ABSTRACT
This chapter focuses on the notion of the gaze of the other and how the situation of being seen is problematized differently in Sartre and Merleau-Ponty. It suggests that exploring the specific vocabularies and viewpoints of existing theories helps to understand the existential qualities of body perceptions and discloses the complexity that lies behind the lived experience of eating disorders. The body has been a topic of philosophical deliberations for humans as long as they ponder about themselves. A dualistic interpretation of the body-mind problem alone is not new, but rather can be found throughout the history of ideas and in almost all cultures. Michel Henry's theory of a transcendental embodiment has been received less frequently, although his central question leads right into the heart of a philosophy of embodiment. Since the 1990s, phenomenology of embodiment has grown and influenced many other disciplines like pedagogy, psychology, neurology and even robotics.
