Overcoming the Philosophy/Life, Body/Mind Rift: Demonstrating Yoga as embodied-lived-philosophical-practice

Educational Philosophy and Theory 46 (1):1-13 (2014)
  Copy   BIBTEX

Abstract

Philosophy’s essence depicted by Socrates lies in its role as pedagogy for living, yet its traditional treatment of ‘body’ as a hindrance to ‘knowledge’ in fact severs it from life, transforming it into ‘an escape from life’.The philosophy/life dichotomy is thus an inherent flaw preventing philosophy as traditionally taught and engaged in, from fulfilling its original goal. Recent rejections of the Cartesian nature of Western curriculum, such as O’Loughlin’s ‘Embodiment and Education: Exploring creatural existence’, constitute an important theoretical paradigm shift, yet still fail to translate to substantial pedagogies which explore the ‘body’ and its relation to ‘mind’ directly. This article suggests a reorientation of philosophy teaching from its present disembodied pedagogy, towards an embodied-lived-philosophicalpractice. By the description and exemplification of modern postural yoga I will depict the twofold role of the ‘body’ in philosophy teaching: 1) The ‘body’ as pedagogical vehicle serving the emergence of philosophical discourse, and 2) The body as yielding livingness to mean embodied-lived-philosophy as opposed to disembodied-lofty-philosophical escape from life. It will thus be suggested that yoga be incorporated as an integral part of philosophy teaching reclaiming its educational ethos.

Links

PhilArchive



    Upload a copy of this work     Papers currently archived: 90,593

External links

Setup an account with your affiliations in order to access resources via your University's proxy server

Through your library

Similar books and articles

Illness and the paradigm of lived body.S. Kay Toombs - 1988 - Theoretical Medicine and Bioethics 9 (2).
Life as yoga: discourses at Chorwad.Vimala Thakar - 1977 - Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass.
Inside/outside: Merleau-ponty/yoga.Sundar Sarukkai - 2002 - Philosophy East and West 52 (4):459-478.
Thinking through the Body.Jaclyn Rohel - 2009 - Teaching Philosophy 32 (3):263-284.
The social body: habit, identity and desire.Nick Crossley - 2001 - Thousand Oaks, Calif.: SAGE.
Body and practice in Kant.Helge Svare - 2006 - Dordrecht: Springer.
Medicine and paradigms of embodiment.Drew Leder - 1984 - Journal of Medicine and Philosophy 9 (1):29-44.
Pressing the flesh: A tension in the study of the embodied, embedded mind.Andy Clark - 2008 - Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 76 (1):37–59.

Analytics

Added to PP
2012-01-18

Downloads
58 (#248,081)

6 months
2 (#668,348)

Historical graph of downloads
How can I increase my downloads?

References found in this work

The Structure of Scientific Revolutions.Thomas Samuel Kuhn - 1962 - Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Edited by Otto Neurath.
The Structure of Scientific Revolutions.Thomas S. Kuhn - 1962 - Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press. Edited by Ian Hacking.
The Principles of Psychology.William James - 1890 - London, England: Dover Publications.
Phenomenology of perception.Maurice Merleau-Ponty - 1945 - Atlantic Highlands, New Jersey: The Humanities Press. Edited by Donald A. Landes.
Phenomenology of Perception.Maurice Merleau-Ponty - 1945 - New York: Routledge. Edited by Donald A. Landes.

View all 24 references / Add more references