The transcendental aesthetic and the lived-body

pp. 247-314

in: Michela Summa, Spatio-temporal intertwining, Berlin, Springer, 2014

Abstract

This chapter discusses how the spatio-temporal intertwining is implied in the phenomenology of bodily experience. This is done by focusing on both the role of the body as the organ of perception and the so-called "aesthetic of the lived body", namely the sensible self-experience and constitution of a bodily subject. A substantial account of bodily-aesthetic constitution is developed by arguing that subjectivity shall be fundamentally understood as bodily and that bodily experience shall be considered in its spatio-temporal unfolding. The analyses are particularly focused on the situatedness of bodily experience, on the role of bodily movement, on the dynamic and sensible self-relatedness of bodily subjectivity, and on body memory. These analyses provide further evidence supporting the claim that spatiality and temporality cannot be considered as parallel dimensions of experience, rather being originally interwoven. Eventually, the survey of bodily experience and its indispensable role in sensible constitution allows us to better characterize the dynamics of sensible experience and to reformulate the question of facticity taken as the necessity of an experiential Faktum.