The phenomenological bodyMerleau-Ponty

The phenomenological body is a concept that emphasizes the bodily basis of perception and of the relationship with the world. The French philosopher Maurice Merleau-Ponty showed that we always perceive the world through a body; that the body is not an abstract instrument of experience but its ground. In this view, the body is the precondition of knowing the world; we open onto the world first with our body. Merleau-Ponty's thought is a fundamental philosophical support for somatic approaches. Perception is not separate from the body but something that arises from it.