Pope John Paul II Journal of Philosophy

One of the aims of Phenomenology is to address the inherited dualistic vision of reality, especially, the Cartesian partition of reality into ‘res cogitans’ and ‘res extensa; the body would no longer be viewed as an object of intentional synthesis, it becomes the subject, the point from which intentionality radiates, the point of orientation towards the world. There is nothing like ‘world-less’ subjectivity that creates reality. Hence the project of phenomenology which is ‘a disclosure of the world’ goes pari-passu with the disclosure of consciousness and its awakening. Based on the philosophy of the lived world (Lebenswelt) inherited from Husserl, Merleau-Ponty highlights the role of the lived body in the constitution and understanding of subjectivity and its relationship to the world. Thus, what is referred to as Subjektleib (subject-body) comes to the lime-light in the philosophy of Merleau-Ponty. What is underlined is the body’s relatedness to the world, a relation that reveals the possibilities of the subject-body, its successes, and limitations. The essay follows a phenomenological method; and this requires, among other things, that the data relative to being-in-the-world are assembled and analysed. This procedure reveals a priori, the ground and structures of experience, which include the lived body. includes in the sense that it adopts a phenomenological analysis of experience of our body. What Michel de Montagne says in the preface to his Essays: “Je suis moi-même la matière de mon livre” – I am myself the substance of my book” means that human experience, viz, personal experience is the true starting-point of philosophical inquiry. Philosophy begins as biography; it begins as wonder, wonder at one’s being, one’s encounter with Being. This is where and how phenomenological analysis of the lived body anchors personal experience of each person.

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