Phenomenological and experimental contributions to understanding embodied experience

Abstract

Much recent work on the relationship between phenomenology, in the Husserlian tradition, and the contemporary cognitive sciences has focused on the question of embodiment. In this chapter I suggest that the distinction between body image and body schema, once clarified on phenomenological grounds, can contribute to an understanding of embodied experience, and how the body shapes cognition. A clear 'distinction between these two concepts can be both verified and applied in specific empirical research concerning such issues as intentional action, intermodal perception, neonate imitation, mirror neurons and pathologies that involve unilateral neglect and deafferentation. A consideration of these phenomena also leads to clarifications about the nature of intersubjectivity consistent with both phenomenological insights offered by Husserl and Merleau-Ponty and the most recent neuroscience of social cognition.

Publication Title

Body, Language and Mind: Embodiment

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