My Body 

Eduardo Jose E. Calasanz (2012) 

 
From P
​ hilosophy of Man: Selected Readings​, edited and translated by Manuel B. Dy, Jr. 
(Quezon City, Phils.: Katha Publishing Co., Inc., 2012), pp. 90-97. 
 
Any philosophy of man is a systematic and holistic attempt to answer the question of 
"who am I?" In our day-to-day life, we may be so engrossed in our activities that we do 
not bother anymore to question what seems clear and obvious to us. The question of 
"Who am I?" is such a case. It is surprising to ask this to ourselves. At first glance, isn’t 
this question so simple? What could be clearer and obvious to us than the reality of our 
“I”? But this is only at first glance, from a superficial and uncritical natural attitude. 
Certain events in our life (like sickness, failures, death) can awaken us and bring us to 
the limits of our ordinary experience. And then, the once-so-simple question deepens, 
begins to complicate, and beckons on us: Who am I? 

[2] An important aspect in answering this question is the experience of my body. If I 

were asked about myself, my answers inescapably have reference to my body. What are 
you? Man, because I have a form, activities, and a body of a man. Who are you? I am 
Juan Santos; tall, mestizo-looking, long-haired, with small ears and a big belly due to 
beer-drinking ​(isa -pa-nga?). W
​ here am I? Here, where my body is; look at me, look at my 
body. In these ways, I seem to say I am my body. 

[3] But there are times too that I recognize that I am not just my body. I am a man 
also because I have an understanding and mind of man. When I say to my parents, "I 
love you!" this one loving them is not just this tall-mestizo-looking-long-haired-with- 
small-ears-fat-belly-etc. body of mine but my whole spirit and will. And it can happen 
that while my body is in room B-109, listening to a boring lecture on the theories of 
Lobachevski or the poems of Chairil Anwar, I am taking a walk at the beach, along with 
my sweetheart, watching the sunset. 

[4] On one hand, I recognize an intimate relation of myself with my body, and thus 
truly say: ​I am my body​. Yet, on the other hand, I also know that I cannot reduce my 
whole humanity to my body. I am also spirit and will: my body is only something I have: 
I have a body​. What is the meaning of this paradox? 

Calasanz, page 1 
Some Answers from the History of Philosophy 

[5] Classic Views​. Already in early times, ancient philosophers of Greece tackled the 
question of the human body. What is the body of man? Is it truly a part of his being 
man? Or is it just a contingent “addition” to his self? Is it a bestial imprisonment of the 
human spirit or its perfection? 

[6] According to Plato (ca. 430-350 BC), man is his soul. This is the essence of his 
humanity and the source of all his activities. In the P
​ haedrus​ (246-7), Plato uses the 
following metaphor. The soul is a charioteer of two winged-horses. On is sensible and 
flies high to the heavens to reach the light of truth and goodness. The other comes from 
a bad breed and because of neglect and sinfulness, had lost his wings and fallen to earth 
to assume human form. No wonder heavenly and earthly tendencies are in conflict in 
the spirit of man. The taking of a human body is an unfortunate accident and a cruel 
imprisonment of the free and pure soul. Consequently, Plato states in the P ​ haedo ​(65), 
that the true philosopher strives to evade his body because: 

Surely the soul can best reflect when it is free of all distractions such as hearing 
or sight or pain or pleasure of any kind--that is, when it ignores the body and 
becomes as far as possible independent, avoiding all physical contacts and 
associations as much as it can, in its search for reality. 

In death the true man is freed from his imprisonment to see perfectly the pure light of 
absolute truth. 

[7] For Aristotle (304-322 BC), man is the whole of his body and soul. There is no 
sense in asking if body and soul are one. They are one like the oneness of the ugly and 
his figure. The relation of the body to the soul is the relation of matter to form (​De 
anima​, II, 1). There is no matter that is not informed, the body and soul of man are only 
two aspects of the whole man. In ​De anima​ ​(About the Soul​, I, 1), for example, we read the 
following observation: 

A further problem presented by the affections of the soul is this: are they all 
affections of the complex of body and soul, or is there any one among them 
peculiar to the soul by itself? To determine this is indispensable difficult. If we 
consider the majority of them, there seems to be no case in which the soul can 
act or be acted upon without involving the body; e.g. anger, courage, appetite and 
sensation generally. Thinking seems the most probable exception; but if this too 
proves to be a form of imagination or to be impossible without imagination, it 
too requires a body as a condition of its existence. 

