[Paul Stenner, et.al. (Ed.)]
[Theoretical Psychology: Global Transformations and Challenges]
http://www.captus.com/information/catalogue/book.asp?Book+Number=1063
I also wrote a short article, briefly reviewing the notion of embodied knowledge, which was inspired by the work of Merleau-Ponty's phenomenology of the body.
[Chapter 15: The notion of embodied knowledge. pp.149-157]
-Introduction
-Examples of Embodied Knowledge: 1. Phantom Limb, 2. Affordances, 3. Personal Space
-'I think' and 'I can'
-The Merleau-Pontian notion of body schema
-Learning experiment on ball juggling
-Concluding remarks
If you are interested in the detail, please refer to the book or ask me by e-mail. The summary is as follows:
This paper discusses the notion of embodied knowledge, which is derived from the phenomenology of Maurice Merleau-Ponty. Embodied knowledge is a type of knowledge where the body knows how to act (e.g., how to touch type, how to ride a bicycle, etc.). One of the important features of this knowledge is that the body, not the mind, is the knowing subject. Procedures for performance are embodied such that the body knows how to act in a given situation. Embodied knowledge is not confined only to motor skills, but is concerned with the variety of human experiences, all of which share the property of ‘doing without representing’. There is no need for representation because there exists a pre-reflective correspondence between body and world. Through examining Merleau-Ponty’s notion of body schema, I try to clarify that embodied knowledge is beyond the Cartesian mind-body dualism and requires an embodied view of mind.
