Corporality: From Commonality to Structurality
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.21847/2411-3093.6310Keywords:
body, mind, soul, models of corporeality, transhumanist technologiesAbstract
The article conducts a philosophical and ethical investigation into the interaction between human corporeality and the technologies that transform it. As the focus on these technologies shifts, the understanding of the model of corporeality changes as well. An analysis of historical teachings about the essence of corporeality and its structural components is carried out, allowing for the determination of the limits of changes that do not distort human nature. The relationship between corporeality and spirituality in various philosophical traditions and spiritual practices is also examined. The contribution of Rene Descartes to the doctrine of corporeality is highlighted, as he approached this duality from a new perspective, using analytical methods to identify patterns in the existence of the bodily and the spiritual. He concluded that matter has the property of divisibility, while spirituality is indivisible. Corporeality has structural elements, whereas the spiritual does not possess such characteristics, which allowed for a reevaluation of corporeality and the application of a new methodology for study. Over time, structurality began to transform into functionality as an expression of corporeality. This led to the formation of doctrines, one of which viewed humans as functioning soulless machines (block-functional model), while another approach contributed to the emergence of cellular theory (ontogenetic-epistemological), as one of the key directions in the study of human corporeality.
The article examines the views on corporeality of Plato and Aristotle, focusing on their interpretation of the model of the immortality of the soul after physical death. It reveals the connections between body and spirit in the models of G.-W.-F. Hegel (the concept of interiorization) and F.-W. Nietzsche (the formation of the soul). The perspectives on corporeality by J. Baudrillard ("differentiated prosthesis", "matrix of simulation", "body as an object of fetishization") and the socio-cultural constructions of corporeality in the teachings of J.-P. Sartre, E.-G.-A. Husserl, and M. Merleau-Ponty are also discussed. Additionally, a philosophical analysis of the understanding of immortality is conducted. The article examines the influence of neuroscience on cognitive activity and bodily experiences, the expansion of embodiment beyond the physical body, CRISPR technologies, and the impact of virtual reality on existentialism.
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