"I yearned for the physical. I switched from philosophy to gardening."
I once knew a student, an amateur gardener, who changed her major from philosophy to horticulture. She did it because, so it seemed to her, her philosophy professors were "lost in their heads" and out of touch with the physical world. "I had wanted a philosophy of the body," she said, "and all they offered was a philosophy of the mind. I yearned for the physical. I switched from philosophy to gardening."
I understood. Of course I know many philosophers who are very much in touch with the physical side of life. They are runners and gardeners, cooks and basketball players. They enjoy a good party and play on the floor with toddlers. Still, it can sometimes seem as if, when they put on their philosopher's hat, they retreat to a head-based approach to life and that the subjects of philosophical inquiry are primarily ideas and ideals, problems and puzzles, in the mind. In these moments, they have lost sight of the physicality of the world around them: the physicalityof the soil, other people's bodies, and their own bodies. Theirs is a world of ideas but not a world of bodily facts and sensations; they are absorbed in what Whitehead called the "mental pole" of experience. They forgot their bodies, so my student would say.
The fact is that our own human experience, moment by moment, begins with our bodies and with bodily experience. Here I'm not talking our bodies as perceived by others, objectified in our own minds, or understood scientifically. I'm talking about our own bodies as lived from the inside, moment by moment. I'm talking about our lived bodies, to use a phrase of Maurice Merleau-Ponty.
If you are scrolling on a computer screen as you read these words, and your fingers are touching a mouse toward that end, the scrolling of your fingers, as felt by you in the moment at hand, is your lived body. It does not consist of visible cells, tissue and organs but rather of subjective patterns, tones, qualities and flows of of immediate feeling, in this case tactile. They are happening in what Whitehead calls the "physical pole" of your experience. The tactile feelings are part of your lived body.
Of course our lived bodies are much more than feeling laptop mouses. They are feeling the world around us with its multitude of bodies and feeling our own bodily responses to those bodies. Whitehead would add that our lived body is inherently interactive. Our lived experience does not emerge in an ontological vacuum. It is inter-subjective and inter-bodily. We are always already responding to a world of one sort or another, with other bodies. Our bodies are ways that we are connected to others, freeing us from the illusion that we are trapped inside our skin. Thus we learn from Maurice Merleau-Ponty in his way, and Whitehead in his way. This page consists of an essay by William Hamrick that brings the two together.
- Jay McDaniel, 10/21/2021
I understood. Of course I know many philosophers who are very much in touch with the physical side of life. They are runners and gardeners, cooks and basketball players. They enjoy a good party and play on the floor with toddlers. Still, it can sometimes seem as if, when they put on their philosopher's hat, they retreat to a head-based approach to life and that the subjects of philosophical inquiry are primarily ideas and ideals, problems and puzzles, in the mind. In these moments, they have lost sight of the physicality of the world around them: the physicalityof the soil, other people's bodies, and their own bodies. Theirs is a world of ideas but not a world of bodily facts and sensations; they are absorbed in what Whitehead called the "mental pole" of experience. They forgot their bodies, so my student would say.
The fact is that our own human experience, moment by moment, begins with our bodies and with bodily experience. Here I'm not talking our bodies as perceived by others, objectified in our own minds, or understood scientifically. I'm talking about our own bodies as lived from the inside, moment by moment. I'm talking about our lived bodies, to use a phrase of Maurice Merleau-Ponty.
If you are scrolling on a computer screen as you read these words, and your fingers are touching a mouse toward that end, the scrolling of your fingers, as felt by you in the moment at hand, is your lived body. It does not consist of visible cells, tissue and organs but rather of subjective patterns, tones, qualities and flows of of immediate feeling, in this case tactile. They are happening in what Whitehead calls the "physical pole" of your experience. The tactile feelings are part of your lived body.
Of course our lived bodies are much more than feeling laptop mouses. They are feeling the world around us with its multitude of bodies and feeling our own bodily responses to those bodies. Whitehead would add that our lived body is inherently interactive. Our lived experience does not emerge in an ontological vacuum. It is inter-subjective and inter-bodily. We are always already responding to a world of one sort or another, with other bodies. Our bodies are ways that we are connected to others, freeing us from the illusion that we are trapped inside our skin. Thus we learn from Maurice Merleau-Ponty in his way, and Whitehead in his way. This page consists of an essay by William Hamrick that brings the two together.
- Jay McDaniel, 10/21/2021