martin, bodily awareness

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Bodily Awareness : A Sense of OwnershipM. G. F. Martin

When Descartes denies that he is lodged within his body as a pilot is withina ship, he draws our attention to the special phenomenological relation thateach of us bears to his or her own body. For we experience our bodies" from the inside" and not just as one more among the material objects ofperception . In this paper I seek to give an account of this special pheno -menological relation and the bearing it has on how each of us is relatedthrough perception to his or her own body .I will assume a perceptual account of bodily sensations: the feelingsof pain , pleasure, heat , cold and pressure. Rejecting a long tradition thatassumes that bodily experiences are nonperceptual states immediatelycaused by action on the body , I will take having such experiences asbeingone of the ways in which a subject comes to be aware of events inher body or the state of various body parts . In the first part of the paperI will offer an account of the special phenomenology of the body that isconsistent with such a perceptual account of sensation : when one feelsa sensation , one thereby feels as if something is occurring within one 'sbody .In the second part of the paper I will argue for certain consequencesof this account . If we take bodily sensation to be perceptual and to havethe phenomenological character I suggest, it will turn out that the subjectcan be aware only of her own body and the parts of her body , and not ofthings that do not belong to her body at all , through such sensation.2Theawarenessone has of one 's body through such experience is therefore distinctamong the perceptual modes in providing a way in which one cancome to be aware of only one object and its parts.This feature of bodily awareness has led some philosophers to supposethat in being aware of one 's body in this way, one is introspecting theself, albeit in a bodily mode . In the final section of this paper I argueagainst this assimilation of bodily awareness o self-awareness


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What is it to have a feeling of pain in your left ankle? One traditional viewtreats such bodily sensations asnonperceptual sensory experiences, in contrastto visual, tactual , and auditory experience . In vision one comes to beaware of how things are in the physical world around one. When you see avase of roseson the table,you have a visual experience asof the presence ofred flowers .We can talk of this visual experience asbeing correct or veridical, as opposed to illusory or incorrect , depending on whether there aresuch flowers in front of you . According to the traditional view of bodilysensations, such sensationscan be neither veridical nor illusory , for they are''as of " nothing at all in the objective world . In contrast , when one has afeeling of pain , one is aware of some purely subjective state of affairs thatobtains just in case one is having such a sensation and that in itself points to

nothing outside of the inner mental realm to the physical world beyond .3The traditional view flies in the face of the naive phenomenology ofsuch experience . When you feel an ache in your left ankle , it is your anklethat feels a certain way, that aches. Now ankles are no lesscomponents ofthe physical world than are rocks, lions , tables, and chairs. So at least to firstappearance, bodily sensation is no lessconcerned with aspectsof the physicalworld - in this case one 's body - than are the experiences associatedwith the traditional five senses

This should lead us to question the traditional idea that sensations arespecial mental objects of awareness Philosophers often take our talk ofhaving an ache or feeling a pain asbeing a commitment to the existence ofmental objects- aches and pains- of which we are aware when we feelpain .When one feels an ache in one

's left ankle , one is certainly in a mentalstate, feeling a sensation, just as when one seessomething , one is in amental state, having a visual experience . In the latter casethe object of thevisual experience is the physical object one is perceiving . In the formercasethe object of a bodily sensation (understood as a state of mind ), suchas an ache in the ankle, is the body part that feels a certain way, e.g., thataches. The qualities that characterize the experience qualify the part of the

body that one is aware of : it is one 's ankle that hurts , not some inner men -

268 M. G. F Martin1 A Phenomenological Sense of Ownership

tai object .Some philosophers hold a perceptual theory of sensation becausetheywish to deny that there are any subjective qualities or qualia belonging tosensations, or to any sensory experience .4That is no part of what is assumedhere. It may well be that we need to understand the quality that the experienceattributes to the body part , the quality of hurting , sayin terms thatmake reference to subjective qualities of experience , ust as Lockean theo -


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BodilyAwareness 269ries of colors make reference to subjective qualities of vision .5 All that isbeing claimed here is that the objects to which such qualities are attributedin experience appear to the subject to be body parts and not mere mentalobjects.6In this paper I will simply assume and not argue for such a perceptualmodel of bodily sensation.7 But consider one point in its favor: On such aview, we can easily explain Wittgenstein 's observation that one does not feela sensation simply to be in a particular location within objective spacebutrather feels it at a location that is primarily that of a body part and only sec-ondarily the objective location of that part . If we think of the objects of suchsensory statesprimarily as mental objects, this fact will seem mysterious-why should a mental object be tied to parts of one 's physical body ratherthan regions in space? But if we think of the phenomenological character ofsensation representationaIly, an unmysterious answer is forthcoming : the experienceis as of a certain body part , as warm , for example, and feels to beoccupying a certain spatial position relative to other body parts.Can the perceptual account of bodily sensation accommodateDescartes's observation that there is a distinctive phenomenology of thebody ? If one perceives one

's body through sensation , just as one perceivesother objects through the five sensesdoes this not make one 's body

just another object among the many that one perceives? And if one 'sbody merely appears to one in all experience asjust one more objectamong the many that one perceives , then there would be no room forthe intimate experience of the body that Descartes observed .8To respond to this , we need to look more closely at the feature ofsensation mentioned above. When I feel an ache in my ankle, the anklethat feels hurt to me does not just feel like an ankle belonging to somebody or other . Rather , the ankle feels to me to be part of my body .Thisfeeling is present even in the case of phantom - limb sensations. It is not as fit feels to the subject as if there is pain at some place in midair . Instead, itfeels to her as f a part of her body is located at that place, even though therelevant body part no longer exists.9The perceptual account can offer thefollowing explanation of the distinctive phenomenology of the body : inhaving bodily sensations, it appears to one as if whatever one is aware ofthrough having such sensation is a part of one 's body .This contrasts strik -ingly with the traditional five senseswhich can present to one a manifoldof objects , one 's body being merely one among this manifold .This phenomenological quality , that the body part appears o be part ofone'sbody - caIl this a senseof ownership- is itself in need of further elucidation. It seems that if any of our bodily sensations nclude this phenomeno -logical quality , then they all do - at least to the extent that such sensations


