From ‘the mind isolated with the body’ to ‘the mind being embodied’: Contemporary approaches to the philosophy of the body

Abstract

In the interpretation of the body in the 20th century, philosophy placed less emphasis than before on its natural composition and sought to integrate value judgements from different perspectives. The philosophy of the body addresses the deepest essential problems of human society and culture, it generates a uniquely detailed analysis of human nature and its various roles and performances in social operations, and it reveals contemporary society’s operating mechanisms and deep internal contradictions. Accordingly, philosophy no longer gives the mind any priority or superiority in terms of cognition, and the focus of research has moved away from pure consciousness and towards the body. Contemporary philosophical exploration of the body covers both the concept of belongingness and the feasibility of bodily freedom. It not only foregrounds the impossibility of viewing the body and the mind as separate entities but also leads us to examine the connections between humans and the world, taking meaning, reason and the body as their basis. This paper explores the connections between body and thought in modern philosophy, traces the development of philosophy’s increasing concern with the body, elucidates the main contributions of representative figures in the field of philosophy of the body, and analyses the methodological significance and influence of the philosophy of the body as a contemporary philosophical trend.