The aim of this mini-course will be to introduce participants to some of the basic questions and issues in the phenomenology of the body and embodied experience.  We will spend the first day exploring aspects of Husserl’s pioneering work on the body in the second volume of Ideas.  The second day will be devoted to an examination of Merleau-Ponty’s account of the body in the first part of Phenomenology of Perception.  Although, as we will see, Merleau-Ponty inherits a great deal from Husserl, there are also significant criticisms and departures.  Emphasis will be given to the latter in our examination.

For 3 credits

Lectures + readings + 3 page essay on one of the topics

Teacher:

Prof. David R. Cerbone, Teacher responsible

For more information on the readings, access Moodle, the key is ”Embodiment”: https://learning2.uta.fi/course/view.php?id=9078

Wednesday, August 31:  Husserl on the Body

 First and Second Hours:
1.     The legacy of dualism
2.     Körper and Leib (body and Body)
3.     Remarks on the notion of constitution
4.     The Body and perception
5.     The Body and objectivity
6.     The Body and intersubjectivity 

Third and Fourth Hours:
7.     The constitution of the Body

8.     Sight, touch, and double-touch
9.     Localization
10.   Overcoming dualism: the unity of the ego and the Body

Thursday, September 1:  Merleau-Ponty

Hours One and Two:
1.     The return to phenomena
2.     Twin prejudices: empiricism and intellectualism
3.     Being-in-the-world
4.     Phantom limb: ambivalence and repression
5.     Motor Intentionality

Hours Three and Four:
6.     Perceptual experience revisited
7.     Truths versus presences
8.     Seeing things and things that see
9.     Perceptual constancy
10.   The intentional arc

There is no enrolment, welcome to the first session.
For practical matters, e-mail PhD researcher Jaakko Belt (jaakko.belt@uta.fi)
For credit points, e-mail prof. Arto Laitinen (arto.laitinen@uta.fi)

Note on the Readings

Core Readings:
Husserl, Ideas Pertaining to a Pure Phenomenology and a Phenomenological Philosophy, Second Book (“Studies in the Phenomenology of Constitution”), §§18 and 35–42

Merleau-Ponty, Phenomenology of Perception, Preface and Part One, Chapters 1–3
Merleau-Ponty, “The Primacy of Perception” (first part only, not the discussion)

Supplemental Readings:
Cerbone, Understanding Phenomenology, Chapters 1 and 4
Dreyfus, “Husserl’s Perceptual Noema” (in Husserl, Intentionality, and Cognitive Science, as well as in the first volume of his collected papers)
Kelly, “Seeing Things in Merleau-Ponty” (in The Cambridge Companion to Merleau-Ponty)
Merleau-Ponty, “Cezanne’s Doubt” (in Sense and Non-Sense)

For the materials, access Moodle, the key is ”Embodiment”: https://learning2.uta.fi/course/view.php?id=9078

Type or level of studies

Postgraduate studies, intermediate studies

Course unit descriptions in the curriculum

FILS1a Early Modern, Modern and Contemporary Philosophy

Or negotiated with prof. Arto Laitinen (arto.laitinen@uta.fi)