RT Article
T1 Merleau-Ponty's phenomenal body and the study of religion
JF Religion
VO 55
IS 1
SP 243
OP 274
A1 Nikkel, David Henry 1952-
LA English
YR 2025
UL https://ixtheo.de/Record/1915313112
AB In opposition to dualism of mind over against body and matter, Maurice Merleau-Ponty offers his experiential, lived, or ‘phenomenal’ body. Meaning, in the sense of both knowledge and value, arises from our embodied engagement and mutual constitution with our natural-social world. This article argues that two types of understandings of the nature of the body are still common in religious studies, which reinscribe Cartesian dualism by opting for one side or the other. Using Merleau-Ponty's language, these are the ‘intellectualist’ body and the ‘empiricist’ body, the first reducing meaning to mind or language that controls or inscribes bodies, the second minimizing or eliminating meaning through reductive, mechanistic, physiological causation. The constructive portion of this article engages with scholars in accord with Merleau-Ponty’s phenomenal body, who work on ways to study religion as embodied, expounding upon enactive, emplaced cognition and meanings, religious or extraordinary experiences, ritual, and the evolution of religion.
K1 Evolution
K1 Religious Experience
K1 Place
K1 Meaning
K1 empiricist body
K1 intellectualist body
K1 radical embodiment
K1 Phenomenal body
DO 10.1080/0048721X.2024.2420513