are thebody image and thebodyschema then somehow reshaping each other or are they relatively independent and do they only happen to be congruent? On the basis of the study of bodily hallucinations, we consider which model can best account for thebodyschema/body image interactions. (shrink)

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There seems to be no dimension of bodily awareness that cannot be disrupted. To account for such variety, there is a growing consensus that there are at least two distinct types ofbody representation that can be impaired, thebodyschema and thebody image. However, the definition of these notions is often unclear. The notion ofbody image has attracted most controversy because of its lack of unifying positive definition. The notion ofbody (...)schema, onto which there seems to be a more widespread agreement, also covers a variety of sensorimotor representations. Here, I provide a conceptual analysis of thebodyschema contrasting it with thebody image as well as assess whether thebodyschema can be specifically impaired, while other types ofbody representation are preserved; and thebodyschema obeys principles that are different from those that apply to other types ofbody representation. (shrink)

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A review of the literature on the subject and a discussion involving philosophical analysis, philosophy of science and phenomenology in the style of Merleau-Ponty. The study has practical interest in addition to scientific and philosophical relevance: the way a person conceptualizes hisbody is important to the way he behaves and the quality of his social interactions. Annotation copyrighted by Book News, Inc., Portland, OR.

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In recent years, the notion of thebodyschema has been widely discussed, in particular in fields connecting philosophy, cognitive science, and dance studies, as it seems to have bearing across disciplines in a fruitful way. A main source in this literature is Shaun Gallagher’s distinction between thebodyschema – the “pre-noetic” conditions of bodily performance – and thebody image – thebody as intentional object –, another is Merleau-Ponty’s writings on the (...) livingbody, that Gallagher often draws upon. In this paper, I will first discuss Gallagher’s presumed clarification ofbodyschema–body image, and discuss a recent critique by Saint Aubert (2013), who evaluates it against the backdrop of Merleau-Ponty’s thoughts on this issue. While I believe that Saint Aubert’s criticism overshoots the mark, it is useful for a clarification of Gallagher’s analysis and points to a problematic feature, namely the alleged inscrutability of thebodyschema to phenomenological reflection. This is particularly interesting in relation to contemporary dance and performance practice, where working with – and against – habitual structures is a core element. Certain contemporary training techniques are explicitly aimed at raising awareness of those bodily aspects that condition movement and expression – that Gallagher sees as pertaining to thebodyschema – and that in ordinary activities often remain hidden. In order to clarify the role that reflection on our ownbody and its habitual patterns plays in contemporary dance practice, I will examine the movement language and improvisation practice “Gaga”, where this aspect is arguably fundamental. (shrink)

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Our commentary addresses two issues that are not developed enough in the target article. First, the model does not clearly address the distinction among external objects, externalbody parts, and internal bodies. Second, the authors could have discussed further the role ofbodyschema with regard to its dynamic character, and its role in perspective and in imitation.

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In his 1953 lectures at the College de France, Merleau-Ponty dedicated much effort to further developing his idea of embodied subject and interpreted fresh sources that he did not use in Phenomenology of Perception. Notably, he studied more in depth the neurological notion of "bodyschema". According to Merleau-Ponty, thebodyschema is a practical diagram of our relationships to the world, an action-based norm with reference to which things make sense. Merleau-Ponty more precisely tried to (...) describe the fundamentally dynamic unity of thebody, i.e. the fact there are various possibilities how the practical "diagram" ofbodyschema could be de-differentiated (in pathology) or further refined (via cognitive and cultural superstructures, symbolic systems). This chapter summarises Merleau-Ponty's interpretation of the notion, while contrasting it to the more traditional understanding of thebody in phenomenology and recent philosophical texts dealing withbodyschema. (shrink)

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The objective of the research presented in this paper was to investigate whether an association existed between the activation of thebodyschema and reaching adulthood among people in late adolescence. Three activities that are known to enjoy popularity among young people were analysed, namely: dancing, playing computer games that require motor involvement, and playing computer games of an educational and entertaining character. It was assumed that the chosen forms of activity correspond to three levels of activation of (...) thebodyschema. The following research methods have been applied to this study: the Rosenberg Self-Esteem Scale, the Defence Style Questionnaire, and the Bodily Self Representation Questionnaire. The study has proven that the activation ofbodyschema through dance is significantly related to high self-esteem and the use of mainly mature and neurotic defence mechanisms in threat situations. (shrink)

