Eliot Deutsch's The Concept Of The Body

The body, while seemingly clearly definable and understandable, is a concept that humans have struggled to define and understand for much of history. Social conceptions of the mind of spirit shaped philosophers’ understandings of the relationship between the mind and body, as well as attitudes toward the body. In his essay “The Concept of the Body,” Eliot Deutsch presents readers with four popular modes of conceiving of the body. These models, popularized at different points throughout history, are the prison, the temple, the machine, and the instrument. Through reading Plato’s dialogue Phaedo, one gains perspective on Socrates’ conception of the body, as a prison. The body as a prison metaphor, as explained by Deutsch, is premised on the fundamental belief in a duality of mind and body. The metaphor, Deutsch writes, “is …show more content…
Echecrates, knowing that Phaedo was present in the moments leading to Socrates’ execution, pleads with him to recount his final conversation with Socrates. Phaedo notes that a number of Socrates’ friends were present in his cell including Crito and two Pythagorean philosophers, Simmias and Cerbes. The group’s discussion begins with Socrates presenting a central theme of the text: that philosopher should look forward to death. Although he argues that suicide lacks a moral justification, Socrates maintains that the life of a philosopher is a preparation for death. He first claims that death is a release of the soul from the body. When the others agree to this point, Socrates then notes that a philosopher does not “concern himself with the so-called pleasures connected with” bodily pleasures (Phaedo, 64d). Thus, he concludes, through death a philosopher is freed from bodily temptations, which only serve to distract from thinking about higher truths, for “when [the soul] tries to investigate anything with the help of the body, it is obviously led astray” (Pha.,