Heidegger's Neglect of the Body

by Aho, Kevin A.

• ISBN13: 9781438427751
• ISBN10: 1438427751
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2009-09-10
• Publisher: State Univ of New York Pr

Summary

Martin Heidegger's failure to acknowledge the role of the body in his analysis of everyday human existence (Dasein) has generated a cottage industry of criticism from such prominent continental figures as Merleau-Ponty, Sartre, Derrida, and Irigaray. In Heidegger's Neglect of the Body, Kevin A. Aho suggests the critics largely fail to appreciate Heidegger's nuanced understanding of Dasein, which is not to be interpreted in terms of individual existence but in terms of a shared horizon of being that is already there. Aho further argues that Heidegger--while rarely discussing the body itself--nonetheless makes a significant contribution to theories of embodiment by means of his critique of technological existence and his hermeneutic recovery of more original ways of being that reveal our fragile interconnectedness with things.

Author Biography

Kevin A. Aho is Assistant Professor of Philosophy at Florida Gulf Coast University and the coauthor (with James Aho) of Body Matters: A Phenomenology of Sickness, Disease, and Illness.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments	p. ix
Abbreviations	p. xi
Introduction	p. 1
The Body Problem	p. 1
Chapter Overview	p. 4
Heidegger's Project	p. 7
Dismantling Cartesian Metaphysics	p. 9
Dasein and Everydayness	p. 11
Temporality as the Meaning of Being	p. 22
The Missing Dialogue between Heidegger and Merleau-Ponty	p. 29
The Absence of the Body in Being and Time	p. 29
The Body and the Problem of Spatiality	p. 33
The Importance of the Zollikon Seminars	p. 36
The Limits of Merleau-Ponty's Relation to Heidegger	p. 43
Gender and Time: On the Question of Dasein's Neutrality	p. 53
Fundamental Ontology and the Sex/Gender Divide	p. 53
Gendered Dasein and Neutral Da-sein	p. 55
The Gender and Neutrality of Time	p. 61
Life, Logos, and the Poverty of Animals	p. 73
Dasein's Animal-Nature	p. 74
The Question of Life in the Aristotle Lectures	p. 79
Logos and the Animal Question	p. 87
The Animal Lectures in Context	p. 96
Prelude to a Theory of Embodiment	p. 100
The Accelerated Body	p. 105
Technological Existence	p. 106
Acceleration and Boredom	p. 113
Acceleration and Psychotherapy	p. 119
Recovering Play: On Authenticity and Dwelling	p. 127
Technology and Authentic Historicality	p. 128
Leisure and Openness to Mystery	p. 132
Conclusion: Embodied Dwelling	p. 143
Notes	p. 151
Index	p. 169
Table of Contents provided by Ingram. All Rights Reserved.