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The ability of using a large variety of tools is important in our daily life. Behind human tool-use abilities lays the brain capacity to incorporate tools into thebody representation for action (BodySchema, BS), thought to rely mainly on proprioceptive information. Here we tested whether tool incorporation is possible in absence of proprioception by studying a patient with right upper-limb deafferentation. We adopted a paradigm sensitive to changes of theBodySchema and analysed the (...) kinematics of free-hand movements before and after tool-use, in three sessions over a period of two years. In the first session, before tool-use, the kinematics of the deafferented hand was disrupted. Similarly, the first movements with the tool (a mechanical grabber elongating the arm by ∼40cm) showed an abnormal profile that tended to normalize at the end of the session. Subsequent free-hand movements were also normalised. At session 2, 6 months later, the patient exhibited normal free-hand kinematic profiles, additionally showing changes in grasping kinematics after tool-use, but no sign of tool incorporation. A follow-up two years later, further confirmed the normalized kinematic profile but the absence of tool incorporation. This first description of tool-use in absence of proprioception shows the fundamental role of proprioception in the update of theBodySchema. These results provide an important further step in understanding human motor control and have implications for future development of rehabilitation programs for patients with sensory deficits. (shrink)

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Generalizing the notion that muscles are positional frames of reference, a high-dimensional muscle space is defined for multi-muscle systems with an embedded low-dimensional motor manifold of functional articulators. A central representation of such a manifold is proposed as computationalbodyschema. The example of the jaw-tongue system is presented, discussing the relation of functional articulators with kinematic invariances and control problems.

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In a majority of situations the normal adult maintains posture or moves without consciously monitoring motor activity. Posture and movement are usually close to automatic; they tend to take care of themselves, outside of attentive regard. One'sbody, in such cases, effaces itself as one is geared into a particular intentional goal. This effacement is possible because of the normal functioning of abodyschema.Bodyschema can be defined as a system of preconscious, subpersonal (...) processes that play a dynamic role in governing posture and movement (Head, 1920). There is an important and often overlooked conceptual difference between the subpersonalbodyschema and what is usually calledbody image . The latter is most often defined as a conscious idea or mental representation that one has of one's ownbody (for example, Adame, Radell, Johnson, and Cole, 1991; Gardner and Moncrieff, 1988; Schilder, 1935). Despite the conceptual difference many researchers use the terms interchangeably, leading to both a terminological and conceptual confusion. (shrink)

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What resources does Merleau-Ponty’s account of thebodyschema offer to the Fanonian one? First I show that Merleau-Ponty’s theory of thebodyschema is already a theory of affect: one that does not oppose affects to intentionality, positioning them not only as sense but as force, cultivating affective agencies rather than constituting static sense content. Then I argue that by foregrounding the role of affect in both thinkers, we can understand the way in which the (...) historical-racialschema innovates, anticipating and influencing feminist theories of the affective turn – especially Sara Ahmed’s theory of affective economies. The historical-racialschema posits the constitution of affective agencies on a sociogenic scale, and these affective economies in turn account for the possibility of the collapse of thebodyschema into a racial epidermalschema, a disjunction of affective intentionality Fanon calls “affective tetanization.” Quelles ressources l’analyse du schéma corporel faite par Merleau-Ponty fournit-elle au schéma historico-racial proposé par Fanon? En premier lieu, je vise à montrer que la théorie du schéma corporel de Merleau-Ponty est déjà une théorie de l’affect : une théorie qui n’oppose pas les affects à l’intentionnalité, qui ne les considère pas seulement comme un sens, mais comme une force, en cultivant des agentivités affectives plutôt qu’en constituant des contenus de sens statiques. Ensuite, j’affirmerai qu’en mettant en premier plan le rôle de l’affect chez ces deux penseurs, nous pouvons comprendre les innovations qu’apporte le schéma historico-racial, en anticipant et en influençant les théories féministes du tournant affectif – surtout la théorie de Sara Ahmed au sujet des économies affectives. Le schéma historico-racial établit la constitution d’agentivités affectives sur une échelle sociogénique, et ces économies affectives expliquent à leur tour la possibilité d’une dégradation du schéma corporel en schéma épidermique racial, une disjonction de l’intentionnalité affective que Fanon appelle « tétanisation affective ».Quali risorse può offrire la nozione merleau-pontiana dischema corporeo a quella di Fanon? In primo luogo, mi propongo di mostrare che la teoria delloschema corporeo elaborata da Merleau-Ponty è allo stesso tempo una teoria dell’affetto: una teoria che non oppone la dimensione degli affetti all’intenzionalità, poiché li considera non solo come senso ma come forze, in quanto implicano delle agentività affettive piuttosto che costituire meri contenuti statici di senso. Intendo quindi sostenere che mettendo in evidenza il ruolo dell’affetto in questi due autori sia possibile comprendere il portato innovativo delloschema storico-razziale, che anticipa e influenza le teorie femministe legate all’affective turn – e in particolare la teoria delle economie affettive elaborata da Sara Ahmed. Loschema storico-razziale afferma la costituzione di agentività affettive a un livello sociogenetico, mentre le economie affettive rendono conto della possibilità del collasso delloschema corporeo in unoschema razziale epidermico, una disgiunzione dell’intenzionalità affettiva che Fanon definisce “tetanizzazione affettiva”. (shrink)