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have a location . o Compare Brian O 'Shaughnessy's claim to find " it all butimpossible to comprehend a claim concerning sensation position that de-taches t from actual or seeming limb , e.g.'A pain to the right of my shoulderand not even in a seeming body part

' ." lt Now there appearsto be a tensionbetween the claim that sensations have this positive quality and O 'Shaugh-nessy's claim that we can't conceive of how some might lack it . If the senseof ownership is a positive quality of sensation over and above the felt qualityof sensation and the location - that there is hurt in an ankle, forexample -then it should be conceivable that some sensations lack this extra qualitywhile continuing to possesshe other features. That is, we should be able toconceive of feeling pain in an ankle that does not positively appear to belongto one's own body.Just as we conceive of cold as the converse quality ofwarmth , could we not also conceive of a converse quality of ownership ofsensation location such that one might feel pain in an ankle not positivelyfelt to belong to one's own body ? If O 'Shaughnessy s right , we can make nosense of either possibility .12Since there is little difficulty in conceiving thatone might have some way of perceiving the parts of others' bodies, the problemhere concerns the qualitative senseof ownership that our sensations actuallyhave. A fuller account needs to be given of this phenomenologicalcharacteristic.

An answer is indicated by the kind of example that makes the phe-nomenological feature itself most salient . As Thomas Reid noted , in tactualexperience one can shift one 's attention from the physical object being feltto the sensations one enjoys while touching it .13Reid took this as evidencefor the presence of purely subjective sensation in all perceptional -Belt sensation not normally attended to. However , Reid 's interpretation ofthe phenomenology does not seem to be the correct one. When one attendsto the object felt , one is aware of various properties of the object -its surface texture , how solid it is, and its general shape - and one is awareof the object " out there." Shifting one 's attention to one 's sensations, onecomes to be aware of one 's bodily sensations elicited in this perception .Bodily sensations are themselves a form of perception , I claim , and notsomething purely subjective prior to genuine perception . So, in shiftingone 's attention , one is not moving from the external , physical world to introspectiattention of the inner , mental world . Rather , one is shiftingone 's attention from objects that lie outside one of one 's boundaries , thesurface of a hand, to what is going on at or beneath that bodily boundary .This invites the following conjecture : for me to feel as if some part of mybody occupies a region of space through having bodily sensation is for itto seem to me as if that region falls within one of the boundaries of mybody .

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This does not yet answer the initial worry . If " falling within one ofone 's boundaries " is a positive quality of a sensation over and above thequalities and location of sensation, then it should be conceivable that asensation should lack this feature, and also conceivable that sensationscouldhave the opposing feature of , falling outside of one 's boundaries ." This isanswered by recognizing that the quality of falling within one of one 'sap -parent boundaries is not independent of the felt location of sensation.Thesense one has of the location of sensation brings with it the sense that thelocation in question falls within one of one 's apparent boundaries .This requires us to look to the structure of the spatial content of bodilysensation. Consider first the spatial content of kinesthetic experiences ,another example of awarenessof one 's body. If you raise your hands aboveyour head, you will be aware of the position of both hands in spacerelativeto each other . This awareness of their relative positions is an awareness ofhow they are displaced across a region of space beyond the space in whichyour body is located and in which you have neither kinesthetic nor sensationalawareness In this caseto give an adequate account of the spatialcontent of kinesthesia, we have to make reference to regions of space ofwhich the subject is not currently in a position to have bodily experience .More generally, in having a sense of the shape of your body through kines-thetic awarenessyou will be aware of its shape as in a space that extendsbeyond the limits of your body and encloses it . So the locations whereone 's hands feel to be are felt to be locations within a space that extendsbeyond the spaceone is then aware of. In turn , the sense of falling within aboundary may be no more than the sensethat the location in question iswithin a space that seems to extend into regions that one could not currently

be aware of in this way. Any region in which it seems to one thatone could now be feeling sensation will thereby feel to one to fall withinone of one 's boundaries ; at the same time , one has the sensethat there arelocations outside of one 's boundaries , whatever these happen to be, sincethe spaceone feels these locations to be part of feels as f it extends beyondwhatever one does feel.

One may picture this senseofboundedness in the following way. Thereis no distinction to be drawn between the point from which one is aware ofobjects and the objects of which one is aware that then stand in some relationto that point . Rather , such awarenessseemsto extend only to the apparentlimits of the body, to each of the body 'sapparent boundaries .One hasa sense hat there are such boundaries- a senseone would have even if onewas not aware where the boundary was- in virtue of the way in which partsof bodies appear to be located in a space that extends to regions one doesnot feel in this way.The modal contrast here, between regions where one

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could currently feel sensation and those where one couldn 't , is to be drawnwithin the content of the bodily experiences themselves.The spatial contentof these experiences is such that one is aware of a region as one in whichone is aware of things in this manner, in contrast to other regions of spaceWhile these regions of space will not be occupied by anything thatcan be felt through bodily awarenessthis is not to say that the objectsthere located are not accessibleby any senseexperience .They might be, ofcourse, by vision . More interestingly , the objects of touch occupy a spacethat lies outside the limits of bodily awareness On a " template " model oftouch , it is no accident that tactual perception and bodily sensation coincide, for the two are interdependent : one comes to be aware of the objectsof touch through being aware of the properties of one 's body and how thetwo interact .The most basic form of this is the sharing of spatial propertieswhen boundaries of an object and one 's body coincide .14Two qualifications need to be added. First , while the simplest suchmodel of a sense of one 's body would assume that one 's body has onecomplete boundary within which only parts of one 's body are located , nosuch assumption need be made.We have boundaries falling within otherboundaries , and many of our boundaries are not closed. In one senseanobject pressing against the sides of one 's esophagus falls within one 'sboundaries - the place where the object is located falls within the limits ofone 's skin . At the same time , a fish bone pressing against the walls of theesophagus is felt to be pressing against one of one 's boundaries , as lyingoutside of the boundary of the esophagus walls. Corresponding to the fishbone , one feels sensation at and beneath those walls that feel to lie withinone of one 's boundaries .A more exact account of the distinction betweenbeing felt to be inside or outside is to say that when a tactual object is incontact with one of one 's boundaries , one thereby has not only tactualawarenessof the object but also bodily sensation at that surface. The bodilysensation has the character of being within one of one 's boundaries , andhence the feeling of being internal . The tactual object is thereby felt to bebeyond that particular bodily boundary , and hence to be outside of thebody. While the location where the fish bone is felt is in fact a locationwithin the body, and a location that falls within what are felt to be theouter boundaries of the body , one 's skin , it is not positively felt to fallwithin those boundaries , and hence is not thereby felt to fall within one 'sbody .Second, I have offered no account of what it is for the location of asensation to fall within a reidentifiable or nameable body part , as when thelocation of a pain is in one 's left hand, rather than just in some body partor other at a given position . The fact that locations of sensation are often

