The Body

I have recently argued that a duality that is more fundamental than the traditional 'Mind-Body' contrast is the Cognition-Volition dichotomy. One impediment to achieving that deeper insight has been the use of the notion 'Body' to account for our physical nature. Such a static concept completely falsifies the dynamic quality of corporeality, suggesting the existence of an inanimate object that is independent of its various motions. One point of agreement between the Book of Genesis and Aristotle is their subscription to that concept. Even Spinoza inadvertently validates it, when he defines 'Mind' as the 'Idea of the Body'. What would be more precise is a definition of 'Body' as the 'Idea of Motility'. For, 'Body' is the image of motile corporeality, which is hardly to assert that such an image is an extraneous abstraction for the organism. The unification of bodily motions into a single image, by reflection, is of fundamental homeostatic organic significance, grounding, e. g., the coordination of physical motions essential to any activity. However, to treat such stasis as of the Ontological essence of our corporeality is only to contribute to the denigration of our physicality that has for millennia been so damaging to the understanding of human nature.