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De Vignemont argues that the sense of ownership comes from the localization of bodily sensation on a map of thebody that is part of thebodyschema. This model should be taken as a model of the sense of embodiment. I argue that thebodyschema lacks the theoretical resources needed to explain this phenomenology. Furthermore, there is some reason to think that a deficient sense of embodiment is not associated with a deficient (...) class='Hi'>bodyschema. The data de Vignemont uses to argue that thebody image does not underlie the sense of embodiment does not rule out the possibility that part of thebody image I call 'offline representations' underlies the sense of embodiment. An alternative model of the sense of embodiment in terms of offline representations of thebody is presented. (shrink)

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Fanon's conception of thebodyschema plays a central role in his philosophy. Thebodyschema is thebody's “grasp” or “sense” of itself. Fanon argues that in the encounter between the Black and white person thebodyschema “crumbles,” so that the Black person experiences herself as object‐like in various ways. Fanon's focus is the Black person's experience because his aim is to provide the Black person with tools for emancipation. Nevertheless, his (...) account raises the question: What happens to white self‐awareness within the colonial system? I argue that a proper understanding of Fanon's notion of thebodyschema provides an answer. Thebodyschema underpins awareness of other people, not just one's bodily self. It is the self‐other experiential system that crumbles in the colonial system. Thus, we can supplement Fanon's account of Black self‐experience as object‐like with a description of white experience as tending toward solipsism, where this is the other side of the Black self‐awareness that Fanon describes. Both forms of awareness result from degraded reciprocity. Whilst they are not the same, they are nevertheless complementary parts of a defective relation between people. (shrink)

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Grush's emulator model appears to be consistent with the idea of abodyschema, that is, a detailed mental representation of thebody, its structure, and movement in relation to the environment. If the emulator is equivalent to abodyschema, then the next step will be to specify how the emulator accounts for neuropsychological and developmental phenomena that have long been hypothesized to involve thebodyschema.

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A recent paradigm shift in music research has allowed scholars to examine the macro- and micro-processes taking place within musical performance and underlying cognitive processes. Tying in with phenomenological theories of embodied perception and cognition, this paper focuses on bodily musical activity relevant to the acquisition of instrumental musical skills—the process of learning music. Dynamic interaction with musical instruments, accompanied by the interplay of action and passion, involvesbody image andbodyschema, whose status oscillates in different (...) phases of the acquisition of instrumental musical skills; this interaction allows humans to direct attention from their bodily states—the proximal—to the quality of musical sounds and a unity of musical experience—the distal. It is thus argued that shaping music by means of playing a musical instrument can be conceived of as an embodied process, of understanding the forms of one’s own experience as related to the musical world that is created by one’s bodily activity. (shrink)

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Dijkerman & de Haan (D&dH) argue thatbody image andbodyschema form parts of different and dissociable somatosensory streams. We agree in general, but believe that more emphasis should be placed on interactions between these two streams. We illustrate this point with evidence from the rubber-hand illusion (RHI) – an illusion ofbody image, which depends critically uponbodyschema.

