Season five of our podcast continues with another presentation from our 2020 annual conference: ‘Engaged Phenomenology’ Online. This episode features Jan Halák and Petr Kříž as co-authors and co-presenters. Halák is from Palacky University Olomouc, Czech Republic, and Kříž is from Charles University, Prague, and Palacky University Olomouc, Czech Republic.
ABSTRACT: This paper clarifies the significance of Merleau-Ponty’s phenomenological account of the body for physiotherapeutic practice. Physiotherapists are trained to approach the functioning of the body from an objectivist perspective, but their therapeutic interaction with patients is not limited to an application of natural-scientific explanations. Analogically, they often perceive mechanistic models of bodily functioning as insufficient, yet they generally lack an appropriate theoretical framework to formalize and systematically describe their experience. We argue that physiotherapists’ practice well corresponds to Merleau-Ponty’s theorization of the body as the bearer of an original bodily intentionality and makes it possible to elaborate it further. On the one hand, the practice of physiotherapy corroborates Merleau-Ponty’s critical arguments against objectivist interpretations of the body. For example, norms of optimal corporeal functioning are highly individual and variable, and thus do not depend on generic physiological structures in a direct way; correspondingly, objectively measurable physical deviations rarely correspond to specific subjective difficulties; and similarly, a patient’s reflexive insight into his or her motor deficiencies does not necessarily produce significant motor improvements. Physiotherapeutic procedures can therefore be understood neither as an expert mechanical manipulation with a patient’s machine-like body nor as a process of instructing the patient’s consciousness to manipulate it in that way. On the other hand, physiotherapeutic practice can draw on Merleau-Ponty’s positive suggestion to understand motor disorders as modifications of bodily intentionality. Conceived in this way, physiotherapy approaches motor disorders as bodily mis-understandings or failures to optimally deal with motor requirements of a situation. Correspondingly, the therapeutical process itself becomes an inter-corporeal dialogue or bodily empathy. In the course of this process, a richer motor intentionality of the therapist takes up the patient’s limited, less adaptable, and more laborious intentionality, and guides it to discovering better ways of grasping a situation as meaningful through particular postures and movements.
BIOS:
Jan Halák, Ph.D., works as assistant professor at the Department of Philosophy, Palacky University Olomouc, Czech Republic. His scientific interests are in phenomenology, enactivism, and philosophy of embodiment. He has published several papers on Merleau-Ponty, with a special focus on Merleau-Ponty’s Collège de France period, his interpretation of the concept of body schema, and the corporeal infrastructure of higher cognitive processes. Jan Halák also published several translations of Merleau-Ponty’s works into Czech language (e.g. Resumés de cours). Dr. Halák is now working on a monograph on Merleau-Ponty’s ontology based on the concept of flesh.
Petr Kříž is a physiotherapist, doctoral student of philosophy at Charles University, Prague, and research associate at Palacky University Olomouc, Czech Republic. His thesis aims to develop a new theoretical framework for physiotherapy on the basis of a phenomenological interpretation of bodily intentionality. His scientific interests are in motor intentionality and its pathologies, differentiation of body schema, bodily empathy, and the expressivity of the body. Apart from several papers written in Czech, Petr Kříž has recently published an English paper on “Merleau-Ponty’s Discovery of the Pre-objective Body and Its Consequences for Body-Oriented Disciplines” (Sport, Ethics and Philosophy, 2019).
This recording is taken from the BSP Annual Conference 2020 Online: 'Engaged Phenomenology'. Organised with the University of Exeter and sponsored by Egenis and the Wellcome Centre for Cultures and Environments of Health. BSP2020AC was held online this year due to global concerns about the Coronavirus pandemic. For the conference our speakers recorded videos, our keynotes presented live over Zoom, and we also recorded some interviews online as well. Podcast episodes from BSP2020AC are soundtracks of those videos where we and the presenters feel the audio works as a standalone: https://www.britishphenomenology.org.uk/bsp-annual-conference-2020/
You can check out our forthcoming events here:
https://www.britishphenomenology.org.uk/events/
The British Society for Phenomenology is a not-for-profit organisation set up with the intention of promoting research and awareness in the field of Phenomenology and other cognate arms of philosophical thought. Currently, the society accomplishes these aims through its journal, events, and podcast. Why not find out more, join the society, and subscribe to our journal the JBSP? https://www.britishphenomenology.org.uk/
Prabhsharanbir Singh - The Auseinandersetzung with Colonialism and the Oblivion of Other Beginnings in Heidegger’s History of Being
Salvatore Spina - “Sacrificing for Being”: Opfer and Seinsfrage in Heidegger’s Black Notebooks
Lin Ma - On the Double Role of Going-Under in the History of Beyng – Thinking beneath and beyond Heidegger’s Ponderings in the Black Notebooks
Matthew Kruger-Ross - What can Heidegger teach us? After the Black Notebooks
Gülben Salman - From Pseudos to Falsum: Heidegger on Truth
Niall Keane - The World as Natural or Abysmal? The Threat of Naturalism and the History of Beyng
Babette Babich - Heidegger on Nietzsche’s ‘Rediscovery’ of the Greeks: Machenschaft and Seynsgeschichte in the Black Notebooks
Ullrich Haase - How can the Black Notebooks Enlighten us about the Question for the History of Being?
Zeigam Azizov – Without Origins: Husserl’s ‘temporal objects’ in the light of nonessentialist thinking
Tingwen Li – What If We Exclude Ready-mades from the Artworld?
Tarjej Larsen – Husserl's Circularity Argument for the Epoché
Rona Cohen – “Taking Flesh” in Heidegger: On Dasein’s Bodying Forth
Rhoda Ellis – Being, the Gallery and Virtual Reality: An Artist’s Take on Building
Philip Tovey – Temporal range, future mandate and strategic shaping; the existential and cognitive phenomenological ethics of preventative policing
Peter Wilson – Phenomenology and causal entities in psychiatry
Marcel Dubovec – The Inner Structure of Heidegger’s Concept of Freedom
Lorenzo Girardi – The Constitution of the One World: Faith in Husserl’s Philosophy
Julio Andrade – Normative provisionality as a means to navigate Levinasian infinite responsibility
James Rakoczi – Moving without movement: Merleau-Ponty’s “I can” in cases of global paralysis
Jack Price – Adorno and Scheler on Action and Experience
Join Podbean Ads Marketplace and connect with engaged listeners.
Advertise Today
Create your
podcast in
minutes
It is Free
Positive Thinking Mind
In the Great Khan’s Tent
Visualize Meditations
The Mel Robbins Podcast
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast