Body Schema and Body Image: New Directions

Body schema is a system of sensory-motor capacities that function without awareness or the necessity of perceptual monitoring. Body image consists of a system of perceptions, attitudes, and beliefs pertaining to one’s own body.

In 2005 Shaun Gallagher published an influential book entitled How the Body Shapes the Mind (OUP). That book not only defined both body schema and body image, but explored the complicated relationship between the two. It also established the idea that there is a double dissociation, whereby body schema and body image refer to two different but closely related systems. Given that many kinds of pathological cases can be described in terms of body schema and body image (phantom limbs, asomatognosia, apraxia, schizophrenia, anorexia, depersonalization, and body dysmorphic disorder, among others), we might expect to find a growing consensus about these concepts and the relevant neural activities connected to these systems. Instead, an examination of the scientific literature reveals continued ambiguity and disagreement.

This volume brings together leading experts from the fields of philosophy, neuroscience, psychology, and psychiatry in a lively and productive dialogue. It explores fundamental questions about the relationship between body schema and body image, and addresses ongoing debates about the role of the brain and the role of social and cultural factors in our understanding of embodiment.

Yochai Ataria, Associate Professor, Tel-Hai College, Israel, Shogo Tanaka, Professor of Psychology and Philosophy, Tokai University, Japan, Shaun Gallagher, Lillian and Morrie Moss Professor of Excellence in Philosophy, University of Memphis, USA, and Professorial Fellow, School of Liberal Arts, University of Wollongong, Australia

Yochai Ataria is an Associate Professor at Tel-Hai College, Israel. He conducted his post-doctoral research in the Neurobiology Department at the Weizmann Institute of Science. He is the author of the following books: The Structural Trauma of Western Culture (2017); Body Disownership in ComplexPost-Traumatic Stress Disorder (2018); The Mathematics of Trauma [Hebrew] (2014); Not in our Brain [Hebrew] (2019); Levi versus Ka-Tsetnik (in press); and Consciousness in Flesh (in press). In addition, he co-edited the following volumes: Interdisciplinary Handbook of Culture and Trauma (2016); JeanAm�ry: Beyond the Mind’s Limits (2019); Kafka: New Perspectives [Hebrew] (2013); The End of the Human Era [Hebrew] (2016); 2001: A Space Odyssey - 50th Anniversary [Hebrew] (2019); and Body Schema Vs. Body Image (in press).

Shogo Tanaka is a Professor of Psychology and Philosophy at Tokai University in Japan. He received his Ph.D. in philosophical psychology from Tokyo Institute of Technology. Dr Tanaka is primarily interested in phenomenology and psychology, more specifically, in clarifying the theoretical foundations of psychology from the perspective of embodiment, inspired by the ideas of Maurice Merleau-Ponty. His publications encompass a broad range of issues, including body schema, body image, skill acquisition, embodied self, social cognition, theory of mind, and intercorporeality. From 2013-2014, and from 2016-2017, he stayed at the Department of Psychiatry of the University of Heidelberg in Germany as a visiting scholar, where he worked on phenomenology, psychology and psychopathology. His recent publications include, ’Intercorporeality and Aida’ (Theory & Psychology, 27, 337-353), ’What is it like to be disconnected from the body?’ (Journal of Consciousness Studies, 25, 239-262) and other articles.

Shaun Gallagher is the Lillian and Morrie Moss Professor of Excellence in Philosophy at the University of Memphis, USA, and Professorial Fellow at the School of Liberal Arts, University of Wollongong, Australia. He was a Humboldt Foundation Anneliese Maier Research Fellow (2012-18). His publications include Action and Interaction (2020); Enactivist Interventions: Rethinking the Mind (2017); The Neurophenomenology of Awe and Wonder (2015); Phenomenology (2012); The Phenomenological Mind (with Dan Zahavi, 2012); and How the Body Shapes the Mind (2005). He’s also editor-in-chief of the journal Phenomenology and the Cognitive Sciences.