Kinestesia and Cenestesia, the forgotten dimensions. Notes for an Anthropology of feelings

Abstract

 Tact, cenesthesia and kinesthesia are three dimensions of the body experience in the personal life. They give the capacity to human knowing about himself or herself in a deep manner, including self knowledge, balance and body image. Knowing ourselves though the body has been left to esoteric working proposals but it has been abandoned from the formal field of research in anthropology and other matters. Cenesthesia and kinesthesia are less known than tact, buy they are basic to feel and live the body. Kinesthesia is useful to maintain balance and acquire a body image, due to the fact of sensing the bones, tendons and muscles are important elements to perceive our position in the word in relation with gravity but with the others too. Cenesthesia is to the way we feel our own existence in this word, sensing the internal organs. Our culture and social life constrain the way we perceive our body, permitting the sense or not of come experiences in the dimensions considered. The purpose of this paper is to recount different experiences of feeling the body and propose theoretical elements for physical anthropology.