Abstract

Russon proposes an intriguing project: a phenomenology of embodiment that uses Hegel's Phenomenology of Spirit as its text and structure—a Phänomenologie des Körpers from Hegel's Phänomenologie des Geistes. What we are given is not commentary or secondary literature on Hegel's text; rather, Russon is making philosophical use of Hegel's dialectical narrative and conceptual framework in an independent theoretical enterprise. Nonetheless, this remains a recognizably Hegelian undertaking. Accordingly, we should not be surprised to find that Russon's phenomenology of the body is intended, in its way, as a rationalization of the body—"the rational comprehension of human embodiment". Indeed, Russon claims that the culmination of embodiment lies in a logical moment: the body is to become mind, to be comprehended in what Russon calls the logos, the topic of Hegelian logic. We are even told, at a late stage in the dialectic, that "to be is to be a sign".