Calasanz, page 2 
[8] The Christian philosophers of the Middle Ages also dealt on the question of 
man’s body. In the ​De Civitate Dei​ ​(City of God​, XIX, 3​)​, St. Augustine (354-430) mentions 
that man can be divided into body and soul, and no doubt the soul is more real and more 
important. But is it only the soul that is man, and its relation to the body similar to the 
relation of the charioteer to his horse? This is not possible, because the charioteer is not 
a charioteer without the horse; similarly the soul is not a soul if it is not the soul of a 
body. Is it possible that only the body is man, and its relation to the soul similar to the 
relation of the jar with the water? Neither is this possible, because the end of the jar is 
to be filled with water and the end likewise of the body is to be filled with the soul. Man 
is the unity of body and soul, and he can exist only as this unity. 

[9] The great St. Thomas Aquinas (1224-1274) in the S​ umma Theologiae​ (Ia, 74, 4) also 
said that the soul is not man: "For just as it belongs to the nature of this particular man 
to be composed of this soul, of this flesh, and of these bones, so it belongs to the nature 
of man to be composed of soul, flesh, and bones." And in another place, he further states 
that although the body is not part of the essence of the soul, nevertheless the very 
essence of the soul inherently needs to be one with the body (​Ibid​. Ia, 75, 7). 

[10] It is Rene Descartes (1596-1650) who sets forth the kind of questioning regarding 
the human body in the present history of philosophy. A prominent French philosopher 
and mathematician, he is considered the father of modern philosophy and analytic 
geometry. In M​ editationes de prima philosophia (Meditations on First Philosophy​, 1), 
Descartes explains the profound and real difference between the body and soul of man. 
In the first meditation, he states the methodic doubt (​ dubium methodicum)​: we should 
doubt all that we know because, first, they come from our senses which can be mistaken 
or can deceive us, and second, these can be just the result of a dream. Even the certain 
and universal truths of religion and mathematics I can think of only as imaginary, the 
work of a bad spirit (​Ibid.​, I). 

[11] In the second meditation, Descartes shows that even if I use the methodic doubt, 
there is one truth that I can not deny or doubt: I think, therefore, I am ​(Cogito, ergo sum)​. 
Even if I fully deny or doubt this, I only prove by my denial and doubt that I am thinking 
and existing. Descartes continues to ask, “But what is this I that I have proven to exist?” 
And his answer: "A thinking being (​ res cogitans)​. What is a thinking being? It is a being 
which doubts, which understands, which affirms, which denies, which wills, which 
rejects, which imagines also, and which perceives" (​Ibid.,​ II). 

[12] In the last meditation, Descartes adds that even if we can prove the reality of the 
world and material things, the real essence of man is still different from his body. He 
stresses: 

Calasanz, page 3 
 And although perhaps, or rather certainly, as I will soon show, I have a body with 
which I am very closely united, nevertheless, since on the one hand I have a clear 
and distinct idea of myself in so far as I am only a thinking and not an extended 
being (​ res extensa)​, and since on the other hand, I have a distinct idea of body in so 
far as it is only an extended being which does not think, It is certain that this “I” 
(that is to say, my soul, by virtue of which I am what I am) is entirely (and truly) 
distinct from my body, and that it can (be or) exist without it (​Ibid​. VI). 

[13] At first glance, for Descartes, man’s body is just a material thing, extended, and 
as such does not seem to differ from a complex machine like a computerized robot. Yet 
Descartes himself also admits that the answer is not as simple as that. He mentions, 
again in M
​ editationes​, that we can not say, for instance, that the relationship of the body 
and soul is like that of the captain and his ship, another metaphor of Plato (​Ibid.​, ​Laws​, 
XII, 961 ). If the ship meets a collision, it is only the ship that is damaged or "hurt," but 
not the captain who simply observes the damage. But when my body is hurt, I do not 
just observe the incident; I am involved. When I am slapped, for instance, by a 
storekeeper in the market with whom I have quarreled, I do not say only my cheeks 
hurt, but ​I​ am hurt. 

