Tag Archive

agency

Phenomenology, the Body, Freedom, and History: Part Three

Last time out, I discussed the body and freedom, with specific emphasis on what it means to make a decision. I concluded, with Merleau-Ponty, that any decision requires a body in a world. There must be a worldly context for decisions, what he calls a “field.” “Objective” accounts of a world “out there” so to speak, don’t fully account for what it’s like to experience freedom in a body in a world, and “subjectivist” accounts of a “mind” ignore embodiment for a space of pure reason. The former can only explain the body in physiological terms, objectifying it, while the Read more