EKPOMA REVIEW

This paper argues that the classical, traditional Western notions of the human body is bifurcated, and plays down the conception of the human person. It misrepresents and trivializes the importance of the body. This has led to polarities in human relations and as such, the devaluation of the human body increased bodily humiliation such as the practice of capital punishment and to a large extent stands as an opposition to ascertain the role of the body in the promotion of human dignity. Hence, despite the 1948 universal declaration of human rights, the rate of human bodily abuses and attacks on the dignity of a person keeps on increasing. The crime indexes keep going high manifesting in various kinds of assorts on the human person. This is a direct indication that the notion of the human body in the classical traditional Western philosophy needs revision in order to situate appropriate conceptions of the human body; this is the objective of this essay. This is important because appropriate knowledge of the human body will improve human social relations and other bodily transactions. It is in the recent modern period that there are important philosophical interests of the body, but more needs to be done in this regard particularly from non-Western, African perspectives. This will enrich more ontological understanding of the human body, its relation to human persons, and its right of place in the world. This will be achieved using the postmodernist ontological inquiry.

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