From organism to body in critical psychology

A contribution to a category of the body

Abstract

This article suggests a concept of the body grounded in the tradition of German/Danish critical psychology. This contributing to a psy- chologically relevant concept of the body is motivated by three observations: first, some of the pressing psychological problematics of the 21st Century beg analysis of how the biological and functional materiality of the body matters in subjects’ situated lives. Second, the early foundational texts in critical psychology lack a concept of the body. Third, to date the body has received little attention in critical psychological writings. The proposed conceptual de- velopment takes as a point of departure the basic tenet of historical dialectic materialism of psycho-phylogenetic development as a unity of organism, psyche, vital activity, and envi- ronment. The article suggests that this developmental unity be extended to the ontogenetic level of individual human existence, to include concepts of the body, subjectivity, situated activity, and environmental conditions. On that basis, empirical analysis can attend to the body and to biological and functional aspects of material life as important aspects of situated and societal existence.