The body as mediator of the world : contributions by Maurice Merleau-Ponty and Don Ihde

This article focuses on Maurice Merleau-Ponty's phenomenology of the body and his explications of the body as mediator of the world. Merleau-Ponty's notion of the body which projects the cultural world around it by means of 'making' (technē) and 'using / applying' (technique / habit acquisition), is complimented by Bourdieu's notion of individual and social habitus. However, the significant contribution by Don Ihde - contemporary American philosopher of technology - on the structural relations between the body and technology, better serves as an extension to Merleau-Ponty's phenomenology of our bodily engagement in the world. In fact, Ihde's notion of human-technology relations and mediation are mutually inclusive. In their explications of embodiment and technics, the Ihde- Merleau-Ponty pair gives us a comprehensive idea on mediation and on the relations between the body, perception, the cultural and symbolic world and technics.