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BodilyAwarenessin nameable parts requires a further complication of the account . It surelyseemssufficient that a sensation should feel to be located within the bodyif it feels to be located within a nameable body part . But this addition doesnot really alter the main claim . For one can ask what it is for a felt bodypart to feel as if it is part of one 's body . For this too there is the analogousproblem that there seemsto be no case of feeling a body part to belong tosomeone else's body .The same form of answer can be applied in this case:that a body part feels to belong to one 's body is not independent of thefact that one feels it to be a specific body part . A contrast will remain between

parts of my body and other objects in the world if the part is felt tobe located within a spacethat could contain other objects .This account of the sense of ownership explains how our bodily experiencescan have aspart of their phenomenological content that the regionfelt falls within one 's body . Furthermore , it explains how all bodilysensation of a determinate location will possesshis quality . SThe mysteri -ous necessity of sensation falling within the apparent body is easily explained: it simply derives from the spatial content that sensations have.Given that bodily sensation has this content , all spatially located sensationswill feel as f they fall within the body .This is not to claim that there couldnot be other ways in which bodily sensation could have been, nor thatthere could not have been other kinds of phenomenological features thatindicate what is within the body.The account here thus starts from the evidentbut contingent fact that our bodily sensations have a certain character.The account explains what it is for our sensations to have the character

they do, and hence explains the Cartesian phenomenological observationthat we are aware of our bodies " from the inside ." 16

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2 The Sole Object of AwarenessIn the last section I claimed that part of the phenomenological characterof sensations is that one feels events as occurring not only within bodyparts, but also within body parts that belong to one 's own body, and I arguedthat we can make sense of this claim in terms of the structure of thespatial content of sensation. I now want to turn to the bearing this has onthe question of what objects one can come to be aware of through sensation. Bodily sensations, together with kinesthesia, proprioception , and thevestibular senseamount to an awarenessof one 's body that is only of one 'sown body and its parts. Call this the sole-objectview.I?The sole-object view is not the only account of bodily awareness Ihave already noted that there is a long tradition in philosophy of denyingthat sensation is perceptual awarenessof one 's body . Even if one grants that


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sensation does give one an awarenessof body parts, one might claim that itis a merely contingent matter that one comes to be aware only of one 'sown body parts in this way and that it is quite conceivable that one couldcome to be aware of parts of others ' bodies in the same way. Call this themultiple-objectview. I call this view thus not because it need claim that weare actually aware of more than our own bodies through sensation andkinesthesia but because t claims that it is consistent with the form of awareness

we have that more than one body could be presented to a perceiver inthis way.Just because everything one feels is felt to be part of one 's body ,this doesn't yet show that everything one feels must be a part of one 'sbody . So the observations of the last section do not appear to decide between

the two views . Here I will argue that on examination those observationdo in fact support the sole- object view.Wittgenstein seemsto have been a proponent of the multiple -objectview. He thought it quite conceivable that one should feel pain in someoneelse's tooth , in a piece of furniture , or in empty space.lS However , it isdoubtful that Wittgenstein rejects the traditional view of sensation as

purely subjective . For example , according to him , the location of sensationin one 's hand amounts to no more than one 's being disposed to point tothat place and say that the ache is located there. And when we draw outthe consequences of a perceptual account of sensation, it turns out thatWittgenstein 's own examples are best described in terms of the sole-objectvIew.

Wittgenstein rightly claims that one can easily conceive of a case inwhich it feels to one as f there is pain in one 's left hand and one indicatesone 's neighbor 's hand when asked where it hurts . When we assume thatone

's neighbor

's hand is not also a part of one

's own body , the sole-objectview must count this as a case of illusion or hallucination . The perceptualaccount of sensation already gives us reason to endorse this description ofthe case. Consider again phantom - limb sensation.When an amputee feelsa pain three inches below her knee, that location may well fall outside theactual limits of her body . Prima facie, this is a case of being aware of a

point outside of one 's actual body , even though for the sufferer , it is still acase of being aware of a location as falling within the apparent limits ofher body . However , anyone who wishes to adopt a perceptual view ofbodily sensation- even if they reject the sole- object thesis- has reason toreject this description of phantom - limb sensation. In having a pain , a suffereris aware of a part of some body as being some way.19In the case ofreferred pain , the experience is illusory to the extent that it feels to thesufferer as f one part of her body is hurt when in fact another part is. In aphantom - limb sensation, the sufferer feels as if a part of her body is hurt

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that in fact no longer exists. This is akin to cases of perceptual hallucination, as when someone suffering delirium tremens " sees" a pink rat. Inthis case we should not say that this person is aware of some object , forthere is nothing there. Rather , she is having a visual experience as of apink rat but is not perceiving anything . So in the phantom - limb example ,for the sufferer, it is as if a part of her left leg is damaged but in fact nosuch part exists, and she is aware of nothing at all but is merely having ahallucination .likewise , the Wittgenstein example involves an element of illusionand can be explained without supposing that the subject is positivelyaware of his neighbor 's hand. From the description that Wittgenstein offers

