Medieval and Renaissance understanding of “body” and “corporeality”

BACKGROUND: The article analyzes the idea that such a concept as “body” is an interesting and complex phenomenon, an integral part of human life, which philosophers, thinkers and theologians have reflected on throughout human history, describing its significance and role depending on ideological attitudes prevailing at one time or another.

AIM: Studying the features of the presentation and reflection of the “dualistic” and “holistic” attitude towards the human body in the works of scientists and thinkers of different eras.

RESULTS: The explanation of the essence of the first approach is based on an analysis of the features of church doctrine, which saw in the body only a “shell” of the soul and considered it worthy of contempt and death, and to understand the essence of the second approach, the author turns to the ideological attitudes of the Late Middle Ages, the Renaissance and the early Modern Times, which “rehabilitated” the body in the context of a return to the Roman and Greek classics of philosophical thought. Consequently, on the one hand, the medieval religious and political ideal of universalism and ways of “healing” (improving) the body as a social unity (“the body of society”) are analyzed, and, on the other hand, the author reflects on ways to free man from the yoke of church authority that regulates every aspect human life, related to the body, and also describes the history of the emergence of a new understanding of the human body — both as a symbol of beauty (in the understanding of kalokagathia by the Greeks), and as a machine working according to certain laws.

CONCLUSION: Understanding how “body” and “corporality” became the guidelines of medieval corporatism in its secular and ecclesiastical (papal) versions (taking into account the duality of the monarch’s body) requires a comprehensive study — not only from a philosophical, psychological, sociological, but also from a medical point of view. Changing approaches to understanding the body as a physical, cultural, social phenomenon allows us to more deeply understand the characteristics of society and people’s attitude towards life and death, suffering of body and soul, as well as the role of public discourse in shaping the population’s attitude towards these phenomena.