Embodiment

"Substance dualism" or the thesis that a person is an embodied nonphysical being (mind or soul) is systematically caricatured in philosophy of mind literature as involving an untenable bifurcation. Instead of such a splintered, divided concept of the person, I defend integrative dualism, the thesis that while a person is a nonphysical subject (and thus a being that can survive the death of the body), in this life he or she functions as a united, embodied being. Embodiment consists of six nonmoral goods (they are good but not as in "moral goods" such as justice and courage): the virtues of sensations, agency, causal constitution, cognitive power, intelligible coherence, and affective incorporation. This united concept of an embodied person places values at the heart of the philosophy of human nature. This value-oriented concept of embodiment can be a rich, common resource for Christian-Muslim dialogue. This value-oriented concept of embodiment can be a rich, common resource for Christian-Muslim dialogue.

In this paper I present some elements of Marc Richir's political phenomenology. Drawing from the Husserlian distinction between Leib and Körper, as well as from the ontology of the flesh sketched in the last works of Maurice Merleau-Ponty, Richir proposed a novel reading of the relation between phenomenology, the social and the political. His project is built upon the distinction between incarnation and incorporation, two forms of embodiment that, while corresponding to the two ways of experiencing One's own body noted by Husserl and Merleau-Ponty, concern not only the embodied subject but also the individuation of the social body. This approach can be read as a radically embodied inquiry into the social and the political that constitutes a phenomenological critique of identitarian essentialism and disembodied universalism. In the first section of the article I explain the role played by intersubjectivity, asubjectivity and embodiment in Richir's understanding of the process of phenomenalization. The second section is dedicated to his elaborations on the joint sensemaking of the ipse and the community, articulated around the distinction between incarnation and incorporation. In the final section I outline a possible application of the concepts developed by Richir to the contemporary debate around identity-based politics.

The present paper analyzes Jorie Graham’s “Sea Change”, the eponymous poem of her 2008 poetry collection, through Julia Kristeva’s theories on semiotic and the abject. By tracing the historical attitudes towards embodiment, this research attempts to examine Graham’s outlook towards the mind/body and by extension nature/culture dichotomies in her poetry. The previous studies on the Sea Change collection have mostly focused on Graham’s formal structures and ecological concerns; no other research has used Kristeva’s theories to examine the importance of one’s embodied experience of the world in her poetry to reveal how negative attitudes towards the body lead to a fractured existence for the human subject. Graham’s poetic language addresses the neglect to which the semiotic has been subjected, redefines the body in terms that are not abject and opens up a safe cultural space for it. Her poetry illuminates how mystification and degradation of the body have a positive correlation with oppression of the nature, as concepts belonging to similar dichotomous lines of thought, and highlights the call for a re-evaluation of the attitudes towards the human subject’s existence in the world.

Metaphor shapes our language as well as our thoughts by grounding the concepts related to our body within an experiential framework in which we can accommodate abstract concepts. Being aware of their underlying structure and mastering them are believed to be integral in developing metaphoric competence and communicative competence in a second language. Body-related metaphors are among the prevalent, yet under-researched metaphors of Persian that can pose substantial challenges for foreign learners of Persian. This study explores the body-related metaphor constructions utilizing Lakoff and Johnson’s conceptualizations in Persian language that can be problematic for learners of Persian. It was found that the Persian body metaphors are relatively rich and pervasive. In many cases, Persian speakers tend to use different metaphors as a kind of hyperbole to show the repetition and/or significance of a phenomenon or concept (both negatively and positively). It was also suggested that the primary function of metaphors in Persian could be explained based on the narrowing and expanding of meaning. The findings suggested that while systematicity is universal, there are also differences among the metaphor structures cross-linguistically and cross-culturally. The results could also provide another evidence for cognitivists’ claim that the conceptual system by which we understand and communicate (about/with) the world around us is mostly metaphorical. Finally, the significance and implications of studies of this nature for the learning and teaching of Persian as a second/foreign language were discussed.

This study aimed to investigate the Embodiment in the virtual technical and vocational education of the SHAD System using the post-phenomenological method. The lived experience of several students of the art schools in Malard County was examined using interviews. The result is that the mediation of the SHAD System has expanded the temporal and spatial possibilities and the degree of freedom of action of the students; moreover, in this system, due to the substantive, implicit, and environmental differences of the practical training of specialized courses, additional challenges have arisen depending on the theoretical courses. Here, due to the change in the type of physical connection and the physical absence of the student, the learning conditions were different and were not as available as in face-to-face education. The set of senses could not be reproduced and simulated to the same extent in the SHAD Space. The quality and speed of coordination of different senses and the connection of the mind, emotions, and hands were different, and learning required more repetition and practice. Considering physical movement, angle of view, and work steps, achieving a new physical balance in the SHAD System was time-consuming and experimental. The degree of freedom of the student's body has led to improved performance in some situations and has disrupted learning in others. In this space, the body in action has created a kind of physical expertise that combines face-to-face learning and virtual. Physical presence and close physical contact between the students and the student, as in workshop training, are not provided and have led to changes. The emotions arising from the students' embodiment have played a role in achieving the goals of the SHAD system. In this system, the pace of education, learning style, student-centeredness, self-regulation, and communication outside of school have been strengthened. Finally, improving and redesigning the SHAD system in this area with a post-phenomenological approach has been proposed to facilitate learning in this system.

Poetry ferments space-time travel. Engaging with poetry can disrupt the drumbeat of neoliberal temporal demands by providing a mindful opportunity for intimate connections with people we do not know. Sitting with a poet’s words can represent a pause that takes us out of one time and shifts us to another. A poem may connect the reader with people who have passed from this earth, suggesting that caring moral imagination is not circumscribed to the living. This article explores selections from Janice N. Harrington’s collection, The Hands of Strangers: Poems from the Nursing Home. Harrington’s poems delve into the physical intimacy of care workers and the cared-for, which is otherwise reserved for our society's private sphere of family settings, thereby extending the concept of poetry of witness to a small, intimate, albeit institutionalized setting that, at its core, exists to provide care to others. Specific poems are interrogated for their implications for the reader’s experience of space-time travel, including strengthening the skills of the caring imagination beyond the experience of the words. Poetry allows the reader to travel back to a witnessed event, engaging with shifts in time and space within the parameters of the poem while helping us develop our imaginative skills to continue witnessing experiences and enhance our ability to care in the present and future. The caring imagination required to engage with the poetry of witness is not a static capacity. Instead, through poetry, our imaginative skills can be further cultivated to help us empathetically space-time travel.