Abstract
The aim of this article is to explore nuances within the field of bodily self-awareness. My starting-point is phenomenological. I focus on how the subject experiences her or his body, i.e. how the body stands forth to the subject. I build on the phenomenologist Drew Leder’s distinction between bodily dis-appearance and dys-appearance. In bodily dis-appearance, I am only prereflectively aware of my body. My body is not a thematic object of my experience. Bodily dys-appearance takes place when the body appears to me as “ill” or “bad.” This is often the case when I experience pain or illness. Here, I will examine three versions of bodily dys-appearance. Whereas many phenomenological studies have explored cases of bodily dys-appearance, few studies have focused on the opposite of bodily dys-appearance, i.e. on bodily modes of being where the body appears to the subject as something good, easy or well. This is done in this article. When the body stands forth as good, easy or well to the subject, I suggest that the body eu-appears to this person. The analysis of eu-appearance shows that the subject can attend to her or his body as something positive and that this attention need not result in discomfort or alienation. Eu-appearance can take place in physical exercise, in sexual pleasure and in some cases of wanted pregnancies. I also discuss, briefly, the case of masochism.
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Notes
For a discussion of this, see Young (2005).
Furthermore, reflective bodily self-awareness presupposes prereflective bodily self-awareness (see Zahavi 1999).
I am well aware that, on a global level, many pregnancies are not wanted by the pregnant woman and that most pregnancies involve shorter or longer periods of time where the body, typically, dys-appears. For a phenomenological analysis of unwanted pregnancies, see Lundqvist (2008).
Heidegger (2003) uses this term in his discussion of Dasein, not of bodily awareness.
Leder makes a useful distinction between background dis-appearance, which takes place when body-parts are given a merely supportive role and slip to the margin of one’s consciousness, and a focal dis-appearance. The latter takes place when body-parts dis-appear from someone’s attention even though they “form the focal origin of a perceptual or actional field” (Leder 1990:26).
This system typically functions without perceptual monitoring. In an oft-quoted passage, Merleau-Ponty explains that to know how to type is not to know every letter’s place among the keys. It is “knowledge in the hands, which is forthcoming only when bodily efforts are made” (Merleau-Ponty 1945:166). When this has taken place, I need not think about which finger to move and which key to press (i.e. about the body-schematic performances) while typing: I focus on what I write.
For a discussion of how technology can recede from one’s attention, yet always be “semi-transparent” in the sense that I will be aware of the instruments that I use as “my” instruments, see Ihde (1979:19–20). For a discussion of how cultural norms can recede from one’s attention, be incorporated into one’s being, and how they at other times can be excorporated and able to be questioned, see Malmqvist and Zeiler (2010).
Empirical studies have shown that pain and the disruption of one’s previous world that pain result in make one experience the body-part in pain as an object, as other than the self (see Good 1992; White and Sweet 1995). See also Scarry’s description of this experience in her analysis of experiences of torture (Scarry 1985:52).
Dan Zahavi (1999:60) uses the metaphor of a circle in order to explain the relation between thematic objects and objects that are cogiven but that belong—at a certain moment—to the margin of the subject’s consciousness. If applied to the scenario above, the bodily feel in relation to what to do, together with others, during the day occupy the centre of the circle and the man attends to this is a situational whole: his body-in-pain in relation to the week-end plans together with others. The sun and the smell of the coffee are objects around this thematic field, i.e. at the periphery. The man is pre-reflectively aware of them.
Consider the UN spokesperson against infibulations, W. Dirie’s description of her pain-filled experience of infibulation. When in intense pain, she experienced how she “left” her body. This is an extreme version of alienation, of the body being experienced as other-than-self. Dirie explains that while hearing the sound of the “dull blade sawing back and forth through my skin … my legs were completely numb … I felt myself floating up, away from the ground” (Dirie 1998:45–17).
Sartre’s description of the other’s objectifying gaze, which makes me feel fundamentally at unease, exemplifies this bodily dys-appearance as do Beauvoir’s and Lee Bartkey’s phenomenological analyses of the (male) gaze that objectifies women’s bodies. Because of how others look at her body, the woman feels unease. Her world diminishes in the sense that she cannot attend to others and the world as before.
Of course, the experience of physical pain is but one case of bodily dys-appearance. Indeed, the body can dys-appear to me even if I experience no physical pain and even if others act towards me in a non-objectifying manner. Consider the situation when a teen-age girl, who has not experienced any symptoms but who has not yet had her menstruation, is told—after thorough medical examinations—that she has Mayer-Rokitansky-Kuster-Hauser syndrome (hereafter referred to as MRKH). This is a medical condition where the person has shortened or no vagina, no cervix and a partial or absent uterus. In such a case, though the person experiences no syndromes, this information about her body may affect her bodily self-awareness. The girl’s body may dys-appear to her, i.e. appear as bad or ill. Even if the doctor who informs her of the condition is caring and careful in terms of how she informs her or his patient, this new knowledge about her body can result in dys-appearance for the girl.
See, for example, Taylor and Ussher (2001) who analyse masochists’ stories about these experiences in terms such as dissidence, escapism or transcendence—as some examples.
There are few contemporary philosophical analyses of bodily pleasures. For exceptions to this tendency, see Irigaray (1985) and Young (2005). In the social sciences, pleasure has been analysed in relation to food, eating and sexuality (Warde and Martens 1999; Mintz 1997; Lorentzen 2007). In theology, sexual pleasure has been analysed in terms of transcendence (Norman 2008).
Young explicitly focuses on chosen pregnancies, defined as either pregnancies where the woman explicitly decides to become pregnant or at least chooses to “be identified with and positively accepting it” (Young 2005:47). These are also the kind of pregnancies that I have in mind. Please note, however, that I wish to avoid totalising theoretical tendencies. Not all women whose pregnancies are chosen experience these ever as eu-static. Neither do I mean to support a romanticised conception of pregnancy. I am certainly aware that pregnancies often involve bodily dys-appearance. Furthermore, as historical analysis of motherhood ideologies has shown, motherhood narratives and motherhood rhetoric (which often include also pregnancy narratives and pregnancy rhetoric) have been used in ways that are—to say the least—detrimental to some women.
Whether the body eu-appears to the pregnant woman depends on many factors. It can depend on whether she wanted the pregnancy in the first place, whether she feels capable of handling the situation, whether she has the support of others, and also on what feelings and images she has of what is to come, such as delivery.
Consider now a parallel scenario to the one with the man in chronic pain at the breakfast table. A pregnant woman sits in a café with friends. She is prereflectively aware of her body as good. She also thinks about her positive bodily feel—i.e. she is reflectively aware of her body as eu-appearing. Now, imagine that the topic of conversation is pregnant embodiment. The woman explains to her friends how she experiences the bodily feel of pregnancy. Can she, at the same time, be reflectively aware of her eu-appearing body and attend to her friends and the conversation? My answer is affirmative. The woman can attend to her body-in-a-situation, i.e. attend to her bodily feel in relation to the topic of conversation with her friends, reflectively. Again, however, this need not imply that she takes two intentional objects at the same time.
For an interesting analysis of the phenomenology of dance, see Fraleigh (1987).
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I’d like to thank the anonymous reviewer for most valuable comments on a previous version of this text.
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Zeiler, K. A phenomenological analysis of bodily self-awareness in the experience of pain and pleasure: on dys-appearance and eu-appearance. Med Health Care and Philos 13, 333–342 (2010). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11019-010-9237-4
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11019-010-9237-4