, it is at least asnatural to suppose that the subject is aware ofa hand-not his neighbor 's but rather his own left hand. The illusory element in theexperience is simply that it feels to him as fhis hand is at a location wherehis hand happens not to be, although coincidentally his neighbor 's hand is.The case s one in which the sensation does appear to be located in a partof the subject 's own body, and we have been given no reason to supposethat he is wrong about this fact rather than about the location of the bodypart . The sole-object view need not claim that the apparent locations ofpain and other bodily qualities must be restricted to the actual bounds ofone 's body.There are plenty of actual counterexamples to this thesis without

having to consider the fiction Wittgenstein presents us with .The claimis merely that such experiences can only be genuinely perceptual andcount as the awarenessof some body part , rather than asa case of illusionor hallucination , if the body part in question is actually part of one 's ownbody. Once we take bodily sensation to be a form of perception , we cansee that Wittgenstein 's fiction concerns an illusory or hallucinatory experience, and hence offers no challenge to the sole- object view.However , Wittgenstein 's story can be supplemented so as to presentmore of a challenge. We might suppose that the neighbor 's hand has aradio transmitter attached that is sensitive to activity in nerves associatedwith pain , pressure, and movement .The sufferer, in turn , has an attachedreceiver that stimulates him so asto have a corresponding painful sensationwhen any damage occurs in his neighbor 's hand.To avoid any trace of illusion, we must suppose that this new area of pain does not feel to the suffereras if it is within his own left hand. Rather , it must feel as if it is insome new part of his body, as if he had grown a new hand. We may supposethat the sufferer is able to report both the location and the status ofthe neighbor 's hand in virtue of the sensations produced by the transmitter- receiver when the neighbor is nearby.

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Now , it may be argued that the transmitter - receiver acts asa form ofprosthetic nervous system: imagine someone having parts of his internalnervous system replaced by such an electronic device ; the current fictionmerely asks us to extend this to someone else's body .The transmitter is tobe thought of as extending the range of bodily sensation in the mannerthat spectaclesand binoculars do for vision .The sensation is no longer fortuitouslassociated with the other body, and hence is no longer so obviouslyto be treated asa case of illusion .

This gives the multiple -object account a stronger case. How shouldone respond? As with the earlier example , it is open to the sole-objectview to redescribe the situation asone of illusion : rather than treat the transmitterasa prosthetic extension of the nervous system, this view will claimthat it is nothing more than a sophisticated mechanism for causing pains intwo people instead of one.Although the damage to the neighbor 's hand isa cause of the subject 's sensation, the view will deny that it thereby comesto be an object of perception . This claim is coherent - many things cancause sensory experience without thereby being the objects of those experienc: the alcoholic does not see the alcohol earlier imbibed when hehas a hallucination of a pink rat caused by that drink - but the claim thatthe sensation is purely illusory does not follow from the thesis that bodilysensations are perceptions . So why should the sole-object view be justifiedin insisting on this redescription ?We need to examine more closely the model of perception that underliesthe plausibility of this apparent counterexample and any justifica -tion the sole-object view can provide for rejecting this model in the caseof bodily awarenessThe existence of a reliable causal link that can support

the transmission of information often seems to be a prerequisite for genuineperception . In the example , just such a link is established betweenbody parts and the subject 's experience of them .This undermines at leastone explanation of why we should treat the case as an illusion , asthe sole-object view dictates.But for the example finally to convince , the materialsit supplies must be sufficient for perception , and this involves two assumptions: that in the case of bodily awareness the objects of perception arebody -parts and that the kind of causaland informational link set up in theexample is sufficient to establish a perceptual link between that object andthe subject 's experience of it .This mirrors a certain view of visual perception . One might think thatthe role of light in vision is to act as a causal route for the transmission ofinformation about the objects of perception to the perceiver, who then hasvisual experiences of those objects. Which objects one can come to seewould then be limited by the distance over which light can still reliably

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transmit nformation from objects o us, which turns mainly on the degreeof resolution that our eyescan achieveThe latter is a contingent matter,andcertainprostheticdevicescanbe employed o extendthe rangeof one'seyeswe do not tend to think that the use of spectaclesor eventhe use ofbinocularsor telescopespreventsusfrom genuinelyseeingobjects hroughthem. In the caseof bodily awarenessone'snervoussystemplaysan analogousrole to the medium of light . It is a contingent matter that one's nervoussystemstopsat the skin,andwe canimaginethis contingent limitationbeing overcomeby suchprostheticdevicesas he radio transmitter.The sole-object view needs o reject this picture of bodily awarenessIt must deny that the existenceof a causalinformational link betweenbody partsand perceiversuffices or her perception of thoseparts. For itclaimsthat a necessary ondition for perceiving a body part will be thatthe part in question spart of the subjectsbody. On this view, the primaryobject of bodily awarenesss one's body as a whole, so one perceives tspartsonly becausethey arepartsof that object. Given this, no matter howsophisticatedand reliable the transmitting link is between body part andthe subjectsbodily sensationthe sensationwill not count asperception ofthat body part if it doesnot belong to her body but will rather be illusoryor hallucinatory.

Why prefer one picture over the other?This is where the sole-objectview can appeal o the phenomenologicalcharacteristicsof bodily sensation, discussed bove On the opposing view, perception of the body is amatter of perceiving those body parts with which one hasan informationallink .That the body partsbelong to one body is determined separatelyfrom whether the body partsareperceivedLocatedsensations avethe phenomenological eature hat the placethat one feels o be hurt feelsto one to fall within the bounds of one's body. I arguedthat this senseofownership, in being possessedy all located sensationscannot be independentof the spatialcontent of the sensationthe location of the event.In the alleged counterexamplewhen the subject feelspain in virtue ofdamage o the neighbor's hand, it feels to the subject as f the body partbelongs o her body, eventhough it doesnot. In this respectbodily experiencesof partsof other people'sbodieswill be illusory.This givesrise to a further problem.While the senseof ownership isveridical in the usualcasesinceone happenso feel sensationsonly withinbody partsthat belong to one'sown body, it is a mereaccidentthat thisis so: all located sensations ossesshis feature regardless f whether thelocations in questiondo fall within the subjectsbody. So there is no reliablemechanismthat associateshe phenomenological featurethe senseof ownership, with anyobjective factsconcerning actualownershipof the

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Ml Jrlin

body part .Although phenomenologically it appears to the sufferer as f thebody part has a certain property , that of being a part of his body, there is noperceptual connection between the body part seeming so and its actuallybeing so, since perceiving something to have a property depends on therebeing a reliable link .There is no problem here for the sole-object view.According to thisview , bodily awareness s primarily awareness of one 's physical body , andawareness of body parts only in as much as they are parts of that body.Consequently , for any bodily sensation that is genuinely perceptual , thebody part in question will be a part of one 's body , as t appears to be. Sinceit is in the nature of bodily experience to be experience of one 's body ,there need be no further mechanism to track which body it is to which abody part belongs.This is just a corollary of a point made in the last section: that we should think of apparent ownership not as being a qualityadditional to the other qualities of experience but as somehow alreadyinherent within them .

