On Body Thinking

Abstract

In this paper I am going to focus on the similar ways that the philosophical tradition of phenomenology and the poetry of Ted Hughes strive toward a radical shift in the way consciousness – defined in terms of self-reflection – participates in the natural world. The style of reflection that joins phenomenology and the poetry of Ted Hughes into dialogue is a type of thinking that does not forget, but re-instates its origins in the body's primordial continuity with the natural world. This style of reflection that they have in common is what I will call intercorporeal reflection which, to quote French phenomenologist Maurice Merleau-Ponty, concentrates all its efforts upon ''re-achieving a direct and primitive contact with the world.''