Embodiment Matters in Knowledge Building

Abstract In this paper, we begin a conversation with educators invested in developing epistemic insight. We argue that generative artificial intelligence provides an opportunity to make a necessary corrective to our understanding of knowledge and knowledge building. The use of the metaphors of such as ‘human-as-machine’ has inadvertently promoted a reductive understanding of knowledge which has led to an impoverished version of higher education. In reducing the person to an information processor, knowledge has been artificially separated from the knower. The view of the human person as a relational being situated in time and space along with a recognition that intuition and imagination are important dimensions of knowledge development point to the significance of the embodiment of knowledge. For knowledge to have value and meaning, it must be enacted by a particular, embodied person. The recognition of the importance of embodiment and the associated implications are crucial if higher education is to respond in a meaningful way to the challenge presented by generative AI.