You do not currently have permission to view the full text for this document. Please sign in to an account with an active subscription or contact support.
The author, a noted literary critic, provides an interesting review of medical and psychological thought on the body and on those internal perceptions of the body termed "coenesthesia." He traces the notion from the Cyrenians, through Montaigne, Descartes, and other writers. The term "coenesthesia" was translated from the German word Gemeingefühl, which first appeared in a 1794 dissertation by Frieder Hubner, under the direction of Johann Reil. The concept was readily taken up. It introduced a genetic perspective into psychological studies, which came to consider all mental life as deriving from coenesthesia. The study of the French psychologist, Théodule Armand Ribot, Disorders of the Personality, which further elaborated coenesthetic theory, went through fifteen editions between 1883 and 1914, which attests to its immense influence. Other writers, such as Pierre Janet, were opposed to this radical biologism. Charles Blondel, a physician and philosopher, in a study published in 1914, also placed emphasis on the active role of consciousness. Rather than regarding the body as the causal source of mental life, as in earlier coenesthetic theories, Blondel considered it the agent for the expressive intentions of the individual. The concept of the body was thus displaced from the field of physiology to the role accorded to the body by society—the role of effector of messages. Freud also emphasized the active response of the mental apparatus on the afferent somatic stimulation. Well aware of the role of organic impressions on dreams, he nevertheless emphasized the neutrality of these organic sensations and stressed instead the work carried out upon them by the mental apparatus in producing the dream. The body became the place in which, or the means by which, an instinct could choose to attain its goal. The somatic element in instincts was recognized, but it was not perceptual as in earlier theories. The concept that Freud used was representation, which presa