Abstract

For almost thirty years now, the growing program of embodied cognition has tried to elevate the importance of the body in explaining cognitive activities. Embodied theorists claim that the body has a crucial significance in how and what the organism thinks and feels. Paradoxically, most of the time there is no description of bodily experiences in embodied theories, with few exceptions (e.g. Gallagher, 2005). While putting so much emphasis on the role of the body for many cognitive functions, embodied theorists tend to neglect the body for its own sake. Part of the reasons for this neglect is that the body is the explanans, not the explanandum. But one cannot ground cognition in the body if one has no understanding of what it means to have a body. In this sense, it is important to step back from speculations about the possible roles of the body for the mind and to start at the very beginning by asking the following question: How does one experience one’s body? One may then wonder whether one can give an embodied account of bodily awareness that does not fall into triviality (bodily awareness explained by the body), namely, a sensorimotor account. But to what extent and in what manner can action account for bodily awareness?