Recovering the Body

Carol Collier’s interest in the philosophical question of mind-body dualism began with her undergraduate studies in the 1970s. It remained with her throughout the twenty or so years of her career in the public service, during which time she continued to explore questions relating to the body in Eastern and Western medicine in her spare time.

On her return to full-time philosophy in the 1990s, she chose to write her doctoral thesis on philosophical approaches to (and often neglect of) the human body and on the modern Western conception of the body-machine, the legacy of Descartes. Bringing this research into the classroom, she has developed and taught for a number of years a course on the body-machine, exploring how the body-machine came to find philosophical legitimacy, and looking at present and future trends that suggest that the body-machine is no longer merely a metaphor (if it ever was only that) but has now become a reality.

Her explorations of the worlds of yoga and alternative medicine have led her to hold a more holistic vision of body and nature as well as an idea of the unity of mind and body that has eluded Western medicine for centuries and continues to do so.