So the sole-object view can justify its description of the apparentcounterexample by appeal to general considerations about what it is forsensations to be perceptions of the body. On the opposing multiple -objectview, the phenomenological feature of the experience that the body partappears to belong to the subject 's body cannot be a genuinely perceivedfeature of a body part . In contrast , the sole-object view can respect the appearanthat this is a genuinely perceived property of the body part .Whenwe acknowledge the distinctive phenomenology that we are aware of eventswithin the body " from the inside," we are led to the conclusion that if this isa form of perceptual awarenessit is awareness of one object only . This isnot to claim that it is impossible to feel sensations to be located in regionsthat fall outside of the actual limits of the body, but it is to deny that suchexperiences can then amount to genuine perceptual awarenessof whateveris located in those places.

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3 Bodily Awareness and Self- AwarenessIn the last two sections I have claimed first that , with respect to the phe-nomenological content of bodily sensation and kinesthesia, body parts arepresented asbelonging to the perceiver 's body and second that a subject ,in having such experiences , comes to perceive only one object , his or herbody .The apparent counterexamples were explained away as casesof illusionor hallucination , where the subject either misperceives the location ofa body part of which she is aware or hallucinates a nonexistent body part .These properties of bodily awarenessare reminiscent of features that have


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sometimes been attributed to self- awareness or introspection (see Frege'scomment that " everyone is presented to himself in a special and primitiveway, in which he is presented to no- one else" ) .2oHume famously denied that any of us is acquainted with his or her self.Some philosophers following him in this have justified the claim throughrepudiating a perceptual account of introspection .The principal objectionhere turns on the thought that were introspection a form of perception ,then necessarily t would take only one object , one's self. But , it is sometimesclaimed , one can only have genuine perception of objects where one perceivesone object among many. If this is true , then either introspection is notthe perception of an object , or it is not perception . A correlative objection isthat perception could only be of one object , asintrospection would have tobe, only if the mechanism of perception were in some way magical . Anysuch arguments against treating introspection asa form of perception wouldapply equally well against treating bodily awarenessas a form of perceptionthat takesone's body as its sole object . I need to defend both the claim thatperception can be of something asan object , even when only one object isgiven , and the claim that perception can latch onto just that one objectwithout requiring a magical mechanism.We can find the first line of objection to taking introspection to be aform of perception in the work of Sydney Shoemaker. He suggests hat " amode of perception must be such that someone 's perceiving something inthat way can enter into the explanation of how it is that the person hasknowledge of that thing , where part of the explanation is that perceivingthe thing provides the person with identification information about it ." 21Shoemaker claims that introspection cannot meet this condition , since nomanifold of objects is presented, and hence introspection is not perception. If this objection is a good one, it tells not only against a perceptualaccount of introspection , but also against any perceptual account of bodilyawareness that acknowledges the phenomenological sense of ownershipand the sole- object view.22My discussion already provides us with sufficientresources to rebut this worry .For vision , we can distinguish the subject 's point of view on the objectsof perception from the locations of the various objects of perception ,all of which will be perceived to stand in various spatial relations to thatorigin , aswell as to each other .Any visual object of perception will be presentedasan object in asmuch as t is presented asoccupying a spaceadjacentto other objects , all of which are on a par.The structure of the spatialcontent of bodily awareness s different .There is no distinct point of viewthat the subject possesses independent of the object , his or her body , thatshe is aware of in this way.23But it does not follow from this that the body

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cannot be presented in bodily experience as a genuine object . Recall thatthe subject 's body parts are presented as located within a space not all ofwhich the subject can be aware of at the time . It is through this that thesubject has a sense of her own boundedness, and hence a sense of herself asa spatial object within a larger world .Although the subject does not haveto single out or identify her body as one object among the many presentedto her in experience , she does nevertheless have a sense of it asjust oneobject , among the many that there may be within that space.This leads to the second objection . What singles out just one object ,among all those in the world that one could be perceiving , as the sole-object of this kind of awareness? Doesn 't this require some kind of magical

mechanism ?24As with the first claim , we musn't be misled by what is true of othersense modalities . In vision , a distinction needs to be drawn between theability to perceive an object and the ability to single it out from among theothers perceived , or to keep track of it , since a multiplicity of objects maybe presented to the perceiver at a time . If one construes bodily awarenessas a single- object modality along the same lines, it may seem as f both features- that of presenting an object and that of tracking an object - have tobe combined . But in the case of visual attention , it is clear that trackingcan break down : the object picked out at one point may be mislaid at thenext , and another mistaken for it . This may make it seem that any perceptual

ability that involves tracking an object might break down in this way.Hence , the existence of a perceptual ability that cannot so break down isliable to appear magical . But it is simply wrong to think of the way inwhich one object is singled out in bodily awareness n these terms .Thatbodily awareness suceeds in latching onto one object results not so muchfrom a superability to track one object as the inability to experience morethan one object , or the parts of more than one object , in this way.That thebody, in addition to its parts, is experienced through bodily awareness ssimply a function of the spatial content of such experience . But no morethan one object could be presented in this way.25Nevertheless, the question remains of what makes one particular objectthe object of bodily awarenessThe structure of such experience is that if anyobject is picked out , there will be just one such object . But this does not yetsaywhich object is picked out in this way. In the argument of the last sectionI implicity assumed hat the object one perceives through bodily sensation isone's own body and that body parts appear to one to belong to that body.But this claim does not follow from any of the claims made in my earlierdiscussion of the phenomenology of bodily experience . Undoubtedly , it isnatural to assume hat if there is a sole-object of bodily experience , the best