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I argue that there is an affective injustice in gendered and racialized oppression. To account for this, we must deny the opposition of affect and intentionality often assumed in the philosophy of emotion and the affective turn: while affect and intentionality are not opposed in principle, affective intentionality may be refused uptake in oppressive practices. In section 1, I read Merleau‐Ponty’s theory of thebodyschema as a theory of affect that accommodates my account of affective injustice and (...) aligns with accounts of affect transmission and circulation in feminist philosophies of the affective turn. This is crucial for understanding Fanon’s contribution to the theory of thebodyschema, in which it is susceptible to historical‐racial “affective disorders.” In sections 2–4, I distinguish three types of affective injustice: affective marginalization, exploitation, and violence. In section 2 I develop an intersectional feminist account of this distinction drawing on Lorde and Lugones and raise questions about the limits of framing the issue of affective injustice in terms of intentionality as opposed to a more psychoanalytic conceptual vocabulary that accommodates the displacement of affective force. In sections 3 and 4, I explore these affective injustices through an analysis of Fanonian concepts, showing how the theory of thebodyschema can accommodate not only affective intentionality but also the oppressive disjunction of affect and intentionality, as well as forms of affective injustice that exceed the oppressive disabling of sense‐making and involve the exploitative and violent displacement of affective force. (shrink)

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This paper comprises a feminist phenomenological exploration of women’s experiences with breast augmentation and breast reduction. Situating the results of semi-structured interviews in the context ofbodyschema, this study discloses how women perceive, think, feel and respond to bodily change created by elective breast surgery. Women’s narratives express that breast augmentation and reduction shifted their conception of the livedbody and its possibilities by provoking bodily reorientations and adjustments as well as changes in bodily sensations. In (...) contrast withbody image studies that emphasize elective breast surgery as transforming attitudes towards thebody, this phenomenological investigation reveals that elective breast surgery also galvanizes a relearning of the world and a rearticulation of embodied doing. (shrink)

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Dijkerman & de Haan (D&dH) propose a somatosensory perceptual pathway that informs a consciously accessiblebody image, and an action pathway that provides information to abodyschema, which is not consciously accessible. We argue that thebodyschema may become accessible to consciousness in some circumstances, possibly resulting from cross talk, but that this may be detrimental to skilled movement production.

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Body image andbodyschema refer to two different yet closely related systems. Whereas BI can be defined as a system of perceptions, attitudes, and beliefs pertaining to one's ownbody, BS is a system of sensory-motor capacities that functions without awareness or the necessity of perceptual monitoring. Studies have demonstrated that applying the concepts of BI and BS enables us to conceptualize complex pathological phenomena such as anorexia, schizophrenia, and depersonalization. Likewise, it has further been (...) argued that these concepts play a crucial role in our ability to grasp our bodily experiences in the socio-cultural world according to various factors, such as gender, social class, and ethnicity. Referring to the insights of Frantz Fanon, the author of Black Skin, White Masks, this paper suggests that under certain conditions the BI can take over and reshape the BS. Based on an examination of Fanon’s writings, the paper suggests that not only the BI can truly remold the BS but that the gaze of the other can directly influence the BI. (shrink)

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In recent decades, historians of religions have turned to, and developed, entirely new methodologies for the study of religion and human consciousness. Foremost among these are a collection of approaches often termed the “cognitive science of religion” (CSR), typically drawing on cognitive science, neuroscience, linguistics, and contemporary metaphor theory. Although we are still “early” in this enterprise, I hope to show how a meaningful dialogue between religious studies and contemporary neuroscience and cognitive science can help us to better understand some (...) intriguing mystical texts and practices from a tradition of medieval South Asian Hinduism. Known collectively as the Vaiṣṇava Sahajiyās, these followers of transgressive and antinomian Tantric Yoga provide excellent examples for exploring the nature of religion, ritual, consciousness, embodiment, identity, gender, emotions and sexuality. This paper will show how the study of these rich materials from seventeenth through eighteenth century Bengal in northeastern South Asia can be enhanced using insights from the philosopher Shaun Gallagher and the neurologist Patrick McNamara. (shrink)

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Many upper limb amputees experience an incessant, post-amputation “phantom limb pain” and report that their missing limbs feel paralyzed in an uncomfortable posture. One hypothesis is that efferent commands no longer generate expected afferent signals, such as proprioceptive feedback from changes in limb configuration, and that the mismatch of motor commands and visual feedback is interpreted as pain. Non-invasive therapeutic techniques for treating phantom limb pain, such as mirror visual feedback (MVF), rely on visualizations of postural changes. Advances in neural (...) interfaces for artificial sensory feedback now make it possible to combine MVF with a high-tech “rubber hand” illusion, in which subjects develop a sense of embodiment with a fake hand when subjected to congruent visual and somatosensory feedback. We discuss clinical benefits that could arise from the confluence of known concepts such as MVF and the rubber hand illusion, and new technologies such as neural interfaces for sensory feedback and highly sensorized robot hand testbeds, such as the “BairClaw” presented here. Our multi-articulating, anthropomorphic robot testbed can be used to study proprioceptive and tactile sensory stimuli during physical finger-object interactions. Conceived for artificial grasp, manipulation, and haptic exploration, the BairClaw could also be used for future studies on the neurorehabilitation of somatosensory disorders due to upper limb impairment or loss. A remote actuation system enables the modular control of tendon-driven hands. The artificial proprioception system enables direct measurement of joint angles and tendon tensions while temperature, vibration, and skin deformation are provided by a multimodal tactile sensor. The provision of multimodal sensory feedback that is spatiotemporally consistent with commanded actions could lead to benefits such as reduced phantom limb pain, and increased prosthesis use due to improved functionality and reduced cognitive burden. (shrink)

