Education and the Philosophy of the Body: Bodies of Knowledge and Knowledges of the Body

Abstract

The idea that the soul is distinct from the body has it roots in classical Greek philosophy and is found in Plato. For instance, in the Meno, Plato indicates that the soul acquires knowledge before it enters the body and thus all knowing consists in recollecting. Later, in the Phaedo and other dialogues Plato articulates the notion of Forms, which are considered eternal, changeless and incorporeal. The Platonic dualism between the world of Forms and the world of mere appearances becomes one of the problem-sets in the history of philosophy. Gilbert Ryle said that all Western philosophy consists in a series of footnotes to Plato and, indeed, one can detect in the history of contemporary philosophy the antagonism between Platonism and anti-Platonism as a dominant theme. For instance, the controversial neopragmatist, Richard Rorty (1999, p. xvi) suggests that philosophers are called ‘relativists’ when they do not accept the Greek distinction between the way things are in themselves and the relations which they have to other things, and in particular to human needs and interests.