French Literature Reviews - 2026

B. Doganis, Pensées du corps, la philosophie à l'épreuve des arts gestuels japonais (danse, théâtre, arts martiaux)
Philosophy, Anthropology and Ideas

Basile Doganis, Pensées du corps, la philosophie à l'épreuve des arts gestuels japonais (danse, théâtre, arts martiaux)

Paris: Les Belles Lettres, coll. "Japon", 2012.

EAN 9782251722160.

Publisher's overview:

Bodily thoughts: is it possible that the body thinks, that it is not merely an object of reflection, but a full-fledged subject of thought?

Here, the philosophical approach is confronted with a corpus of Japanese bodily practices and arts (dance, theater, martial arts). A series of significant experiences challenges conventional ideas and pushes the thinker to radically renew their methods and concepts. The result is a grounded, embodied, and immanent philosophy that highlights the profound rationality of the body—including in those manifestations that typically resist analysis: sensation and action.
There is no need to resort to a culturalist relativism fond of exoticism, and even less to any form of irrationalism. Bodily thoughts outline a space of publicity and intelligibility, a form of universality that everyone can intimately experience and refine. Far from constituting an outside, the body appears as the locus for the production of universally shareable knowledge and thought.

This study belongs to a long philosophical tradition that questions the traditional dualism between mind and matter by investigating the cognitive capacities of physical movement. By turning toward non-Western movement traditions without relying on exoticism, the work engages with ongoing discussions surrounding embodied cognition and the phenomenology of perception.

Readers interested in the intersections between philosophy, East Asian cultural practices, and the study of bodily movement may find this volume a relevant contribution to their pursuits. The text confronts the philosophical approach with a corpus of Japanese bodily practices and arts, including dance, theater, and martial arts, highlighting the profound rationality of the body.