Paradoxes of Material Bodies

Findlay explores a number of paradoxes that relate to material bodies; for example, pointing out that while such bodies are thought to be completely independent of any mind cognizing them, they cannot even be conceived except in relation to a conscious perspective upon them (Discipline of the Cave, p. 261) or under the aegis of some ideational category.  Findlay also holds that there is something highly paradoxical regarding our attitude towards our own bodies; on the one hand they seem essential to our mental and interpersonal life, while at the same time they seem to us to be alien to it (Discipline of the Cave, p. 206), so much so that theologians have long posited the mind or soul’s independence from corporeal existence.