The ever increasing ability of medical technology to reshape the human body in fundamental ways - from organ and tissue transplants to reconstructive surgery and prosthetics - is something now largely taken for granted. But for a philosopher, such interventions raise fundamental and fascinating questions about our sense of individual identity and its relationship to the physical body. Drawing on and engaging with philosophers from across the centuries, Jenny Slatman here develops a novel argument: that our own body always entails a strange dimension, a strangeness that enables us to incorporate radical physical changes.

Jenny Slatman is associate professor philosophy in the department of Health, Ethics and Society at Maastricht University. She has published widely on the issue of embodiment in relation to both modern culture and medicine, including L'expression au-delà de la représentation (2003)

IntroductionThe Issue of Identity: Being Self and OtherSocial-scientific and Ethical Analyses of Body ModificationsA Phenomenology of IdentityChapter I: Heavy, Inanimate and Nauseating BodiesCarrying along Our BodyThe Fallen SoulInanimate LifeThe Modern SoulThe Soul that Inhabits the StomachReality Bracketed offSweating and BlushingChapter II: Body BoundariesStrange BonesHandiness, or Handling One's WorldBody SchemaLeib and Körper: Difference and UnityTolerating the StrangeLimits to ToleranceChapter III: Mirror, Please Tell Me Who I Am'Oh My God, I Look as Hot as I Feel'NarcissismOther NarcissusesThe Power of the GazeOwn and Strange in the Mirror ImageChapter IV: I Exist on the Outside Turned Inside out The Inner Self as Unassailable Stronghold Seen from the Outside Touch Recognition without NarcissismChapter V: My Strange I Prosthetic Wings The Speaking and Spoken I Thinking is Speaking For - Sum Living with Intruders What is Strange and What Is OwnEpilogue