This body that therefore I am

Abstract

It is clear that, in the last century, the body has found a centrality often previously neglected, if not directly denied, by our tradition of thought. The objective of the article is not to produce a historiographical survey of the main philosophical analyses that have been conducted on the body, in our contemporaneity.  Rather  I  am interested,  here,  to  outline  an  attempt  of  practical  philosophy.  I  would  try  to  apply  some  of  the  main  concepts  elaborated  by  Deleuze  and  Guattari  (Body  without  Organs,  becoming-other,  processes  of  individuation, de-territorialization and reterrtorialization) and by Foucault (technologies  of  the  self  and  practices  of  subjection,  use  of  pleasures)  to  my  own body as it was experienced in the whole of my growth process, starting from the kierkegaardian concept of occasion. An attempt of practical philosophy, therefore, precisely because what is proposed is to immanentize in (my) flesh  and  in  practice  the  set  of  notions  and  categories,  proposed  by  Deleuze  and  Foucault,  concerning  the body,  the  flesh  and  the  processes  of  subjecti-vation  and  modification.  In  outlining  this  research  there will  be  analysed  and used some of the main philosophical analyses of the Twentieth century dedicated specifically to the analysis of corporeality (Merlau-Ponty, Nancy, Sartre,  Deleuze  and  Foucault);  but  useful  insights  will also  be  drawn  from  authors  who  have  not  devoted  much  attention  to  this  subject  (Wittgenstein  and Stirner). At the end of the paper, we will return to the whole body as it was intended within my practice of subjectivation.