Motor Intentionality and the Body Schema

“Consciousness is originally not an 'I think that,' but an 'I can.' [...] The body is our general medium for having a world. [...] The phantom limb is not a representation of the limb, but the actual persistence of the motor habits of the former limb. The amputee's body schema still includes the limb long after its physical removal, this is why he extends his phantom leg to stop a fall, before conscious thought has registered its absence. [...] The body is not an object in the world but the very vehicle of being in the world, and having a body is, for a living creature, to be intervolved in a definite environment, to identify oneself with certain projects and be continually committed to them. — Merleau-Ponty, Phenomenology of Perception (1945); Rikkyo 'A Phenomenological View of Phantom Limbs'; DanceArchives 'Embodiment' (2021); Cetana Journal (2023)”