Michel Henry defends the illuminating thesis that Incarnation is not existence in a body, but existence in the flesh. It is not in a body that flesh appears originally, but being in the flesh that comes first. For only in flesh can one see or touch, feel joy or sorrow, hunger or thirst—and undergo each of these impressions as one's own.

MICHAEL HENRY (1922-2002) was a leading French philosopher and prize-winning novelist. He was born in Haiphong, Vietnam. While studying in Paris, he discovered a true passion for philosophy which led to a desire to make it his profession. From June 1943 onwards, he was committed to the French Resistance where he joined the maquis of the Haut Jura under the code name of Kant. He often had to come down from the mountains in order to accomplish missions in Nazi-occupied Lyon, an experience of clandestineness which deeply marked his philosophy. Following the war, he passed the final part of the philosophy examination, and then devoted his time to the preparation of a thesis under the direction of Jean Hyppolite, Jean Wahl, Paul Ricoeur, Ferdinand Alquié and Henri Gouhier. His first book, which was on the philosophy and phenomenology of the body, was completed in 1950. His first significant published work was about the essence of manifestation, and to which he devotion long years of necessary research in order to surmount the main deficiency of all intellectualist philosophy - which is to say an ignorance of life as everyone experiences it. From 1960, Henry was a professor of philosophy at the University of Montpellier where he patiently perfected his work, keeping himself away from philosophical fashions and far from dominant ideologies.

KARL HEFTY holds an Arthur J. Ennis, OSA, Postdoctoral Fellowship at Villanova University in Pennsylvania.