The Routledge Handbook of Bodily Awareness

Bodily awareness is one of the most interesting and enigmatic forms of experience. Our earliest and most pervasive form of conscious experience, it also arguably remains the most private. Bodily awareness has also long played a central role in the studyof the mind and self-consciousness reaching back to Descartes, and is fundamental to much current philosophical and psychological research. The Routledge Handbook of Bodily Awareness is an outstanding reference source to this fascinating subject. Comprising over thirty chapters by an international team of contributors, the Handbook is divided into seven clear parts: Epistemology and Metaphysics Historical Issues Body Representation Sensing the Body Dynamics Pathology Interaction. Within these sections specific topics covered include bodily ownership, personal identity, self-consciousness, body modelling in robot design, body illusions, touch, proprioception, pregnancy, phantom limb syndrome, pain, eating disorders, out of body experiences and virtual reality. The handbook features specially commissioned contributions from researchers in a wide array of disciplines, whilst being accessible to readers with any disciplinary background. It also includes an interdisciplinary introduction, written by the editors, tying together the central themes with particular attention to the interaction between conceptual, technological and empirical issues. The Routledge Handbook of Bodily Awareness will be of great interest to those in a wide variety of philosophical subdisciplines as well as those in psychology, cognitive science, sociology and related subjects--