Relevance of Embodied Practice to Philosophical Understanding

Summary

Meditation can significantly influence philosophical discourse by helping individuals detach from the limitations of subjectivity that restrict reason. The paper discusses how neurobiological interpretations shape our self-experience and rational understanding, suggesting that embodied practices prior to discourse are essential for overcoming implicit assumptions in philosophy.

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Abstract

In this paper I argue that meditation has a direct bearing upon philosophical discourse by enabling us to distance ourselves from the basic structure of subjectivity that often limits the scope of reason. Recent neurobiological hypotheses are discussed in conjunction with the method of hermeneutic phenomenology to argue that interpretations on the level of our neurobiology underly and construct our experience of ourselves as subjects and the sense of explicit rational understanding that arises from it. This implies that prediscursive embodied practice can play a crucial role in freeing our philosophical understanding from implicit assumptions.

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