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Much like Aristotle, the body is described by Husserl primarily in terms of its existence as a perceptual organ (aisthêtêrion);¹ though, to be sure, the question is not about the mechanics of our organs of sense. The description remains, as Husserl would stress, within the phenomenological epochê, thus at a distance from the thesis of the natural standpoint. The goal of this inquiry, however, is not merely the description of the organs of sense from a phenomenological perspective; its more important purpose is to understand the sense of physicality. Thus to begin by describing the body as a physical structure would be inopportune; the sense of physicality, what is intended when we experience something as, or assert something to be, a "physical thing," would be left unsaid. Even though the body itself can ultimately be described in strictly physical terms—Husserl does not deny this—nevertheless such a description must be delayed, and for two reasons: (1) so as to be able to understand the place of the body in the constitution of the sense of the physical, and (2) to be in a position to clarify what it means to speak of the body on strictly physical terms.

DOI: 10.1007/978-94-011-5658-5_3

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