{"product_id":"human-flesh-phenomenology-and-evolution-of-the-social-body-hardback-9780821426968","title":"Human Flesh; Phenomenology and Evolution of the Social Body (Hardback) 9780821426968","description":"\u003cfont face=\"Georgia\"\u003e\r\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cfont size=\"6\"\u003eHuman Flesh\u003c\/font\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\r\n\u003cfont size=\"5\"\u003ePhenomenology and Evolution of the Social Body\u003c\/font\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cfont size=\"4\"\u003eHayden Kee (Author)\u003c\/font\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cfont size=\"3\"\u003e9780821426968\u003c\/font\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cfont size=\"3\"\u003eHardback, published 14 July 2026\u003c\/font\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cfont size=\"3\"\u003e304 pages, 4 drawings\u003cbr\u003e22.9 x 15.2 x 2.1 cm, 0.558 kg\u003c\/font\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\u003cp align=\"justify\"\u003e\u003cem\u003e\u003cfont size=\"3\"\u003e\"What makes us human? Hayden Kee, in this remarkably lucid book, explores a convincing answer to this question: our embodied sociality. To do so, he integrates phenomenology and evolutionary theory. In particular, Kee calls upon the work of Maurice Merleau-Ponty and recent embodied approaches to cognition in order to provide a rich and insightful framework for his detailed analyses of the sensory-sensible, the sexual, and the social. By doing so he has produced a significant philosophical contribution to our un­derstanding of what makes us human. - Shaun Gallagher,\" author of \u003ci\u003eThe Self and Its Disorders\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"Hayden Kee’s daring book fleshes out Merleau-Ponty’s scant remarks on evolution by showing how his phenomenology of our bodies as inherently seeable, touchable, and perceptible puts our shared sociality at the heart of human evolution. Kee’s social body poses a timely challenge to the usual view of evolution as driven by struggles between bodies.\" - David Morris, author of \u003ci\u003eMerleau-Ponty's Developmental Ontology\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/font\u003e\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp align=\"justify\"\u003e\u003cstrong\u003e\u003cfont size=\"3\"\u003e\u003cp\u003eMuch recent research on human evolution emphasizes that social behavior and cognition are at the heart of everything that is distinctively human. This body of research generally understands sociality in terms of social reasoning and the brain that supports it. \u003ci\u003eHuman Flesh\u003c\/i\u003e shifts the focus. What if human sociality is not primarily or exclusively located in the brain but rather is distributed throughout the body? What if the foundation of the human way of life lies in \u003ci\u003eintercorporeity:\u003c\/i\u003e the ways in which our affective, sensorimotor social bodies-our eyes, hands, voices, ears, and desires-open our bodies and minds up to one another?\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003ci\u003eHuman Flesh\u003c\/i\u003e develops a framework for exploring these questions based on Merleau-Ponty’s unfinished work on human evolution, combining it with contemporary research in phenomenology, embodied cognitive science, evolutionary anthropology, and primatology. It applies that framework to explore how the different senses and sensory organs take on their distinctively human variations to facilitate the intercorporeal, social human form of life. Along the way, the book interprets familiar facts about the human body in a new light and develops novel hypotheses concerning human evolution. In contrast to the widely discussed social \u003ci\u003ebrain\u003c\/i\u003e hypothesis, its guiding premise is the social \u003ci\u003ebody\u003c\/i\u003e hypothesis: the proposition that the human body has evolved in response to the challenges posed by the distinctively human social form of life. \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eBased on these concrete investigations into the human body, \u003ci\u003eHuman Flesh\u003c\/i\u003e proposes a new way of thinking about familiar topics in the evolution of cognition literature, such as the emergence of higher orders of social cognition and the development of human symbolic and linguistic capacities. Ultimately, the book arrives at a new determination of human nature and the human form of life: To be human is to be \u003ci\u003eHomo invisibilis,\u003c\/i\u003e an animal obsessed with, adapted for, and dependent upon the invisible minds of other humans and the symbolic-cultural worlds opened up by their unique social bodies.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003c\/font\u003e\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cfont size=\"3\"\u003e\u003cp\u003eList of Illustrations\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eAcknowledgments\u003cbr\u003eAbbreviations\u003cbr\u003eIntroduction\u003cbr\u003e1 \u003ci\u003eHomo ignotus\u003cbr\u003eIn Search of Past Hominins\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e2 Esthesiology\u003cbr\u003e\u003ci\u003eHumanity Is Another Corporeity\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e3 Visible Flesh\u003cbr\u003e\u003ci\u003eWindow, Mirror, and Screen of the Soul\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e4 Touchable Flesh\u003cbr\u003e\u003ci\u003eThe Most Profound of Surfaces\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e5 Audible Flesh\u003cbr\u003e\u003ci\u003eSounding the Depths of the Sonorous Body\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e6 Chemical Flesh\u003cbr\u003e\u003ci\u003eThe Smellable and the Insmellable?\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e7 Libidinal Flesh\u003cbr\u003e\u003ci\u003eHumanity Is Another Desire\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e8 Symbolic Flesh\u003cbr\u003e\u003ci\u003eThe Divisible and the Indivisible\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e9 Intercorporeal and Intersubjective Flesh\u003cbr\u003e\u003ci\u003eSocial Cognition Re-Viewed\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e10 \u003ci\u003eHomo invisibilis\u003cbr\u003eIn (Re)Search of Future Humanity\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003eNotes\u003cbr\u003eReferences\u003cbr\u003eIndex 301\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003c\/font\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\u003c\/font\u003e","brand":"Ohio University Press","offers":[{"title":"Brand New","offer_id":52574567792920,"sku":"9780821426968","price":58.39,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"url":"https:\/\/freshlyprintedbooks.co.uk\/products\/human-flesh-phenomenology-and-evolution-of-the-social-body-hardback-9780821426968","provider":"Freshly Printed Books","version":"1.0","type":"link"}