How the Body Shapes the Mind is an exercise in philosophy of mind as a partner of the empirical
cognitive sciences. Gallagher tries to contribute to a better understanding of
embodiment in the cognitive sciences by developing a conceptual framework that
allows to deal better with existing theories and new empirical results. In
large parts the book presents and comments on some known and some more recent
results on our knowledge of our body and corresponding case histories of
pathologies.

Gallagher’s main idea is to provide vocabulary that is able to relate
the subpersonal vocabulary of the neurophysiologist with the mentalistic
vocabulary of psychology or phenomenological philosophy. Phenomenology talks of
acts of conscious thinking or perception, so called ‘noetic acts’ which have some
intentional object (the so called ‘noema’). Neurophysiology rather talks of
action potentials, dynamic processes and — maybe — representations. It is
difficult to see how to go directly from phenomenology to neurological
accounts. Gallagher’s ‘vocabulary of embodiment’ is framed to bridge this gap.
Gallagher sees a lot of pre-processing going on as ‘prenoetic processes’ which
although non-conscious are intimately related to the content of succeeding
noetic acts and thus should not be considered merely as ‘dynamical processes’
of the neurological level. The concepts used to describe representational
structures at that level are neither clearly neurological nor clearly
phenomenological. So they occupy an intermediate terrain in cognitive
architecture. The two central concepts in the context of embodiment are ‘body
image’ and ‘body scheme’.

The body image is a mental representation that at least in parts is
accessible to consciousness. It cannot be put completely on the mentalistic
side because it involves a system of (direct) perceptions and feelings
pertaining to one’s own body. We can reflect on our body image as a set of
beliefs pertaining to our own bodies.

The body scheme is a set of dispositions that direct our embodied
behavior. The body scheme is not directly accessible to consciousness.
Nonetheless it is not reducible within a neurophysiological explanation of
motor control, since it is accessed and engaged, for example, in support of our
pragmatic intentions and corresponding environmental clues. The body schema
involves motor capacities and habits as well as the maintenance of posture.

Gallagher sees a major problem of cognitive science in a confusion of
body image and body scheme. Only if the two are clearly kept apart can we
answer questions like how much of our implicit knowledge of our own body is
innate or culturally shaped. One may say, for example, ‘The concept of body
image helps to answer the first question about the appearance of the body in
the perceptual field; in contrast, the concept of body schema helps to answer
the question about how the body shapes the perceptual field.’ (18)

The difference between body image and body scheme is Gallagher’s main
device to (as he calls it) ‘redefine the terrain’ of research and theory.
Gallagher finds support for this strategy of conceptual invention and
differentiation in a couple of case and problems within the cognitive sciences:

1. Prenatal bodily movement is already
   organized along the lines of our human shape. Infants are capable of
   imitating the gestures that they see on the face of another person, only
   minutes after birth. The body schema is innate, it seems. One may speak
   here of a ‘proprioceptive self’ (83) that precedes the development of the
   self-concept.
2. Proprioception is part of an intermodal
   non-conscious acquiring of information. The body is the source of
   spatiality and centring of the perceptual field. This involves a
   not-acquired/immediate experiential reference to one’s body that is built
   into the structures of perception and action.
3. Body image and body schema develop
   independently as ontogenetic studies show.
4. Pathological conditions reveal that there
   are impairments of body image or body schema separately. There are
   subjects with intact body image but impaired body schema, who thus have to
   control all their body movements consciously, and vice versa.
5. The sense of ownership we experience in
   action depends non-observational and non-reflexive access to our actions.
   The body scheme is effective in carrying out actions by involving a
   complete representation of the body whereas the body image never is
   conscious of the body as a whole. The question of ownership is already
   settled by the body schema. The body image is operational is focused
   intentional action. When the body is ‘experientially transparent’ in
   intentional action, which focuses on the pragmatic meaning of the action
   not its bodily execution, this is due to the body schema.
6. The body image is open to biographical
   change. It may, for example, incorporate artificial body parts.
7. Our perception of others sees them
   directly as embodied as we are ourselves. This can even be traced down to
   mirror neurons. Understanding others is neither mere theory nor mere
   simulation — as two main theories in the philosophy of mind have it —
   but ‘a form of embodied practise’ (208). In thinking about what the other
   sees an immediate translation of perspectives is achieved at the level of
   body schema.

© 2005 Manuel Bremer

Manuel Bremer, Heinrich-Heine-Universität Düsseldorf, Germany

Categories: Philosophical, Psychology