Incorporating others: what an extended self tells us about intersubjectivity

Abstract

Incorporation is the body’s capacity to take something to alter or extend itself. In the literature on the subject, there is a lively debate on what constitutes incorporation. According to the Hypothesis of Extended Mind, whatever extends our cognitive processes is incorporated. At the same time, that object becomes a part of our self-manifestation. However, De Preester, in what I call a narrow version of incorporation, proposes that an object is incorporated to the self only if it is included in the sense of ownership of the body. Here, I explore a broader version of incorporation, related to Merleau-Ponty’s ideas of habit and incorporation. From this perspective, incorporation is the way a self expands and alters itself in its dealings with the world. A self, as a lived body, emerges in the self’s constitutive openness to worlds; therefore, objects (and even others) are incorporated in a temporal and situated way if they participate in constitutive experiences. Finally, this perspective explores the idea of a flexible and transparent self rather than a fixed self based on representations of the body.