Of flesh and flourishing: Toward an expressive ontology of the body

This theoretical inquiry offers a critique of epistemologies of the body that originate in philosophy and in medicine as theorized and practiced in the West. With the support of Jonas' biophilosophy of life, Levin's invocation of the ontological body, and Merleau-Ponty's phenomenology of "flesh," along with the life--mind continuity theory and participatory epistemologies, this dissertation proposes an expressive ontology of the body and posits that such an ontology may shift Western attitudes toward flourishing. An expressive body is an organismic whole, a living-lived interactive field of activity.;Offered as a heuristic genealogy of the body through Western history of philosophy and medicine, this inquiry begins with exploration of the diverse influences that shape classical Greek views of the body, ultimately rendering an "anatomical" body. The inquiry moves to the context of the Modern turn and places particular emphasis on the content of Descartes' metaphysics with its consequential "object" body. Upon exploring a plurality of paradoxes engendered from these epistemological layers, the dissertation turns to explication of the proposed ontology of an expressive body.;Summarily, this dissertation points back toward the presupposition that life---not death---is the ontologically natural state. It is premised within an ethic of liberation from human and Other-than-human suffering and a biophilosophy of flourishing that declines an epistemic allegiance to virtue. Such an ontogeny is offered in the hope of liberating humankind from the constraints and estrangements of dualistic thinking. This dissertation is relevant for ontology discourse, philosophy of mind, philosophy of medicine, medical ethics, life--mind continuity and participatory epistemologies.