(Dis)Appropriating (the) Body

Abstract

This chapter weighs the importance, or the fundamentality, of the body in Patočka’s phenomenology. After summarizing Patočka’s interpretation of Husserl’s approach to the body, I turn to the mind-body problem as discussed by Patočka in his war manuscripts: analogically to the approach presented in his late lectures on Husserl, also there Patočka takes for granted that “what takes place in the body through the body belongs to my I.” But, in his late studies, Patočka presupposes neither the methodological priority of the I nor the gap between the I and the world to be bridged by the body. Critically assessing Barbaras’ and Novotný’s interpretations of Patočka’s late concept of the body, and taking into account the concept of the movement of existence, I emphasize that not all activities of the human being should be conceived of as being centred around and performed by the body, and hence that one can meaningfully distinguish between the body and “the soul.” The body bestows the I with its life, thus making possible its being, but this being transcends the body. Simultaneously, however, the body eludes existence.