Topographies of the Body

The body has to be re-described in a new manner. It forms the focus of the intended project which aims precisely at such a new description by reading together three authors: Maurice Merleau-Ponty, Jacques Lacan, and Michel Foucault. Thus, three different methodological approaches will be related to each other. For in view of a reductionist tendency in specific discourses of the body, a critical theory of the body requires different approaches. The phenomenological approach accounts particularly for experiential reference and for the body as lived body; the psychoanalytical approach enables the inclusion of unconscious formations; finally, the genealogical account leads to the body in its historical and social dimensions. Many philosophers, social scientist, and cultural theorists dealing with the topic of the human body consider Merleau-Ponty and Foucault as classical authors regarding theories of the body. The structural-psychoanalytic approach by Jacques Lacan is also a central reference point regarding the topic of the body, especially in the field of cultural studies and feminist theory. As to the topic of the body, these three authors are, however, rarely related to each other in a philosophical manner: that is to say, in light of their theoretical foundations, models, and their origin; consequently, their interconnections and differences have rarely been interpreted in a more comprehensive manner. This project takes this fact into account and will confront the phenomenological analyses of the body by Maurice Merleau-Ponty (and their further elaboration by Bernhard Waldenfels) with the approaches of Michel Foucault and Jacques Lacan. The yield of this project spreads over three realms of foundational research taking as its "leitmotif the body" (Nietzsche). For it will 1. examine interconnections and differences between thematizations of the body in Merleau-Ponty, Lacan, and Foucault; 2. perform conceptual clarifications for psychoanalytic and phenomenological theories of the body, 3. elaborate elements for a critical theory of the body. The title of the project Topographies of the Body foregrounds a particular mode of thinking the body that is spatially oriented. For it is by means of this spatial orientation that one can demonstrate, in spite of the heterogeneity of these three approaches, a common access to the productive potential of these three authors regarding the exploration of the body.

The project was dedicated to the philosophical and psychoanalytical foundations of three conceptualizations of the body in the 20th century. Specific theorems concerning the body and its understanding by Maurice Merleau-Ponty, Jacques Lacan and Michel Foucault were examined. The aim was to identify exemplary critical aspects that currently have to be taken into account when involving the body into theoretical and practical contexts. The following theses guided the investigations of the project: (1) in many current references to the body, the body is reduced to its materiality in Cartesian terms (e.g. overemphasis on biological relationships in medicine). Or it is declared a mere construct of discourses, reduced to an exclusively linguistic form (e.g. overemphasis on the constructiveness of gender). (2) Merleau-Ponty, Lacan and Foucault conceptualize the relationship of psyche and body, of subject and world, of inside and outside, radically new and anti-Cartesian, without seeking refuge in a new immediacy or harmonious unity of the body. (3) A critical theory of the body requires various methodological approaches: The phenomenological approach in the wake of Merleau-Ponty focuses on the experiential reference of the lived body and the indispensable first-person perspective. Lacan's psychoanalytical approach extends this experiential reference to the structure of the unconscious and to topological attempts to locate the subject with its body in a three-dimensional field of tension. Michel Foucault's historical-genealogical approach brings the historical and social dimension of any practice more into focus. For in view of the evidently great virulence of the body theme in the present, it is particularly important to point out the historicity of body concepts. All three approaches prove to be suitable for underlining the relay character of the body for many contemporary questions. In order to also be able to take into account criticism of the approaches among themselves, the project did not aim for a great synthesis. Methodologically, the procedure was oriented towards the creation of topographies (Waldenfels) for the exploration of locally limited body-theoretical connections. The project provided philosophical foundations in the interpretation of concepts concerning the lived body/body by Merleau-Ponty, Lacan and Foucault with special emphasis on spatial aspects. On the one hand, the contributions of the three authors, some of which have just been published, but whose systematics have so far received too little attention, were hermeneutically examined. In doing so, it was possible, for example, to highlight the continuing potential of Merleau-Ponty's concept of body and flesh, of Lacan's extensive conceptualization of the real in his late work, or of Foucault's analyses of disciplining, normalization, and bio-power. On the other hand, the approaches were also used in combination to present alternative ways of thinking about the body and thus expand the body-theoretical research framework.