Le corps vécu et l’expérience du handicap

Abstract

This article presents a dialogue about the experience of the lived body (“corps vécu”) with Mr Marcel Nuss, who has had severe spinal amyotrophy since childhood. We begin by describing the way an ordinary person experiences his/her body, in particular through Maurice Merleau-Ponty's phenomenology, then several hypotheses are explored in relation to the experience of a person who has a physical impairment. Here, “lived body” (“corps vécu”) or “body itself” (“corps propre”) refer to a conscious experience of the body as possessing the power of action (Merleau-Ponty), as a bodily envelop (Anzieu), and finally as an interoceptive unity. We raise questions about the extent to which one can understand the experience of others through a common language and culture. Is it possible for a person with a physical impairment to feel movement by proxy? Can he/she dream of that movement, or imagine it? Most importantly, is it desirable for that person? We will pay particular attention to the ethical dimension of such a questioning, and stress the subjective difficulties we encountered during our enquiry.