The Absent Body (4)

The body plays a central role in shaping our experience of the world.Why, then, are we so frequently oblivious to our own bodies?We gaze at the world, but rarely see our own eyes. We may be unable to explain how we perform the simplest of acts.We are even less aware of our internal organs and the physiological processes that keep us alive.In this fascinating work, Drew Leder examines all the ways in which the body is absent-forgotten, alien, uncontrollable, obscured.In part 1, Leder explores a wide range of bodily functions with an eye to structures of concealment and alienation.He discusses not only perception and movement, skills and tools, but a variety of "bodies" that philosophers tend to overlook: the inner body with its anonymous rhythms; the sleeping body into which we nightly lapse; the prenatal body from which we first came to be.Leder thereby seeks to challenge "primacy of perception." In part 2, Leder shows how this phenomenology allows us to rethink traditional concepts of