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candidateas he object of perception s one'sown body.But thereareothercandidatesConsider he entity consistingof asubjectsphysicalbody minusthosepartsof her body in which shehas ost the power of movementandsensationConverselytake the candidate o be the subjects physicalbodyplusanyprosthetic imbsanddevicesoverwhich he has mmediate,andnotmerely instrumentallymediatedcontrol.A further entity is the sum of thebody partscausally esponsibleor the sensationshat the subjecthasat atime.This would include the neighbor's handandany other body part thatthe subjectmight alsoappear o feel.This is importantly different from theother candidatesFor the others, one can specifyeachpart of that objectwithout first determining whether the subject feelsany sensationn thatpart. In the lastcasewhether or not a body part belongsto the entity inquestion is determined solely by whether the subject has a sensation orwhich the body part is responsibleFor this entity, sensationapparently n abody part makeshe body part part of the entity rather than beinga wayofperceiving hat part asbelongingto the entity.While one might rule out certain candidatesby denying them thestatusof being genuine"natural" objectsof the sort that may count as heprimary objectsof perception, this would not answer he problemsraisedby the last candidate For in this casewe need not read the challengeasclaiming that the candidateentity is perceivedthrough bodily sensationsince the entity is constituted by one'shaving sensation n its parts, ratherthan by existing independentlyof perception and then being alighted on.The challenge s rather to show that this senseof ownership reflectsfactsabout a genuineobject in the world, rather than a merephenomenalconstruction:an entity whoseexistencedependssolelyon one'sexperienceofit , havingno independentplace n the naturalworld.To meet thischallengewe have o givesome easonor supposinghatsomeobject, given independentlyof our awarenessf it , is the object thatbodily experiencesaboutandthatbodily experiencesaboutsomesuchentity. One answer s to look for a function of bodily awarenessnd then toshowthat this function determineswhich object is the object perceivedForinstancefollowing a suggestionby Brian O'Shaughnessyone might claimthat consciousbodily awarenessplaysa centralrole in controlling anddeterminingintentionalaction.26Giventhis, the objectof bodily awarenessouldneedto be the object with which one most immediatelyactsThis object, itmaybe arguedisone'sphysicalbody.Since he questionof whetherone canactwith anobjector not is fixed independentlyof whetheronehassensationin the object, the awarenessn questioncanbe counted asgenuinelyperceptual, andwe havea criterion for deeming he feelingof pain in a neighborshandto be illusory.

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However , it is not yet clear whether this line of reasoning will succeed. One question about it is whether a clear function can be ascribed toany form of conscious experience . And in the particular case of actioncontrol , there is a genuine question of whether successful action requirescontinuous monitoring of the body. So the explanation above might actuallyturn out to be a hostage to fortune , depending on the correct empiricalaccount of visuomotor control .27An alternative would be to avoidlooking for a direct functional role for conscious experience itself and insteadlook at the explanations of what underlies the content that such experiencehas. Even if conscious experience of the body is not involved inthe coordination of all action , there is reason to think that there are unconsciou

representations of the body, body schemata, to control at leastsome action .28Furthermore , it is plausible to suppose that such representationis drawn on in determining the content of conscious kinesthesia andhence bodily sensation. One might think of such unconscious representations(themselves posited at a subpersonal level of processing) as n part determiningthe extent of the object with which an agent can immediatelyact, since their function is to control this object .This in turn may be takento be the object of current conscious awarenessthrough kinesthesia andsensation, and its limits will then determine whether such awareness s illusory

or veridical .Note that both of these justifications leave open whether the objectof awareness is itself identical with the subject 's physical body . In eithercase one might suppose that permanent loss of use of a body part mightlead to its separation from the object with which an agent immediatelyacts, and hence exclude that body part from genuine awarenessCorrespondingl

, familiarity with an artificial limb may lead to its inclusion theelements with which a subject can immediately act, and hence include itassomething in which the subject can have genuine awareness29There is no space here to develop either proposal . For my purposes,the important point is just to note that such an account is required to underwritethe claim that bodily awareness is genuine awareness of one 'sbody, and also to indicate that there is no particular reason to suppose thatsome such account cannot be given . However , the fact that such an accountdoes need to be given points to a significant disanalogy betweenbodily awarenessand introspection , at least as it has commonly been conceived

by philosophers .While it is plausible to suppose that the object of bodily awarenessmight coincide with various psychological conceptions of the concept ofself, such as the Gibsonian notion of the ecological self,3Oamong philosophers

, self- consciousness and the concept of the first -person , or self, have

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BodilyA UNlrtneShad a more restricted range of application .Two conditions are often imposed: First , a guaranteed reference.When the subject thinks about herselfin the first person , she must be guaranteed to be referring to herself- a tiebetween the agent of thought and the object thought about . Second, sincethe guarantee seems to be part of the concept of the first person , when thesubject employs the first person concept , it is a priori that she will bethinking about herself.If self- consciousness s tied to this concept of self, then a given mentalepisode - thought or experience - will be an exercise of self- consciousnessonly where the object of that episode is guaranteed to be the self andwhere the object is presented to the subject asherself . Otherwise , in having

this thought or experience , the subject should be able to wonderwhether this object of which she is thinking or having an experience isgenuinely herself. So a perceptual account of introspection would neednot only to explain how only one object can be experienced by the subjectin this way but also to show how the object being so experienced bythe subject must be experienced by the subject asherself .It is implausible to claim that this condition is met in the caseof bodilyawarenesseven if it could be met elsewhere. If the arguments of thispaper are correct , we should conceive of bodily awareness as a form ofperception of a single-object . If a thinker thinks about whatever she isaware of through bodily awarenessshe is guaranteed to be thinking solelyof one object . However , which object bodily awarenesspresents is not determined

solely by phenomenological considerations . Rather , some accountneeds to be given of what ties the content of bodily awareness o aparticular object .This further account does not seem to be one that wecan provide purely a priori .A Cartesian dualist is, of course, unlikely to accept that bodily awarenessis a form of introspection , for he will insist that body and self are distinctentities , and hence that awarenessof the body is not awarenessof theself. But one might reason that showing that bodily awareness s a form ofintrospection would then form an argument against Cartesian dualism .Myconcerns here are pressing even if we grant that we are material , living animalsand not immaterial egos.It is not unnatural to describe the sense of ownership associated withbody parts as the sense of being aware that the left hand one feels is one 'sown left hand, that it belongs to oneself. In being aware of one 's body, onewill be aware of its parts asparts of oneself . I t is this thought that an introspectivemodel of bodily awarenesswill stress In the account offered here,body parts appear to belong to a particular body , one 's own body .There isno need to cash out the claim that the body is one 's own by supposing that