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This paper addresses a number of issues concerning both the status of phenomenology in the work of one of its classical expositors, Maurice Merleau-Ponty, and the general relation between theoretical models and evidence in phenomenological accounts. In so doing, I will attempt to explain Merleau-Ponty's departure from classical transcendental accounts in Husserl's thought and why Merleau-Ponty increasingly elaborated on them through aesthetic rationality. The result is a phenomenology that no longer understands itself as foundational and no longer understands itself in (...) the strict opposition of intuition and concept. Rather both emerge from an operative experience generated in the exchange between situated embodied knowing and historical knowledge. (shrink)

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New technologies implied in art creation and exhibition are modifying the traditional landmarks on which aesthetics has always focused. In particular, Virtual Reality artworks call thebody into question when it comes to living a bodily experience within exhibitions accessible through technological tools that expand the humanbody’s capabilities and motor potential. Thebody's status is challenged in its traditional unity, that of a subject of experience living in a world where the spatial configuration is relatively constant. (...) Conversely, in Virtual Reality, the spatial aspect is novel to ourbody which needs to adapt to unpredicted and disorientating motor schemas. Therefore, the Virtual Reality aesthetic experience takes place into a novel configuration for the humanbody: hybrid and split into the virtual realm. (shrink)

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Body integrity identity disorder (BIID), formerly also known as apotemnophilia, is characterized by a desire for amputation of a healthy limb and is claimed to straddle or to even blur the boundary between psychiatry and neurology. The neurological line of approach, however, is a recent one, and is accompanied or preceded by psychodynamical, behavioural, philosophical, and psychiatric approaches and hypotheses. Next to its confusing history in which the disorder itself has no fixed identity and could not be classified under (...) a specific discipline, its sexual component has been an issue of unclarity and controversy, and its assessment a criterion for distinguishing BIID from apotemnophilia, a paraphilia. Scholars referring to the livedbody—a phenomenon primarily discussed in the phenomenological tradition in philosophy—seem willing to exclude the sexual component as inessential, whereas other authors notice important similarities with gender identity disorder or transsexualism, and thus precisely focus attention on the sexual component. This contribution outlines the history of BIID highlighting the vicissitudes of its sexual component, and questions the justification for distinguishing BIID from apotemnophilia and thus for omitting the sexual component as essential. Second, we explain a hardly discussed concept from Maurice Merleau-Ponty’s Phenomenology of Perception (1945a), the sexualschema, and investigate how the sexualschema could function in interaction with thebody image in an interpretation of BIID which starts from the livedbody while giving the sexual component its due. (shrink)

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Mandler's target article claims that infants' capacity to abstract certain kinds of information from perceptual ldisplays occurs through a special mechanism of ?perceptual meaning analysis?, which generates abstract, ?image-schemas? that are analogical representations summarizing spatial relations and movement in space. Under this view, perceptual processes give input to forming conceptual representations, but higher-order concepts are disembodied, symbolic representations that are stripped of their embodied roots. My alternative argument is that bodily experience has an enduring role in early conceptual development, and (...) throughout the lifespan, with image-schemas being continually tied to ongoing perceptual and kinesthetic actions. Many global and abstract concepts may be created in the moment given specific task demands and retain deep connections to embodied actions and experiences. (shrink)

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This article approaches Judith Butler as herself a theorist of race and racism by exploring her unacknowledged and often problematic reading of Frantz Fanon and his concept of the historico-racialschema. It first traces Butler's uses of Fanon's thinking across her work, outlining the different ways that she draws on Fanon in theorizing race and racism. The article then shows how that theorizing stems from Butler's reading of the historico-racialschema, focusing on her insertion of words that do (...) not appear in either the translation she cites or in the original French text into a key quotation. This article argues that this systematic misreading of the historico-racialschema in Black Skin, White Masks problematically restricts Butler's understanding of the lasting effects and ethical consequences of racism and colonialism as they appear in her readings of that text and of The Wretched of the Earth. (shrink)

