Key Arguments

• He notes that focusing on objective bodies brings the question of our own body back: “First, the question of our own body returns to the forefront, no longer simply in terms of our be longing to a single spatiotemporal schema, but in terms of the relation of our own body to the objective world of bodies.”
• He points out that in a “strictly referential problematic, without explicit self-designation, there is not actually any problem of the lived body,” reducing reflection to a minimal observation.
• He quotes Strawson’s minimal statement: “One has to confine oneself to the following observation: "That which one calls one's body is, at least, a body, a mate rial thing" (Individuals, p. 89).”
• He then insists on what this misses: “This is true, but the body is mine in a sense that assumes that the logical force of the self is acknowledged.”

Source Quotes

Numerous difficulties, however, arise from this strategic decision to at tack the problem of the person by way of that of objective bodies situated in one and the same spatiotemporal framework. First, the question of our own body returns to the forefront, no longer simply in terms of our be longing to a single spatiotemporal schema, but in terms of the relation of our own body to the objective world of bodies. In a strictly referential problematic, without explicit self-designation, there is not actually any problem of the lived body.

First, the question of our own body returns to the forefront, no longer simply in terms of our be longing to a single spatiotemporal schema, but in terms of the relation of our own body to the objective world of bodies. In a strictly referential problematic, without explicit self-designation, there is not actually any problem of the lived body. One has to confine oneself to the following observation: "That which one calls one's body is, at least, a body, a mate rial thing" (Individuals, p.

In a strictly referential problematic, without explicit self-designation, there is not actually any problem of the lived body. One has to confine oneself to the following observation: "That which one calls one's body is, at least, a body, a mate rial thing" (Individuals, p. 89). This is true, but the body is mine in a sense that assumes that the logical force of the self is acknowledged.

89). This is true, but the body is mine in a sense that assumes that the logical force of the self is acknowledged. Second, disqualifying mental events and consciousness from occupying the posi tion of basic particulars, hence from that of logical subject, has as its coun terpart the increased concealment of the question of the self.

Key Concepts

• First, the question of our own body returns to the forefront, no longer simply in terms of our be longing to a single spatiotemporal schema, but in terms of the relation of our own body to the objective world of bodies.
• In a strictly referential problematic, without explicit self-designation, there is not actually any problem of the lived body.
• "That which one calls one's body is, at least, a body, a mate rial thing" (Individuals, p. 89).
• This is true, but the body is mine in a sense that assumes that the logical force of the self is acknowledged.

Context

Having expounded the advantages of Strawson’s bodily starting point, Ricoeur begins his critical assessment by showing that, within a purely referential semantics, the distinctive ‘mineness’ and phenomenology of one’s own body cannot be adequately articulated.