Abstract

The phenomenological problem of the body (Leib) goes further than its treatment as a theoretical object, insofar as it concerns the meaning and the accomplishment of the phenomenological method itself. Both reduction and intuition, the two major poles of this method, imply in their specificity the reference to an operative corporeity (fungierende Leiblichkeit). The primordial sphere of absolute givenness cannot thus reduce the body proper without sacrificing the very principle that allows delimiting it. But this seems to lead to an unavoidable subjectivation of the phenomenological experience, whose model remains the object of perception (internal or external) and its ideal of intuitivity. In the last part of the paper it is however argued that corporeity is more than the resort of such a subjectivation, appearing also to be, within the framework of expression, the key to intersubjective comprehension