Bodily Phenomenology

Call for abstracts:

Bodily Phenomenology

Conference at Södertörn University, Sweden

Arranged by the Centre for Studies in Practical Knowledge

19-21 of May 2010.

Keynote speakers: Natalie Depraz, Gunn Engelsrud, Sara Heinämaa, Drew

Leder, Fredrik Svenaeus

The crucial role of the lived body in nearly every area of human life has been

acknowledged and researched in various ways for a long time. There are countless

conferences, books and papers on embodiment in philosophy, medicine, art, media,

teaching, sociology, anthropology, history, etc. Why yet a conference on this theme?

To start with, it is not enough to say that the mind is embodied, one must also say

how. This is still a project very much in its infancy in which the connections between

philosophical and empirical traditions need to be encouraged and deepened. The

exchange developed recently has not been without its problems, and it could be

argued that it has failed to yet realize its true potential. There are several reasons for

this.

One reason is that, from the very start, phenomenology, the main tradition

engaged in the philosophy of embodiment, has been wary of the danger of empirical

contamination in its contact with other disciplines. But phenomenology cannot

disconnect itself from the facticity of life, if it wants to stay true to its original

mission. Consciousness, when phenomenologically analyzed, as Husserl, as well as

other influential phenomenologist, recognizes, is always found to be situated and

contextualized – dependent on a body and a world, which bestow it with existence

and meaning.

Even if empirical findings regarding the workings of the body cannot be

imported directly into phenomenology in the form of scientific theories, empirical

accounts of bodily being are nevertheless highly relevant to philosophical reflection

on the conceptual patterns of experience. It remains to be settled, however, how the

empirical third person and phenomenological first person might be cajoled into

joining hands. Indeed, an emphasis on the second-person perspective (elicited, for

example, by asking a person experiencing a phantom limb what it feels like), rather

than the third-person perspective (produced by taking a picture of her brain), may

offer a more promising approach for making phenomenology more receptive to

knowledge established within other disciplines. In what ways do phenomenologically

inspired qualitative studies in medicine, nursing, and other fields of research

involving the body in a substantial way, already fulfill this mission and what does it

mean to use phenomenology as a research methodology? And, finally, how do the

ways of the body attain significance for phenomenology itself as a philosophical

project? In other words: how can we do a phenomenology which is not only a

phenomenology of the body (of embodiment), but which is a phenomenology bodily

informed? Do the facticities of birth, illness, sex, ageing, death, etc. inform the project

of phenomenology itself, and, if so, in what ways? The conference is an attempt to dig

deeper into these questions and connections.

Please send abstracts of 1-2 pages, maximum 500 words, to our conference secretary

martin.gunnarson@sh.se before the 15 of January 2010. Presentations are scheduled

for 30 minutes including discussion. Do not forget to list your name, address and

affiliation at the top of the abstract. Letters of acceptance and conference program will

be distributed in February.