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bodily awareness also involves some further exercise of introspection . Forthere is no other object presented to one in the way that one 'sbody and itsparts are presented, so one 's body can be picked out simply as that objectso presented when attending to it through bodily awarenessNow if we are not Cartesians, there is little inclination to distinguishbetween this object and oneself. But to grant this is not yet to grant thatthe object in question is presented as oneself , or that its parts are presentedasbelonging to oneself. It is this further claim that we should reject. As we have seen, a substantive account needs to be given of whichobject is the object of bodily awarenessan account that turns either onthe function of such awareness or possibly on the unconscious representations

(together with their function ) that such awarenessdepends on . Onsuch an account , it seems possible that the object in question may turnout to be distinct from what is strictly one 's physical body , for two objectscan be identical only if they share all and only the same parts. If the primaryobject of perception is the object with which one most immediatelyacts rather than one 's physical body , then it is arguable that this

entity may include artificial limbs and other prosthetic devices if theseelements themselves come to be represented within the body schema.In such a case the physical organism and the immediate object of agencywill be distinct , since the latter includes parts that the former doesn't .Inasmuch as a body part feels like it belongs to the body that one is awareof through bodily sensation, it will feel like it belongs to the object ofagency rather than to one 's physical body . So ifone is identical with one 'sphysical body , one will still not be aware of it through bodily sensationbut rather will be aware only of the object of agency. Of course, the claimthat the physical body and the object of agency can come apart is itselfspeculative . But for the point being made, no more than speculation is required. If it is at least open to the subject to wonder whether the objectthat she is presented in bodily sensation is not herself but rather only anobject closely associated with herself , then that object cannot be presentedto her as being the self, and hence bodily awareness cannot be aform of introspection .One might reply that it is no lessan issue which object the self is tobe identified with . Perhaps the self should be identified not strictly withthe physical organism but rather with the immediate object of agency.Then the prosthetic limb would be no less a part of the self than wouldher flesh and blood . In this case the debate about the object of bodilyawareness and the debate about which object the self is would coincide ,which would leave bodily awareness as a form of being aware of theself. But even this would not be enough to meet the conditions needed

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7. For additionalcommentsseemy"SenseModalitiesandSpatialPerception" in SpatialRepresentationedited by N. Eilan, R . McCarthyand B. Brewer (Oxford: BasilBlackwell 1993,pp. 206- 218,esppp.207- 209.8.Howeverone who appearso deny hat it can,while rejecting he traditionalsubjectivistview of sensationisMerleau-PontySeeThePhenomenologyfPerceptiontrans C.Smith(london :Routledge1962.9. See .VanDeusenBody mage ndPerceptualysfunctionn Adults PhiladelphiaW B.Saundersnd Co., 1993, chap7, for a recent ntroductory discussion f thisphantomlimbs and reatmentof patients10. Not all bodily sensations eedpossess felt location. No claims hat I make hereconcerning he sense f ownershipshouldbe thought to apply o sensationshat lack afelt location.11. TheWill (CambridgeCambridgeUniversityPress1980,vol. I ,p. 162.12.There appear o be empiricalcounterexamplesSeefor exampleG. von Bekesysexampleof extrasomatic ensationn Sensorynhibition Princeton: PrincetonUniversityPress1967, pp. 220- 226, and M. F Shapiroet al., "Exosomesthesiaor Displacementof CutaneousSensationnto Extrapersonal pace" AMA ArchivesfNeurologyndPsychiatry8 (1952: 481- 490. Closeexaminationof both casesuggestshat it is farfrom clear hat this is so,but properdiscussion f thesemustherebepostponed13.Seehis Inquirychap5, in InquiryandEssaysIndianapolisHackett, 1983.14. I discusshis view of touch in more detail n " SightandTouch," in TheContentsfExperienceeditedbyT. M. Crane(CambridgeCambridgeUniversityPress1992, pp.196- 215. A seminaldiscussion f this view of tactualperception s given in BrianO'Shaughnessy"The Senseof Touch," Australasianournal of Philosophy67 (1989:37- 58.15.This doesnot,of courseapply o the case f unlocatedsensations16. Howeverit is no part of the claim herethat there areno other qualitiesof sensationsthat maycorrespondo what is felt to appearo belongto me or my body. Myclaim isonly that thesense f ownershipashereoutlined, is at leastpresentn all suchsensation nd smore fundamentalo explaining he phenomenology f bodily experiencethananyother suchquality17.This view hasbeenadoptedby GarethEvansseeTheVarietiesf ReferenceOxford:Oxford University Press1982, chap 7) and in a slightly different form by MichaelAyers Lockelondon :Routledge1991vol. 1,pp. 180- 192;vol. 2,pp.285- 288).18. See .WittgensteinTheBlue& ok, in TheBlueand Brown& oks2nd ed. (Oxford:BasilBlackwell1969,pp. 49- 51.19.Whether apainexperienceepresents bodypartasdisordered y representingt ashurt or whether we mustconceiveof hurt and disorderasdistinctlyperceived ropertiesisa nicequestionFor a discussionhat bearson this,seeAyersLockeandPeacocke" Consciousnessnd Other Minds."20. Frege"Thoughts" in LogicalnvestigationsOxford: Basil Blackwell, 1977, p. 12.Freges claimconcerning he first person sstronger hanmy claimconcerningbodilyawarenessThe claimthat I am awareof my body in a way n which I amawareof no

