ABSTRACT
Krishnachandra Bhattacharyya (KCB) takes the body very seriously in his discussion of subjectivity. He builds an intricate argument about the fact that one cannot perceive one’s body as a whole. In truth, one perceives just a small portion of one’s own body (drawing on paragraph 59 of The Subject as Freedom, Bagchi speaks of the “unseen half” of one’s body). Reflection in a mirror is too indirect. Unlike the unseen parts of another object, which I can “complete” by changing my position with respect to this object, or by imagining its “unseen half” based on the capacity of looking from a different angle, this is not the case with my body. My body is an object among objects, but at the same time it is altogether different from any other object. Not just since it is also the subject who perceives everything else, objects and subjects, or since the perceived body and the felt body do not equal one another; but also, since I need you, your eyes, which perceive my “unseen half”, in order to perceive myself as a whole. It is implied that my own body is more intersubjective than any other object in the world.
