This course will address some of the central contexts in which thought’s relations to the body are approached in philosophy. This is either done in order to exclude the body as posing a philosophical question and to stress the primary place of thought and the mind. Or, in order to stress the philosophical challenge posed by the body.

The contexts in which the body-mind problem will be addressed are: Descartes’ 6th mediation, “Passions of the Soul” (also by Descartes), “On the Soul” (by Aristotle), Freud’s concept of “drive”, the notion of “Life” in psychoanalysis, Merleau-Ponty and the possibility of conceptualizing the body, and Heidegger’s “What is called Thinking?”.

 Final obligation: home exam.