Paluch A
Med Nowozytna. 1998;5(2):5-10.
What does a man consist of? - the query "as old as a world". Does he consist of soul and body being the separate independent entities, or is he a mixture of those elements constituting an inseparable whole? It is a question which scientists of various disciplines are still trying to answer. While belief that those two elements coexist separately was sufficient for dualists, the burden of constant search for the "liaison" between the spiritual and the corporeal lay on the monists. The intellectual change of modern and post-modern times inaugurated the change also in this respect. The anthropological controversy assumes different shapes now: man is seen monisticaly, as a whole, and new directions in seeing the world and cognition are being formed. Phenomenology as well as cultural anthropology has done a lot in this field. While studying human body it also studies a man as a whole (body - subject); human body changes as if inherently according to a biological order but it is also shaped by "history", i.e. events, society, learning, politics, culture. And in those contexts body is studied by anthropology - a new specialization emerges: anthropology of body.
人由什么构成？——这个问题“和世界一样古老”。他是由灵魂和身体这两个独立的实体组成，还是由那些构成不可分割整体的元素混合而成？这是一个各个学科的科学家仍在试图回答的问题。虽然二元论者认为这两个元素分别共存就足够了，但一元论者则肩负着不断寻找精神与肉体之间“联系”的重任。现代和后现代时期的思想变革在这方面也引发了变化。如今，人类学争论呈现出不同的形式：人们从一元论的角度将人视为一个整体，并且正在形成看待世界和认知的新方向。现象学和文化人类学在这个领域都做出了很多贡献。在研究人体的同时，它们也将人作为一个整体（身体—主体）来研究；人体似乎内在地按照生物秩序发生变化，但它也受到“历史”的塑造，即事件、社会、学习、政治、文化的影响。在这些背景下，人类学对身体进行研究——一个新的专业领域出现了：身体人类学。
