One’s own body escapes instrumental utilization unless mediated through the Other.

Evidence

Objectivating empirical knowledge, which presently surpasses the Illness suffered toward the stomach named, is the knowing of a certain objective nature possessed by the stomach. I know that it has the shape of a bagpipe, that is is a sack, that it produces juices, and enzymes, that it is inclosed by a muscular tunica with smooth fibres, etc. I can also know—because a physician has told me—that the stomach has an ulcer, and again I can more or less clearly picture the ulcer to myself. I can imagine it as a redness, a slight internal putrescence; I can conceive of it by means of analogy with abscesses, fever blisters, pus, canker sores, etc. All this on principle stems from bits of knowledge which I have acquired from Others or from such knowledge as Others have of me. In any case all this can constitute my Illness, not as I enjoy possession of it, but as it escapes me. The stomach and the ulcer become directions of flight, perspectives of alienation from the object which I possess. — Jean-Paul Sartre, Being and Nothingness, 919 (#corroborates, via linked claim)

Our perceptions also tend to be accompanied by that strange sense called ‘proprioception’ - the sense that tells us whether our legs are crossed or our head is cocked to one side. My own body is not an object like others; it is me. If I sit down with my knitting, says Merleau-Ponty, I might have to hunt for my knitting needles but I don’t hunt for my hands and fingers. And if I rest my arm on the table, ‘I will never think to say that it is next to the ashtray in the same way that the ashtray is next to the telephone.’ Our proprioception is exquisitely sensitive and complex: If I stand in front of my desk and lean on it with both hands, only my hands are accentuated and my whole body trails behind them like a comet’s tail. — Sarah Bakewell, At the Existentialist Café, 733 (#expands, via linked claim)

Categorization

• XREF: connects to: One’s own body is lived as self, not experienced as an object. — Sarah Bakewell, At the Existentialist Café: Freedom,…, 733; Being nothing lets consciousness escape the Other who would ensnare it. — Jean-Paul Sartre, Being and Nothingness: An Essay on…, 775; The body is necessary to the for-itself yet manifests its contingency — Jean-Paul Sartre, Being and Nothingness: An Essay on…, 839 (+4 more)

Broader Connections

• One’s own body is lived as self, not experienced as an object. #expands (0.85) — Sarah Bakewell, At the Existentialist Café, 733
• All empirical knowledge of one’s own body derives from the Other and alienates it #corroborates (0.85) — Jean-Paul Sartre, Being and Nothingness, 919
• The body is primarily known as the Other’s body, not one’s own #corroborates (0.82)
• Being nothing lets consciousness escape the Other who would ensnare it. #contradicts (0.80) — Jean-Paul Sartre, Being and Nothingness, 775
• One’s own possibilities become instruments for the Other’s aims #expands (0.78)
• The body is necessary to the for-itself yet manifests its contingency #expands (0.75) — Jean-Paul Sartre, Being and Nothingness, 839
• The Other’s freedom becomes a limit only through one’s own free choice. #expands (0.75) — Jean-Paul Sartre, Being and Nothingness, 1240