Thinking Through The Body is not the same as thinking about the body. In the former the body is the agent whereas in the latter it is a mere object. In other words, to think through the body is to allow the body to guide thought. The first result of this guidance is the recognition that thinking is an incarnated experience and that sensibility is a ground for concepts. The ultimate result would be a methodological change, both in philosophy and in aesthetics. We propose to call such a change: ‘somaesthetics’.
According to Richard Shusterman “somaesthetics concerns the body as a locus of sensory-aesthetic appreciation (aisthetis) and creative self-fashioning. As an ameliorative discipline of both theory and practice, it aims to enrich not only our abstract, discursive knowledge of the body but also our lived somatic experience and performance.”

Drawing from the phenomenological and pragmatist concepts of lived experience, this workshop examines the fundamental relation between body and mind, somatic awareness and intellectual consciousness, physical pleasure and the sense of taste. As well as being a theoretical conference, the workshop includes a short course in Feldenkrais technique (no training or special equipment required).

Keywords:
Somaesthetics
Awareness
Philosophy
Body-Scan
Pleasure
Human Sciences
Meditation
Art
Performance
Feldenkrais
Phenomenology
Language
Experience
Nature
Erotism