Your body is the physical structure you inhabit. It has mass, temperature, and a boundary. It occupies space. It can be seen, touched, and measured. It also ages, gets sick, and dies. Philosophy has asked what the body is, how it relates to the mind, and whether personal identity depends on it. Answers have varied widely.

Plato treated the body as a temporary prison for the soul. Descartes distinguished the body as extended substance from the mind as thinking substance. Materialists argue that the body is all there is, and mental states are physical states. Phenomenologists like Merleau-Ponty rejected both dualism and reductionism, arguing that the body is not an object we have but a subject we are. The lived body is the medium through which we perceive and act in the world. Feminist philosophers have examined how bodies are shaped by social norms, gender, race, and power. Disability theorists have challenged assumptions about what a normal body is.

Philosophical questions about the body

• Ontology. Is the body a substance, a process, or a construction?
• Mind-body relation. How does the body relate to consciousness?
• Identity. Am I my body? If my body changes, do I remain the same?
• Politics. How are bodies regulated, categorized, and controlled?

Bodies are also sites of meaning. A scar tells a story. A posture communicates. The body is never just matter.