Bodily doubt
Journal of Consciousness Studies 20 (7-8):7-8 (2013)
Abstract
In this paper I explore the tacit underlying sense of bodily certainty that characterizes normal everyday embodied experience. I then propose illness as one instance in which this certainty breaks down and is replaced by bodily doubt. I characterize bodily doubt as radically modifying our experience in three ways: loss of continuity, loss of transparency, and loss of faith in one's body. I then discuss the philosophical insights that arise from the experience of bodily doubt. The paper uses a Humean framework with regards to bodily certainty, treating it as a taken for granted tacit aspect of normal experience. I argue that although bodily certainty is not rationally justifiable, we are nonetheless unable to reject it. Bodily certainty is thus revealed to be part of our brute animal nature. I conclude by suggesting that the study of pathology is a philosophical method useful for illuminating tacit aspects of experience.Author's Profile
My notes
Similar books and articles
In Praise of Doubt: How to Have Convictions Without Becoming a Fanatic.Peter L. Berger - 2009 - Harperone/Harpercollins Publishers.
Polanyi and Wittgenstein on Doubt.Yu Zhenhua - 2012 - International Philosophical Quarterly 52 (4):439-453.
Varieties of Pre-Reflective Self-Awareness: Foreground and Background Bodily Feelings in Emotion Experience.Giovanna Colombetti - 2011 - Inquiry: An Interdisciplinary Journal of Philosophy 54 (3):293 - 313.
The bodily self: The sensori-motor roots of pre-reflective self-consciousness. [REVIEW]Dorothée Legrand - 2006 - Phenomenology and the Cognitive Sciences 5 (1):89-118.
Perceiving subjectivity in bodily movement: The case of dancers. [REVIEW]Dorothée Legrand & Susanne Ravn - 2009 - Phenomenology and the Cognitive Sciences 8 (3):389-408.
Acting on (bodily) experience.Adrian J. T. Smith - 2009 - PSYCHE: An Interdisciplinary Journal of Research On Consciousness 15 (1):82 - 99.
Cartesian Doubt and Metaphysics.Jason Costanzo - 2015 - In David G. Murray & Yónatan M. P. Ereira (eds.), Proceedings of the 5th World Conference in Metaphysics), Fondazione Idente di Studi e di Ricerca. pp. 0.
Doxastic doubt, fiducial doubt, and Christian faith. A response to Gunter Zimmermann.Rik Peels - 2007 - Neue Zeitschrift für Systematicsche Theologie Und Religionsphilosophie 49 (2):183-198.
The emperor's new 'knows'.Kent Bach - 2005 - In Gerhard Preyer & Georg Peter (eds.), Contextualism in Philosophy: Knowledge, Meaning, and Truth. Oxford University Press. pp. 51--89.
Analytics
Added to PP
2013-10-27
Downloads
148 (#86,876)
6 months
20 (#55,655)
2013-10-27
Downloads
148 (#86,876)
6 months
20 (#55,655)
Historical graph of downloads
Author's Profile
Citations of this work
Epistemic Injustice and Illness.Ian James Kidd & Havi Carel - 2016 - Journal of Applied Philosophy 34 (2):172-190.
Epistemic Injustice in Healthcare: A Philosophical Analysis.Ian James Kidd & Havi Carel - 2014 - Medicine, Health Care and Philosophy 17 (4):529-540.
Investigating modes of being in the world: an introduction to Phenomenologically grounded qualitative research.Allan Køster & Anthony Vincent Fernandez - 2021 - Phenomenology and the Cognitive Sciences:1-21.
Loneliness and the Emotional Experience of Absence.Tom Roberts & Joel Krueger - 2021 - Southern Journal of Philosophy 59 (2):185-204.
Affective affordances and psychopathology.Joel Krueger & Giovanna Colombetti - 2018 - Discipline Filosofiche 2 (18):221-247.