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22. Shoemaker imselfdoesnot presenthisobjectionasa decisiveone, relying insteadon the claim that sinceperceptualacquaintance ith the self cant explainall cases fself-awarenesstheappealo suchacquaintancessuperfluouso the explanationof ourpossessionf self-consciousness23. Dominic Murphy pointedout to me that this s reflected n our abilities o imaginesituationsexperientiallyWhen we visualizewe neednot placeourselveswithin a situation(onecanbea" fly on the wall"),but in kinestheticmagining, there s no room todistinguishbetween hepoint of view imaginedand he objectso magined24.Comparesomeof GEM Anscombes criticismsof the view that one ispresentedwith a self, in "The First Person" in Metaphysicsnd thePhilosophyf Mind (Oxford:BasilBlackwell1981,pp.21- 36,especiallyhe commentson p.31.25. This accountdoesnot rule out the possibility hat different bodiescould be presentedat different imec.asong asonly one spresentat a time. Somemight claim thatthis would point to a disanalogywith self-awarenesssinceself-awareness aybe heldto requireawarenessf oneselfover time. My argumentsherewill not trade on anysuchallegeddifference26. TheWill,2 vols. (CambridgeCambridgeUniversityPress1980,and" Proprioception and he Body Image" in this volume.27. Forsomeof the philosophicalmplicationsof empiricalstudiesn this areaseeBillBrewer"The Integrationof SpatialVision andAction," in SpatialRepresentationeditedby N. Eilan, R .McCarthyand B. Brewer(Oxford: BasilBlackwell, 1993,pp. 294- 316.28.The notion of body schemata riginateswith Head (see Studies n Neurologyvol. 2 [Oxford: Oxford University Press1920). For recent discussions f the role ofrepresentationf thebody in motor control,seefor examplethe two contributionsbyJacquesPaillardandbyV. S. Gurfinkel andY. S. Levick in BodyandSpaceeditedbyJ.Paillard Oxford: Oxford UniversityPress1991.29. So t is consistentwith this view that theobjectof bodily awareness ight consistof discreteparts hat aredistinct" natural" objectsn their own right.30.J.J. GibsonTheEcologicalpproacho VisualPerceptionBoston: Houghton Mifflin ,1979.Foradiscussion f the differentconceptions f the selfemployedn psychologysee U. Neisser"The Self Perceived" in The Perceivedelf Ecologicalnd InterpersonalSourcesf SelfKnowledgeedited by U. Neisser(CambridgeCambridge UniversityPress1993.

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AnscombeG. E. M . 1981"The First Person" In her Metaphysicsnd hePhilosophyfMind. Oxford: BasilBlackwell.

otherobjectdoesnot rule out the possibility hat anothermaybe awareof my body inthe samewayif , for exampletwo peoplecould shareonebody.21. " Introspectionand the Self," in Studiesn the Philosophy f Mind, ed. PeterA.FrenchTheodore EdwardUehling, and Howard K. WettsteinMidwest Studies nPhilosophyno. 10 (MinneapolisUniversityof MinnesotaPress1986, pp. 101- 120,at pp. 116- 117.


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O'ShaughnessyB. 1989"The Sense f Touch" Australasianournalof67:37- 58.Paillard] . 1991a" KnowingWhereand How to Get There." In BodyandSpace] . Pail-lard. Oxford: Oxford UniversityPressPaillard] . 1991 ." Motor andRepresentational pace" In & dyandSpaceed.] .PaillardOxford: Oxford UniversityPressPeacockeC. 1979 HolisticExplanationOxford:ClarendonPressPeacockeC. A. B. 1985"Consciousnessnd Other Minds." Aristotelian ociety roceedings,suppl. vol. 59: 97- 117.Reid,T. 1983InquiryandEssaysIndianapolisHackett.

ArmstrongD . A. 1962 BodilySensationsLondon:RoudedgeandKeganPaulAyersM. 1991Locke2 vols. London:RoudedgeBrewerB. 1992"Self-Location andAgency" Mind. 101: 17- 34BrewerB. 1993"The Integrationof SpatialVision andAction." In SpatialRepresentation,ed. N.Eilan,R .McCarthy,and B. BrewerOxford: BasilBlackwell.Descartes R . 1984 The PhilosophicalWritings vol. 2. Trans R. Cottingham, R.Stoothoff,and D.Murdoch.CambridgeCambridgeUniversityPressDretskeF 1981 Knowledgend heFlowof InformationOxford:Blackwell.EvansG. 1982 TheVarietiesf ReferenceOxford:Oxford UniversityPressFregeG. 1977"Thoughts" In hisLogicalnvestigationsxford:BasilBlackwell.GibsonJ.J. 1979 TheEcologicalpproacho VisualPerceptionBoston:Houghton Miffiin .Gurfinkel,v: S.,and Levick,Y.S. 1991"The PosturalBody Scheme" In BodyandSpaceed.J. PaillardOxford:Oxford UniversityPressHeadH. 1920 Studiesn Neurologyvol. 2.Oxford:Oxford UniversityPressJeannerod, M. 1988 The Neuraland Behavioural rganization f GoalDirectedMovements.Oxford:Oxford UniversityPressMartin, M. 1992

"Sight and Touch." In TheContents f Experienceed. T. M . CraneCambridgeCambridgeUniversityPress

Martin,M. 1993" SenseModalitiesandSpatialProperties" In SpatialRepresentationed.N.Eilan,R. McCarthyand B.BrewerOxford:BasilBlackwell.McGinn,C. 1982 TheCharacterfMind.Oxford:Oxford UniversityPressMerieauPontyM. 1962 The Phenomenologyf PerceptionTransC. Smith London:RoudedgeandKeganPaulNeisserU. 1993."The Self Perceived" In ThePerceivedelfEcologicalnd InterpersonalSourcesf SelfKnowledgeeditedby U.NeisserCambridge:CambridgeUniversityPressO'ShaughnessyB. 1980 TheWill.CambridgeCambridgeUniversityPress


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BodilyAwareness 289ShapiroM. F, Fink, M., and BenderM. 1952 "Exosomesthesiaor DisplacementofCutaneousSensationnto Extrapersonal pace" AMA ArchivesfNeurologyndPsychiatry68:481- 490.ShoemakerS1986" Introspectionand the Self." In Studiesn thePhilosophyfMind,ed. PeterA. FrenchTheodore EdwardUehling, and Howard K.WettsteinMidwestStudies n Philosophyno. 10.MinneapolisUniversityof MinnesotaPressVanDeusenJ. 1993& dyImage ndPerceptualysfunctionnAdults PhiladelphiaW. B.Saundersnd Co.VonBekesyG. 1967SensorynhibitionPrinceton:PrincetonUniversityPressWall,P 1993"Painand thePlaceboResponse" In ExperimentalndTheoreticaltudiesfConsciousnesseditedby G.Bock andJ.Marsh. ChichesterJohnWiley andSonsWittgensteinL. 1969 TheBlueandBrown& oks2nd ed.Oxford:BasilBlackwell.

martin, bodily awareness

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