Varieties of incorporation: beyond the blind man's cane

Abstract

The main topic of this chapter is the experience of incorporating objects into the sense of self, specifically in the sense of being a bodily or corporeal self. It has long been observed that using tools can lead to experiencing them no longer as external objects, but as constitutive of the lived body. Specifically, discussions of incorporation have focused on the body schema. In this chapter I draw attention to the fact that we can also incorporate objects in other ways because we experience ourselves as bodily not just in the sense implied by the notion of body schema. Specifically, we can incorporate objects into the body image and into the seen body. Importantly, these forms of incorporation are not mutually exclusive, but usually coexist in experience.