Physical being

Body care has never before been so much a focus of public interest, nor have the ways we classify people by reference to their kind of body excited such political passions. What bodies we have and how we use them is a central concern in the art of being human. In this book, Rom Harre attempts to build a comprehensive account of the roles our bodies play in our lives. He argues that these roles are determined less by organic functioning than by cultural conventions and social meanings and that, rightly or wrongly, our type of body is fateful for the way our lives can be lived. From among the vast array of ways our bodies and their nature and condition enter our lives he explores three main questions. The first concerns the "metaphysical": how we use our bodies to determine and to express the kind of person we are. Next, the various forms of normative judgements and public and private "evaluations" that bodily forms and functions are subjected to are examined. Finally, the body and its parts and functions are looked at in the light of their use both as signifiers, systems of signs, and as blank surfaces on which significance is "inscribed".