[14] If we read Descartes himself, we can see that his inquiry is rather complicated, 
and he does not really say that man is "a ghost inside a machine" (Gilbert Ryle, ​The 
Concept of Mind​ [Hammondsworth: Penguin Books, 1970], pp. 13-25). In several writings 
(letters to Regius, Arnauld and Princess Elisabeth; and in answers to the fourth, fifth, 
and sixth objections), he admits that the body and soul of man is real unity. However, 
this unity itself of the body and soul cannot be known and discussed by philosophy due 
to its inherent ambiguity. In Descartes’ view, the aim of philosophy is to reach clear and 
distinct ideas regarding reality. Mathematical truth is for him the model of 
philosophical truth. But the truth regarding the unity of man’s body and soul of man 
cannot fit into this frame of thinking. Thus, even if Descartes recognizes the unity of 
man’s body and soul as a truth based on experience, he emphasizes that this is not a 
philosophical truth. In a letter to Princess Elizabeth of Bohemia (28 June 1643), he 
summarizes his opinions regarding the matter: 

The soul can be apprehended only by the pure understanding; body, i.e. 
extension, shapes and movements, can also be known by the understanding 
alone, but it is known much better by the understanding aided by the 
imagination; and finally, the things which pertain to the union of the soul and 
the body can be known only obscurely by the understanding alone, and even by 
the understanding aided by the imagination but they are known very clearly by 
the senses. Hence those who never philosophize, and who make use only of their 

Calasanz, page 4 
 senses, do not doubt that the soul moves the body and that the body acts on the 
soul. . . it is in dealing only with life and everyday affairs, and in refraining from 
studying and meditating on things which exercises the imagination, that we 
learn to apprehend the union of the soul and body. 

[15] Gabriel Marcel​. In present times, a number of philosophers, notably the 

phenomenologists, have criticized the philosophy of Descartes. One of them is Gabriel 
Marcel (1889-1973). Like Descartes, Marcel is a Frenchman; but unlike Descartes, he is a 
playwright and musician. His propensity is not the clear and skeletal order of 
mathematics, but life itself and the clear-vague world of drama and music. 

[16] In Marcel's philosophy, man’s embodiment is not simply a datum alongside other 
data, but the primary datum that is the starting point and basis of any philosophical 
reflection. (Marcel summarized his discussions on the body in Chapters 5 and 6 of ​The 
Mystery of Being​, 1, R
​ eflection and Mystery​, translated by G.S. Fraser [Chicago: Henry 
Regnery, 1960].) Descartes's failure, according to Marcel, lies in the imprisonment of his 
methodic doubt which aspires for mathematics-like truths. This way of thinking is on 
the level of primary reflection. In this kind of reflection, I place myself outside of the 
thing that I am inquiring on. An ​ob-jectum​ ("thrown in front"). It has nothing to do with 
myself nor do I have anything to do with it. I've take each of the parts (analysis), study 
their ordering (systematize), and arrive at some clear and fixed ideas regarding the thing 
itself (conceptualize). But in this manner, the body studied in primary reflection is no 
longer my body but a ​ ​ body. "A body" is an objective idea apart from me; I have nothing 
to do with it nor does it have anything to do with my life. This is the body talked about 
in anatomy, physiology, and the other sciences. Because this is an objective and 
universal idea, this can be the body of anybody else, and consequently, of nobody. 

[17] There is a particular value in primary reflection on the body (Medicine, for 
example, would not progress without the sciences that study the human body), but this 
is not the whole truth. In order to come to an understanding of the totality of all that 
exists (and isn’t this the primary aim of philosophy?), we have to go back and root our 
reflection on the concrete experience of ​my​ body. We have to enter into the level of 
secondary reflection. In this kind of reflection, I recognize that I am part of the thing 
that I am investigating, and therefore, my discussion is s​ ub-jective​ ("thrown beneath"). I 
have something to do with it and it has something to do with me. Because I participate 
in the thing, I cannot tear it apart into clear and fixed ideas; I have to describe and bring 
to light its unique wholeness in my concrete experience. In using secondary reflection, 
we discover that what exists is not "a body" but "my body" -- a body full of life, eating, 
sleeping, happy, afflicted, etc.; my body that is uniquely mine alone. 

