Ciência, corpo e mente como categorias de conhecimento

Abstract

In modern times the human body is pointed out as the central locus of countless representations and discussions, mainly those based in the consumption, pleasure and leisure society. As for the phylosophical thinking tradition the human body has hierachically been ranked inferior to reason and soul. Nowadays the new forms of communication and information impose an aesthetic pattern turned to pleasure and consumption, radically accelerating the process of valorizing capital. In the center of the consumption process the human body gains importance over the rational dimension, after all, saving an immortal soul is no longer what it is all about, but to make use of the potentialities that a healthy and cared about body can offer. Meanwhile, new relations between body and soul are established, showing not only dicotomical poles, but complementarities that do not exclude each other mutually. To think body and soul, then, means to able to learn new a values chart and social institutions that shape it according to new aesthetical and ethical rules.