The decision to treat the theories of the body presented by Marcel, Sartre and Merleau-Ponty was neither hasty nor arbitrary. For, despite the many important differences among their respective theories (and even more, in their philosophies), it has become apparent that there are several striking, indeed fundamental, similarities among them. To preface our concluding remarks, then, it seems advisable to state explicitly these common grounds before we attempt to delineate the significance and direction of our study as a whole.