Phenomenology of Illness
Havi Carel
Abstract
The experience of illness is a universal and substantial part of human existence. Like death, illness raises important philosophical issues. But unlike death, illness, and in particular the experience of being ill, has received little philosophical attention. This may be because illness is often understood as a physiological process that falls within the domain of medical science and is thus outside the purview of philosophy. This volume claims that the experience of illness has been wrongly neglected by philosophers. It provides a distinctively philosophical account of illness. Using phenomen ... More
The experience of illness is a universal and substantial part of human existence. Like death, illness raises important philosophical issues. But unlike death, illness, and in particular the experience of being ill, has received little philosophical attention. This may be because illness is often understood as a physiological process that falls within the domain of medical science and is thus outside the purview of philosophy. This volume claims that the experience of illness has been wrongly neglected by philosophers. It provides a distinctively philosophical account of illness. Using phenomenology, the philosophical method for first-person investigation, the book explores how illness modifies the ill person’s body, values, and world. The aim of the work is twofold: to contribute to the understanding of illness through the use of philosophy; and to demonstrate the importance of illness for philosophy. Contra the philosophical tendency to resist thinking about illness, it proposes that illness is a philosophical tool. Through its pathologizing effect, illness distances the ill person from taken-for-granted routines and habits and thus reveals aspects of human existence that normally go unnoticed. The volume develops a systematic understanding of illness as a philosophical tool, clarifying the philosophical role of illness.
Keywords:
phenomenology,
illness,
body,
philosophy of medicine,
healthcare,
Merleau-Ponty,
Heidegger,
death,
disease,
Carel
Bibliographic Information
| Print publication date: 2016 |
Print ISBN-13: 9780199669653 |
| Published to Oxford Scholarship Online: September 2016 |
DOI:10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199669653.001.0001 |
