オンラインの身体性

抄録

The social distancing strategy adopted as a preventive measure during the COVID-19 pandemic has initiated a rapid transition from face-to-face to online communication. It is an established view in cognitive science that embodiment plays an indispensable role in cognitive activities such as communication and it is also a common view that cognitive activities organized through online media are disembodied. If both of these views pertaining to embodiment were true, the transition from face-to-face to online communication would have a negative impact on human relationships. However, in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, people seem to be adapting to the switch from offline to online modes of communication and continuing with their social activities. This observation calls for a critical reconsideration of our conception of “embodiment” in communication. In the past discourses on embodied cognition, a certain kind of embodiment may have been privileged whereas the other kinds of it have been ignored. Therefore, in this paper, I offer ideas pertaining to the embodied aspects of online communication from a philosophical perspective as well as with a consideration of other cognitive science domains. Specically, I criticize the view that online cognitive activities are disembodied and propose the following three theses about embodiment: (1) embodiment is negotiable, i. e., it changes in relation to technological conditions; (2) embodiment is pervasive, i. e., it accompanies all types of human cognitive activities; (3) embodiment is diverse, i. e., it depends on the cognitive subject.