Calasanz, page 5 
[18] Marcel's philosophy of the body is an inquiry on the meaning of the experience of 
my ​body. 

[19] If we use secondary reflection and recognize the experience of my body as the 
starting point and foundation of our inquiry, we can see that it does not make much 
sense to separate the I and the body and to ask, "What is the relation of the I to the 
body?" The reason is because the body referred to here is no longer "my body" but the 
abstract “a body.” 

[20] But what is meant by m ​ y​ in “my body”? Is it ​my​ of possession ​(avoir)​ that I refer to 
when I talk of “my ballpen” or “my dog”? Is the logic of “I have a body” the same as “I 
have a dog”? 

[21] Marcel shows that in order for me to possess a dog, we must have an inter- 
relationship with each other. I must have a claim, for instance, on the dog: I decide 
when it will stay and I take care of it or have it taken care of. Likewise, the dog must 
recognize my claim over it: it follows me, it loves me or fears me, etc. In short, I must 
have responsibility and control over what I possess. 

[22] At first glance, it seems that this is also the relationship I have with my body. 
First, like having a dog, my body is mine and mine alone. Even in societies where 
slavery exists and the masters own the body of their slaves, the slaves experience that 
this is unjust violates their rights as human beings. If they do not realize this, then we 
can say their humanity is destroyed. Secondly, I have a responsibility over my body and I 
take care of it: I nourish it and let it sleep, bathe it, give it pleasure, etc. The limit of 
these examples is the ascetic who evades whatever pleasures of the body; it is difficult to 
say if he is still included in the experience of “my body”. Thirdly, I have control over my 
body. It can do whatever I want it to do if it can -- sit, walk, go out of the room, drink 
Uncola, talk, etc. -- if I so desire. 

[23] There is validity in linking “I have a body” to “I have a dog,” but there is also a 
limitation. Even if I am intimate with my dog, I cannot deny that our lives are still 
separate. It can be in the house while I'm in the moviehouse; it was born while I was in 
my teens, it may die earlier than I. This is not the case with my body: our location and 
history are inseparable. Wherever I am, there is my body, and wherever my body is, 
there I am too. 

[24] Upon reconsideration of secondary reflection, it does not make sense too to 
consider the relation with my body as only an instrument. If I say I own my body, I treat 
it like an instrument that I possess and use in order to possess and use other things in 

Calasanz, page 6 
the world. Only by means of my body, for instance, can I possess and use this ballpen, 
this table, this car, this building and others. Is my body then an instrument? 

[25] An instrument is an extension or a reinforcing of a power or part of my body. The 

eyeglasses reinforce my sense of sight; the car extends the “ability” of my feet to travel; 
the clothes and building extend our skin; and the hammer further reinforces my hand, 
the computer our brain, and so on. If my body were an instrument, it would need some 
other body that extends and reinforces, and this body would also need another body, and 
thus we would arrive at an unending series of bodies a​ d infinitum​. Clearly this is an 
absurdity that is contrary to our experience. 

[26] For Marcel, the body that I can say I have is a body-object, "a body" that I or 
anybody can use. This is the body by primary reflection of the sciences. But if I treat my 
body as only a possession, it's being ​mine​ loses its meaning. The experience of my body 
is the experience of I-body (​body-subject)​. Here secondary reflection recuperates and 
states that there is no gap between me and my body. In short, I am my body. 

[27] If I say that I am my body, this does not imply that I am the body that is the 
object for others, the body seen, touched, felt by others. Like the dualism of Descartes, 
this materialistic view is imprisoned in the Procrustean bed of primary reflection and 
reduces the experience of my body to the idea of​ “a body.” “I am my body” has only a 
negative meaning. It simply states that I cannot separate my self from my body. My 
being-in-the-world is not the bodily life alone nor the spiritual life alone but the life of 
an embodied spirit ​(etre incarnee)​. 

