The Cartesian Split
Since the ancient Greeks, a binary opposition between the body and the soul has been a basic framework of Western philosophy. People tend to consider their bodies as matter without thoughts and as fundamentally different from their souls and minds. No matter what else ‘body’ might mean, it refers principally to a thing without comprehension, choice or judgement, contrary to self-determination and free will (Walter, 2011). According to René Descartes, although there is a close interaction between the mind and the body, they are two beings with different essences. The body stands for sensibility, contingency and uncertainty, whereas the mind represents sense, truth, stability and certainty. Thus, for much of the history of Western thought, the body has been in a hidden and obscure state.