Mellan kroppar : Om ett förenande men också förpliktigande fenomen hos Maurice Merleau-Ponty & Donald Winnicott

Sammanfattning: For phenomenology, subjective experience is essential, as is the relationship with the other. But despite these central themes, the relationship between bodies is not primary focus. Philosophical understanding of bodily encounter is lacking. It is for this reason I have put Maurice Merleau-Ponty in dialogue with psychoanalyst and paediatrician Donald Winnicott who claims that the meeting between bodies is vital. Merleau-Ponty talks about the body's relationship with the other based on an intentional act of the subject. How the body comes into being with the world. Winnicott talks about the subject as continually developing through the interaction of bodies where the intention is expressed somewhat differently. He argues that it ́s not always the child's intention that matters. Winnicott also claims that my own body has not always had the experience of being a separate body. There is a phase in development where the child is a subjectobject as he puts it. With no border between the other. The purpose of this thesis is to investigate the formation of subjectivity. The thesis contribution is a complement to philosophical understanding of subject-construction with the desire to point toward the responsibility of the body who has come further in life.