Oneide asked:

How to think about the world having the body as foundation?

To Descartes, the foundation wasn't the body, but reason. What are the consequences of thinking like
Descartes?

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The body as foundation is actually a growing interest for a group of cognitive linguists and some
phenomenologists. First, there is always Merleau-Ponty, M. (1968) The structure of behaviorBoston,
MA: Beacon Press., and even better, perhaps: Merleau-Ponty, M. (1970) Phenomenology of
perceptionNew York, NY: Routledge & Kegan Paul.

Merleau-Ponty was really one of the first to emphasize the role of the body in generating our
conceptualizations of the world and of others. Husserl did in some of his late works, but not as clearly.
You might also look at Leder, D. (1990) The absent bodyChicago, IL: The University of Chicago
Press. for a more modern treatment, and also Johnson, M. (1987) The body in the mindChicago, IL:
University of Chicago Press. Johnson, M. (1993) Moral imagination: implications of cognitive science
for ethicsChicago: The University of Chicago Press. Lakoff, G., & Johnson, M. (1999) Philosophy in
the flesh: the embodied mind and its challenge to western thought New York, NY: Basic Books.
Lakoff, G. (1990) Women, fire, and dangerous thingsChicago, IL: The University of Chicago Press.
there's also Stern, D. N. (1985) The interpersonal world of the infantNew York, NY: Basic Books.

Anyway, you can find a multitude of refs in the above books, andyou can find lotsof commentary on
Descartes and how miserable (in most of the above people's opinion) his ideas were. I actually mostly
agree. But I'm not going to go into it here; there's just too much, and the above covers it very well.

Steven Ravett Brown