Conclusions

Abstract

AbstractThe Conclusions chapter surveys the arguments of the book, which link treatments of the body and embodiment to accounts of the heart–mind and self-cultivation. They offer new perspectives on mind–body dualism and suggest a tripartite structure of the person, in which the heart–mind and spirit are distinct capacities and do not align in a dualist manner. The spirit-centered texts treated here present compelling evidence that the heart–mind and spirit cannot be reduced to a dualist relation to the body, which itself is complex and multivocal. An alternative is a more nuanced position that recognizes some degree of dualism as fundamental but does not reduce understandings of personhood, cognition, and the like to it. Three brief examples of some implications of this inquiry are presented in three areas: a reconsideration of the categories of inner and outer; questions of the persistence of personal identity; and embodiment.