I am my body
Having recently got a copy of McDowell's talk from the Anscombe conference in Chicago of several months ago, I have been able to confirm the suspicion that arose in me while reading part one of The Phenomenology of Perception, namely, that, at least in its closing sections, it is strikingly Merleau-Pontyan. (This is actually an apparent affinity that Dreyfus notes in the beginning of "The Myth of the Mental", though I haven't gone back through that whole exchange to see if it comes up in McDowell's half as well.) Unfortunately while the suspicion has been confirmed for me, I'm pretty much unable to confirm it for or even engender it in anyone else; I can't quote from McDowell's talk, for obvious reasons, but also I can't quote from The Phenomenology of Perception, for the reason, I suspect, that since I read it both somewhat swiftly and for no particular purpose other than that I thought it might be interesting and useful (but how?)—and I'm really not sure which of these factors might bear the greater responsibility—it has left only a fuzzy impression in me. "The Spatiality of One's Own Body and Motility" is presumably the section to revisit—or perhaps I'm actually thinking of some programmatic claims in the (surprisingly technical) The Structure of Behavior.
I believe that in "The Spatiality …" M-P mentions a patient (presumably the ubiquitous and unfortunate Schneider) who can only tell where his limbs are if he is first allowed to move them. Something like that. And ah ha: It is never our objective body that we move, but our phenomenal body…" (p 106).
Comments
on 2009-09-03 19:52:16.0, Daniel commented:
"The Engaged Intellect" has an index entry for Merleau-Ponty. The last two pages of "What Myth?" (p.322-3) McDowell takes him to be rejecting a piece of "mere sanity" in favor of "The Myth of the Disembodied Intellect"; not the most productive encounter. My recollection in the exchange as a whole was that McDowell set Heidegger to the side, but threw Merleau-Ponty under the bus.
I would like a copy of McDowell's paper. I only vaguely remember how it went. I know McDowell gave the treatment of Anscombe-on-knowing-where-one's-limbs-are that I expected him to give, but damned if I can tell you what that was now.
and, further, on 2009-09-04 12:45:11.0, ben commented:
I stopped carting around both The Engaged Intellect and Dreyfus' papers when I decided I should probably read more Merleau-Ponty before returning to the later debate. I'm surprised to be told that McDowell takes him to be accepting a myth of disembodied intellect. That sounds … not quite right. I'll have to check it again, I guess. I recall being unsatisfied with the treatment of Heidegger (I think I may even have said so here), but any reference to M-P would at that point of necessity have passed me by.
I got the paper just by asking for it (and within something like five minutes of asking for it, too), so even though I was also asked not to distribute it, I expect it shouldn't be too hard to obtain by going to the source.