Abstract
This book addresses the ambiguous nature of embodied selfhood. We are both extended and conscious: both a part of the material world and a place where that world comes to presence.
As Hans Jonas remarked, "neither of the two descriptions can be carried to its end without trespass into the sphere of the other." To focus on the material world is to eliminate consciousness and vice versa. The situation is complicated by the fact that, while it is true that the world is in consciousness taken as a place of appearing, it is equally true that, taken as embodied, consciousness is in the world.
How does this double being-in affect our view of phenomenology? How does it determine its course? Starting with Husserl's late manuscripts on birth and death, this book traces out the decisions phenomenology faces and lays out the transformation it undergoes. As part of this, it explores what it means to consider the ego or self as determined by embodiment.
It extends this search to include our social and political relations, including those marked by violence. It concludes by showing how our embodiment determines how we think of God.