Abstract
In this paper, I critically examine phenomenological disability studies' critique of so-called ‘Cartesian Dualism’. I argue that it is not a metaphysical divide between mental and extended substance that disability studies must overcome, but rather a more fundamental understanding of world understood only in terms of substance, what Martin Heidegger calls the ‘ontology of objective presence’. This view of ‘the world’ passes over being-in-the-world and the problem of meaning. After outlining phenomenological disability studies' objection to Descartes' legacy, I critically contrast the mind–body problem with the substance problem, suggesting the latter is crucial, and the former derivative. I conclude by discussing the contours of a disabled phenomenology: one that takes physical and mental difference as the basis for a theoretical project, rather than another site for phenomenological investigation.
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1080/15017419.2014.995219 | Journal eISSN: 1745-3011
Language: English
Page range: 118 - 128
Submitted on: Aug 18, 2014
Accepted on: Dec 2, 2014
Published on: Jan 2, 2016
Published by: Stockholm University Press
In partnership with: Paradigm Publishing Services
Keywords:
© 2016 Thomas Abrams, published by Stockholm University Press
This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.