Tom Sparrow

Defense Date

11-19-2009

Graduation Date

Spring 2010

Availability

Immediate Access

Submission Type

dissertation

Degree Name

PhD

Department

Philosophy

School

McAnulty College and Graduate School of Liberal Arts

Committee Chair

Fred Evans

Committee Member

George Yancy

Committee Member

Silvia Benso

Committee Member

Daniel Selcer

Keywords

Embodiment, Intersubjectivity, Levinas, Merleau-Ponty, Plasticity, Sensation

Abstract

The phenomenological approaches to embodiment presented by Levinas and Merleau-Ponty cannot provide an adequate account of bodily identity because their methodological commitments forbid them from admitting the central role that sensation plays in the constitution of experience. This neglect is symptomatic of their tradition's suspicion toward sensation as an explanatory concept, a suspicion stemming from Kant's critique of empiricist metaphysics and Husserl's critique of psychologism and objectivism. By contrast, I suggest that only with a robust theory of sensation can the integrity of the body and its relations be fully captured. I therefore develop--contra Kant and Husserl's idealism--a realist conception of sensation that is at once materialist and phenomenological.

Format

PDF

Language

English

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