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How theBody Shapes the Mind is an interdisciplinary work that addresses philosophical questions by appealing to evidence found in experimental psychology, neuroscience, studies of pathologies, and developmental psychology. There is a growing consensus across these disciplines that the contribution of embodiment to cognition is inescapable. Because this insight has been developed across a variety of disciplines, however, there is still a need to develop a common vocabulary that is capable of integrating discussions of brain mechanisms in neuroscience, behavioural (...) expressions in psychology, design concerns in artificial intelligence and robotics, and debates about embodied experience in the phenomenology and philosophy of mind. Shaun Gallagher's book aims to contribute to the formulation of that common vocabulary and to develop a conceptual framework that will avoid both the overly reductionistic approaches that explain everything in terms of bottom-up neuronal mechanisms, and inflationistic approaches that explain everything in terms of Cartesian, top-down cognitive states. Gallagher pursues two basic sets of questions. The first set consists of questions about the phenomenal aspects of the structure of experience, and specifically the relatively regular and constant features that we find in the content of our experience. If throughout conscious experience there is a constant reference to one's ownbody, even if this is a recessive or marginal awareness, then that reference constitutes a structural feature of the phenomenal field of consciousness, part of a framework that is likely to determine or influence all other aspects of experience. The second set of questions concerns aspects of the structure of experience that are more hidden, those that may be more difficult to get at because they happen before we know it. They do not normally enter into the content of experience in an explicit way, and are often inaccessible to reflective consciousness. To what extent, and in what ways, are consciousness and cognitive processes, which include experiences related to perception, memory, imagination, belief, judgement, and so forth, shaped or structured by the fact that they are embodied in this way? (shrink)

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Table of Contents Acknowledgments 1 Self-Consciousness and theBody: An Interdisciplinary Introduction by Naomi Eiland, Anthony Marcel and José Luis Bermúdez 2 TheBody Image and Self-Consciousness by John Campbell 3 Infants’ Understanding of People and Things: FromBody Imitation to Folk Psychology by Andrew N. Meltzoff and M. Keith Moore 4 Persons, Animals, and Bodies by Paul F. Snowdon 5 An Ecological Perspective on the Origins of Self by George Butterworth 6 Objectivity, Causality, and Agency by (...) Thomas Baldwin 7 At Two with Nature: Agency and the Development of Self-World Dualism by James Russell 8 Ecological Perception and the Notion of a Nonconceptual Point of View by José Luis Bermúdez 9 Proprioception and theBody Image by Brian O’Shaughnessy 10 Awareness of One’s OwnBody: An Attentional Theory of Its Nature, Development, and Brain Basis by Marcel Kinsbourne 11BodySchema and Intentionality by Shaun Gallagher 12 Living without Touch and Peripheral Information aboutBody Position and Movement: Studies with Deafferented Subjects by Jonathan Cole and Jacques Paillard 13 Bodily Awareness: A Sense of Ownership by M. G. F. Martin 14 Bodily Awareness and the Self by Bill Brewer 15 Introspection and Bodily Self-Ascription by Quassim Cassam 16 Consciousness and the Self by Naomi Eilan Contributors Index. (shrink)

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Felix reaches up to catch a high line drive to left field and fires the ball off to Benji at home plate, who then tags the runner trying to score. For Felix to catch the ball and transfer it from his glove to his throwing hand, he needs to have a sense of where his hands are relative to one another and the rest of hisbody. This sort of information is subconsciously tracked in thebodyschema (...) (or posturalschema), a representation of the current bodily posture that is updated on the basis of proprioceptive inputs. While the existence of thebodyschema in not in dispute, its origin is. After reviewing the competing proposals, I introduce the conceptual tools needed to move the debate forward and apply them to the question of the extent to which thebodyschema could be learned from perceptual input in utero. I argue that it could give rise to something recognizable as thebodyschema, though not quite rising to the level of the maturebodyschema. After considering the implications for further research on the origins of thebodyschema, I show how these results apply to otherbody representations, helping clarify the vexing question of the number, nature, and interactions amongbody representations in the brain. This theoretical work also promises to advance our understanding and treatment protocols for disorders affecting suchbody representations (e.g., anorexia nervosa). (shrink)

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