[28] Marcel admits that it is difficult to conceive of this experience of "my body" in a 
clear and distinct manner. Thinking involves making use of ideas that mediates the 
experience or thing itself investigated. But the experience of "my body" is what Marcel 
calls a "non-instrumental communion." My body cannot be framed in an 
instrumentalist idea, and if I only think of it, I have not really reached the essence of the 
experience. My body is a unity ​sui generis​ and this unity is inconceptualizable. I do not 
think of my body; I feel it. This feeling that makes known my body is termed by Marcel 
as "sympathetic mediation." If we want our thinking to be faithful to experience, we 
need to use concepts that point to this feeling (directional concepts). And this can 
fulfilled only if we enter into secondary reflection and humbly return to the experienced 
reality of ordinary life. 

Calasanz, page 7 
The Life of Embodied Spirit 

[29] We begin our reflection on the experience of my body by recognizing its 

paradoxical character. On the one hand, I could not detach my body from myself; they 
are not two things that happen by chance to be together. Rather, my self is absolutely 
embodied. Likewise, on the other hand, I cannot reduce my self to my body; I ​also 
experience my self as an I-spirit and will that can never be imprisoned in my flesh and 
bones. That is why we can say there are two faces shown in the experience of my body: 
"I have my body" and "I am body." 

[30] It is very tempting for any erudite person, philosopher or scientist, to forget this 
paradox and fix his attention to only one side of the experience. This precisely is the 
danger of any primary reflection: our inquiry becomes clearer and distinct, but we get 
farther away from real experience. The paradox is the experience itself, and this should 
be the one described by philosophy by means of secondary reflection. 

[31] The body as intermediary.​ I experience myself as being-in-the-world through my 

body. My body acts as the intermediary between the self or subject and the world. (In 
this part, I borrow some of William Luijpen's ideas from E
​ xistential Phenomenology 
[Pittsburgh: Duquesne University Press, 1969], pp. 274-82). 

[32] When we use the term i​ ntermediary​, we refer to one of two conflicting meanings. 
If I say, "X is intermediary of Y and Z," I may mean that because of X, Y or Z encounter 
or become closer to each other or come to an agreement. Let us take this example from 
the story of Macario Pineda titled “Kung Baga sa Pamumulaklak.” A young farmer 
named Desto wants to win the hand of the illustrious young lady named Tesang. 
However, he cannot just present himself directly to the lady of his affection to tell her of 
his feeling. He first approaches his uncle Mang Tibo who is the k​ umpare ​of Tesang's 
parents to act as intermediary with Tesang's parents. Only then do Tesang’s parents 
allow Desto to court her. In this situation the intermediary serves as the “bridge” for the 
union of the young man and the lady. 

[33] On the other hand, I can also mean the opposite. I can say that because of X, Y 
and Z are separated. Still with the example of courting, the parents of the girl may stand 
between our affection and prevent our being sweethearts. In the old films of Virgo 
Productions often, Lolita Rodriguez plays the role of the "other woman" who stands 
between the beautiful relationship of the couple Eddie Rodriguez and Marlene Dauden. 
Here, the intermediary is not a bridge but an obstacle. 

[34] Now, when I say my body is the intermediary between my self and the world, I 
refer to the two meanings of intermediary. On the one hand, because of my body, an 

Calasanz, page 8 
encounter and agreement occurs between my self and the world. In reality, the 
encounter of the experience of my self and the experience of the world can only take 
place in the experience of my body. Because of my body, I experience the world as m ​ y 
world​ and we are familiar to each other. Because of my body, the chair I am seating on is 
hard, the sunset is as red as a rose, the effect of the l​ ambanog​ on my empty stomach is 
strong, and the smell of the Pacwood factory in San Pedro, Laguna is like hell. Because 
of my body, I have an experience of "near" and "far," "up" and "below" and many other 
relations in space. The world of man is different from the “world” of the fly because 
their bodies have different frameworks. My body is by nature intentional(directed to the 
world) and creates and discovers meaning that I am conscious of in my existence. Thus, 
because of my body, the whole universe has and reveals a meaning for-me and for-man. 
Through my body, my subjectivity is open to the world and the world is opened to me; 
the world fills me, and I fill the world. 

