On top of elaborate methods and approaches in research, diagnostics, and therapy, medicine is in need of a theory of its own thought and action; without theoretical reflection and referentiality, action becomes blind and thought takes on a monotonous and circular character. Take the concept of health. The field of medicine, more and more taking its cues from evidence-based medicine , is onesidedly oriented to concepts of health which are based on notions of standard values for large populations or—in the (...) shadow of the genome project—see health as the outcome of an intact genome, often turning a blind eye to the individual aspects of health. With an eye in particular to Friedrich Nietzsche's philosophy, the present paper looks into some continental European theories of individual health, seeking to determine to what extent they can contribute to reducing medicine's theory deficit and what consequences this may have for research, diagnostics, and therapy. (shrink)

Kazuo Ishiguro’s book Never Let Me Go is a thoughtful and provocative exploration of what it means to be human. Drawing on insights from the hermeneutic-phenomenology of Martin Heidegger, I argue that the movement of Ishiguro’s story can be understood in terms of actualising the human potential for autonomous action. Liberal theories take autonomy to be concerned with analytically and ethically isolatable social units directing their lives in accordance with self-interested preferences, arrived at by means of rational calculation. However, I (...) argue that such theories are simplistic abstractions from our human-life world, distorting the fundamental embodied, embedded, and relational nature of autonomy. When we attend closely to our concrete, lived existence we see instead that autonomy is about responding appropriately to others with whom we share a world. As we follow the path of Ishiguro’s central character Kathy H., we are shown how an awareness and acceptance of our existential finitude as precarious and fallible creatures is necessary for guiding such appropriate interactions. As Kathy grows and is affirmed into her life-world, which grounds and supports her Being, she moves from heteronomy to autonomy; from being moved by external laws to embodying those laws, thereby becoming autonomous. This is exemplified by her appropriation of the carer role, through which she responds in a fitting way to those with whom she shares her world, bearing the weight of and dwelling responsibly within our human condition. (shrink)