The exclamatory awareness of existence - Examples: - I exist I manifest (experiencing self with the world) The body - Creates

s ambiguity - Knowing I exist as a conscious beingbut you cant feel others as subjects; only way of accessing others is thru the body - Presence of body treatment of someone as an object: forgetting they have feelings - this datum is not transparent to itself: reveals and conceals myself to others - Ambiguous to me: what is my relationship with my body? - Primary vs. secondary reflection on experience of embodiment - Primary reflection: forgetting that my body is a body subject focusing on physicality, artificial separation of body <body-as-object>: exception to the norm - Experience of I exist, full richness Is my body something I possess? - Referring to body as my body - Similarities of my body & my dog: Claim, Care, Control (presence of various LIMITS) o Claim: actual experience of owning the dog finding it, buying it; Body my consciousness, I experience this body as mine o Care / responsibility: taking care of your pet; varying degrees of taking care of the body internal experience of responsibility o Control: having some degree of control of your pet; control of body varies from total control to no control (locked-in syndrome) - The difference between embodiment and owning a dog o Spatial-temporal difference between self and what I own (severing possession: I will still survive; body and self cant be separated in terms of possession) o Experience of subjectivity vs. relations between me and an object

Possession and embodiment - Possession: subject object - Embodiment experience as subject relating to self: completely different experiences - Experience of embodiment is fundamental, possession as a lame attempt to approximate experience of embodiment o Chronological: embodiment before possession o Possessions can be gotten rid of, but I cant give away my body o Marcel: Acquiring objects as approximating experiences of embodiment getting hurt due to attachment to objects The unity of the body as sui generis - Sui generis: in a category all to itself - Hence: a rejection of dualism (par. 29-32) o In all dualisms: body & soul treated as things o Marcels rejection o Persists because of the mystery of death: maybe the consciousness left the body - Par. 42: Experience offers me no direct means of knowing what I shall and can still be once the link between self and body is broken by death. Is my body an instrument? - What is an instrument: Tool, apparatus used for different purposes - Differences between body & instrument: o My body & a hammer: Spatio-temporal differences o The body is not a tool you can set aside. o At no point does an objective tool replace the self you cant blame an instrument for something you are doing. o Tool: extends the powers you already have - Presumption of body coating the soul like an astral body: doesnt seem to be true (speculative) - If the body isnt me, at what point can I say that something is me? Weakness of phenomenological approach: based on common experience, veers away from exceptions

I AM MY BODY.
- The word body doesnt refer to an object: physicality - The word body refers to the subject: embodied consciousness - Incarnation - embodiment, Sympathetic mediation seemingly paradoxical experience of feeling (In a sense I dont feel the object but a sensation of my own body): mediation as using my body to feel something else, sympathetic what I feel is also my own body Summary of Marcel - Primary & Secondary Reflection - The Self o Who am I? self-as-object/subject o I exist: as predicate / exclamatory awareness of existence o Embodiment: dualism, possession, instrument / I am my body