From Bodiless Kinesthesia to “Inner-Body”: On the Split of Body in Husserl’s Phenomenology

Abstract This paper reexamines Husserl’s analyses of kinesthesia and bodiliness, challenging two dominant interpretations in phenomenological scholarship: first, that Husserl’s analysis of kinesthesia implies an idea of embodied subjectivity; and second, that the distinction between Leib and Körper provides a clear conceptual foundation for his theory of embodiment. Through a close reading of Husserl’s texts, I argue that these views overlook internal tensions within his own descriptions. In particular, Husserl’s notion of “bodiless kinesthesia” reveals a conceptual gap between kinesthetic experience and embodiment. Over the course of Husserl’s development, kinesthesia is increasingly defined not as an inner sensation of bodily condition but as the spontaneity of transcendental subjectivity – an egoic activity belonging to the realm of the “I can.” At the same time, the body itself is classified within the realm of the not-egoic. Yet, a closer analysis of the horizontal structure of kinesthesia shows that certain bodily elements, such as the zero-point of orientation and the extension of organs, remain indispensable to its definition. This leads to Husserl’s conceptual division between “inner-body” and “outer-body.” The key point here is that this division between inner- and outer-body cannot be equated with the distinction between Leib and Körper; rather, it discloses a deeper constitutional order and modes of bodily givenness. Finally, this paper concludes by considering how an ontogenetic perspective reframes Husserl’s localization of this conceptual division.