We sometimes, rather strangely perhaps, talk of ‘my body’ or of ‘our bodies.’ I suggest that this is strange because we are bodies. We and our bodies are a unity. To talk in that way implies some sort of separation or distancing when there is none. In this way of speaking, the mind seems to be looking from a vantage point elsewhere, a place that is not part of its body or part of its physical self.
Hannah Arendt (1906-1975), in The Origins of Totalitarianism, spoke of how totalitarianism splits one’s name from one’s body. She suggests that once you are just a body, you become superfluous as a person. Your body is an object separated from yourself as a person. It is just another body without its unique personality or identity.
This was something also found addressed by Aristotle (384–322 BC) and by Arendt’s mentor/lover Martin Heidegger (1889-1976). These thinkers considered there to be two aspects to human life:
- the animal/physical or bios, and
- the social/political/legal life of the named (identified) person
Both coincide; present at the same time. This must be recognised. To address one without the other, even inadvertently, is to fall into a totalitarian sort of mindset. This may not be intentional, but the effects can nevertheless be stark. On one level it can lead to philosophical error and flawed reasoning. But there is another practical area for concern.
The medical profession used to be heavily criticised for its attitude to patients whom it was genuinely trying to help. Focused upon cure via the treatment of causal lesions, the person who had the lesion was often forgotten. I once even heard a nurse refer quite loudly, and in the hearing of other staff and patients, to the ‘torticolis in cubical three’. Thus, patients felt somewhat like objects. In those days they were reluctant to complain. They felt powerless. In the UK, things have changed. (I sometimes think that now people complain unduly.) Complaints are more likely to be about how ‘I’ was treated rather than how ‘my body’ was treated.
Considering our various faculties, we say ‘I see’, ‘I hear’, etc. It is always 'I'. It is not ‘my eye sees’, ‘my ear hears’, etc. We see as if through one 'cyclopean' (singular) eye situated between our two eyes and yet rely on binocular vision to help us locate things in space. We hear in stereo – especially through headphones, again helping us locate things in space. But this time there does not seem to be a single point of hearing midway between the two ears.
We also think as if we had one mind, and yet different parts of the brain perform different tasks. Our faculties are not equally distributed throughout the brain in which they appear to reside. The brain is not a homogeneous entity. It is an anatomical composite of numerous nuclei and neural pathways. There is no obvious place where ‘I’ reside.
In the past, other parts of the body were considered to be the seats of various emotions. The obvious is the association of the heart with love. This association lingers. But from a knowledge of Shakespeare, the liver, spleen, and gall bladder immediately spring to mind as having different human qualities associated with them.
Now, all these qualities have retreated into the multiplicity that is the brain. What are we to make of such a thing as the brain the first time we dissect, knowing that all aspects of a person were once located there?
