The relevance of the topic of the body in philosophy is associated among other things with the growth of medical innovations that transform the idea of the body in public discourse. Technical capability and the level of medicine put an individual before a choice in situations that were previously impossible. And these situations affect the interests of an increasing number of people. Making a choice presupposes the existence of grounds. The text analyzes the transformation of the image of corporeality in the history of Western culture. The topic is considered with the involvement of philosophical concepts, medical theories and approaches to the body and health. A significant corpus of primary sources and critical literature is analyzed, studies of both Russian and European authors are involved. A historical reconstruction of the attitude to the body in the public space is made, ideas about the body and the functions of the body in social practices are analyzed. Dominant attitudes towards the body in culture and medicine were identified in chronological order. It has been determined that the mechanistic view of the body at the beginning of the 20th century gave way to a phenomenological approach, in which the conversation about the body and corporeality is conducted in the perspective of answering the question about the owner of the body.The body appears as a tool, resource and support for the modern individual