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Encyclopedia entry: philosophy and the body
- Article from:
- The Oxford Companion to the Body
- Author:
Copyright© The Oxford Companion to the Body 2001, originally published by Oxford University Press 2001. (Hide copyright information)
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philosophy and the body
The human body occupies an ambiguous, even a paradoxical role in cultural categorizations — from the cosmologies of the archaic societies to the concepts and practices of modern Western civilization. It is the most obvious and familiar visible ‘thing’ perceived, and yet tends to disappear in the very act of perception of, or relation to, the outside world. The ambiguous nature of the body may be formulated in a number of binary oppositions. The body is both the Same and the Other; both a subject and an object of practices and knowledge; it is both a tool and a raw material to be worked upon. The body appears to oscillate between presence and ...