[35] On the other hand, because of my body, I experience the world as separate from 
me. I am “not-world,” and the world is “not-I.” In the giving-of-meaning-to-the-world 
of my body, I also experience the self as "outside" of the world. I am the one who sees, 
and who gives-name to this or that. My body shows that I am not simply a thing among 
other things in nature. The oneness and wholeness of my body is different from the 
oneness and wholeness of the world. If I did not have this distance from the world, I 
would become only a thing without an interiority, and clearly this view is not true to our 
experience of life. My body participates in but cannot be reduced to the world. 

[36] The body in intersubjectivity​. My body is not only an intermediary between me and 
the world but also between me and others. I show myself to the other and the other 
shows himself to me through my body. 

[37] Because of my body, we interrelate with each other in many different ways -- our 
vision, actions, attitudes, in our rituals, signs and speech. We face each other in anger, 
tenderness, sadness, etc., because we have a body to present. If the other shows wrinkles 
on his forehead, he is indicating dissatisfaction, confusion or disapproval of what I am 
saying. The wry and red appearance of my face is my anger; my fixed-to-the-ground look 
and my sigh are my loneliness. (This is discussed in the chapters on the body in Maurice 
Merleau-Ponty’s ​Phenomenology of Perception​ [London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1962] 
and Jean-Paul Sartre’s ​Being and Nothingness​ [New York: Washington Square Press, Inc., 
1966].) The parent does not have to break the disobeying child; a look from him is 
enough. Every part and action of my body says something of myself and my world. As 
what a poet says (William Shakespeare, T ​ roilus and Cressida​, stage 4, scene 5) of an 
alluring young woman: 

Calasanz, page 9 
 There’s language in her eye, her cheek, her lip, 
Nay, her foot speaks; her wanton spirits look out 
At every joint and motive of her body. 

[38] The language of my body has its own grammar and rhetoric in his expressing my 
interiority. If I love Maria, I show this through kisses, embraces, holding tenderly her 
hand, etc., and also through exchanges of rings, daily telephone conversations, weekly 
visits. I respect my parents in kissing their hands; I accept a new acquaintance in 
shaking his hand. Embodiment is not just an additional or an external appearance; it is 
the gesture and appearance of what I truly feel inside. I cannot say that I love my 
brothers and sisters if I do not show this love to them. I cannot say I respect my parents 
if my speech to them is not respectful. My faith is meaningless if I do not realize it in 
my daily actions and life. In social life too, the great aspirations of the citizenry need to 
be embodied in political, economic, cultural (etc.) framework for these to have an 
enduring realization. As the apostle James (1, 22-23) says, “Whoever listens to the word 
but does not put it into practice is like a man who looks in a mirror and sees himself as 
he is. He takes a good look at himself and then goes away and at once forgets what he 
looks like.” The spirit and the word is fulfilled in the actions and deeds of the body. 

[39] However, as we have seen, there are two facts to the body as intermediary. I 
cannot separate my intersubjectivity from its embodiment, but I cannot also reduce it to 
its embodiment. The spirit needs to be expressed and realized in the body but my body 
cannot fully state all of my subjectivity. I may truly love my family even if my body is far 
away from them. The fullness of my love for the beloved cannot be said in exchange of 
rings or in daily telephone conversations. My subjectivity transcends in expanse and 
depth its embodiment. Indeed my body shows myself, but it can also be a mask that 
hides what I truly think or feel. I can smile in the company of my friends while suffer 
inside of frustration (as they say, “laughing in the outside but crying in the inside”). The 
paradox of “I have my body” and “I am my body” also applies to my inter-relationship 
with others. 

[40] The value of the body​. As the appearance and expression of my subjectivity, my 
body has a unique value and dignity. It directs me not only to the world and others but 
also to God. St. Paul says in the first letter to the Corinthians (6, 15-18): “You know that 
your bodies are parts of the body of Christ. Don’t you know that your body is the temple 
of the Holy Spirit, who lives in you and who was given to you by God? You do not 
belong to yourselves but to God, he bought you for a price. So use your bodies for God’s 
glory.” ​[END] 

Calasanz, page 10