THE BODILY PRESENCE

Abstract

Th e article demonstrates a radical metamorphosis of the notion of the body in the history of philosophical thought. It implies the turning from the defi nition of the body in terms of external, such as form, place, surface, to the defi nition of the body in terms of consciousness. Analysis of the inner experience of one’s own physicality required to distinguish the own body and many other animate and inanimate bodies. Th e author concludes that the issue of corporeality stands at the center of philosophical understanding of human existence, because it is the body that constitutes this existence as factual, incidental, fi nal and situational. Realizing the diff erence of the body and matter which is regarded as formless and elusive for concepts, the author demonstrates the possibility of gender analysis of corporeality and materiality in terms of “male” and “female”, “fatherhood” and “motherhood”

Keywords:

body, flesh, matter, form, existence, presence, subjectivity, perception, gender