Abstract

This chapter uses the disciplines of human anatomy and somaesthetics to illustrate the transcendence of disciplinarity in philosophical and epistemological thinking. By providing an insight into how human cadavers are integrated into the chapter examines how knowledge can be constructed from the transcendence of disciplinarity. This contributes to the central debate of whether anything can actually be categorised as purely art or purely science in terms of disciplinarity. The chapter captures how gross anatomical structure has been the focus of art and science since the Renaissance, where the epistemological basis of life itself was a core focus of curiosity, wonderment and inaccessibility for most. Examining this through a modern lens the work of Gunther van Hagen is used as an active comparison to the work of Renaissance artists, who also wondered and articulated the concept of functional existentialism in their work. Alongside this is a consideration of the concept of functionalism and aesthetics, which are both representative of the concept of applied onto-epistemology. At a philosophical level the book chapter also serves as a platform to embrace the concept of existentialism at its metaphorical heart.