Bsp Podcast

Here is the latest of our recordings from The British Society for Phenomenology’s 2018 Annual Conference ‘The Theory and Practice of Phenomenology’. James Rakoczi is from King's College London, and the paper is titled ‘Moving without movement: Merleau-Ponty’s “I can” in cases of global paralysis’.   Abstract: “In this paper, I aim to demonstrate how memoirs written by people who live with, or have experienced, global paralysis can illuminate and complicate Maurice Merleau-Ponty’s claim in Phenomenology of Perception that embodied movement is a necessary condition for a transcendental self. I argue that the kinds of movement these texts articulate shares an affinity with the kind of movement instantiated by Merleau-Ponty’s intentional arc: a ceaseless and adaptive movement, or a “therapeutic” movement, which constantly “recovers” from an incapacity to move. In short, Merleau-Ponty’s “I can” emerges ceaselessly from an “I cannot”. I shall make particular reference to two texts. First, I shall consider how any