This essay argues that, while much has been gained by medicine's focus on the spatial aspects of disease in light of developments in modern pathology, too little attention has been given to the temporal experience of illness at the subjective level of the patient. In particular, it is noted that there is a radical distinction between subjective and objective time. Whereas the patient experiences his immediate illness in terms of the ongoing flux of subjective time, the physician conceptualizes the illness (...) as a disease state according to the measurements of objective time. A greater understanding of this disparity in temporal experiencing provides insights into the lived experience of illness and can preclude difficulties in communication between physician and patient. (shrink)

Biological science does not try to distinguish between health and disease. Biology is concerned with the interaction between living organisms and their environment. What we call health or disease is quite irrelevant.These reactions between the individual and his environment are complex. The individual and his surroundings form an integrated system which we can arbitrarily divide into two parts. There is an “external” component, by which we mean such factors as light, heat, percentage of oxygen in the air, quantity of minerals (...) or vitamins in food, micro-organisms in food or air, and so on. These can induce changes in what we arbitrarily call the “internal” component. Here we include such crude factors as anatomical structures, or finer details like composition of intercellular fluid, or secretions of glands, or changes of electrical potential in nerve or muscle. (shrink)

The point of departure for this article is a review of the discussion between Twaddle and Nordenfelt on the concepts of disease, illness, and sickness, and the objective is to investigate the fruitfulness of these concepts. It is argued that disease, illness, and sickness represent different perspectives on human ailment and that they can be applied to analyze both epistemic and normative challenges to modern medicine. In particular the analysis reveals epistemic and normative differences between the concepts. Furthermore, the article (...) demonstrates, against Nordenfelt's claim, that the concepts of disease, illness, and sickness can exist without a general theory of health. Additionally, the complexity of different perspectives on human ailment also explains why it is so difficult to give strict definitions of basic concepts within modern health care. (shrink)

First published in 1945, Maurice Merleau-Ponty’s monumental _Phénoménologie de la perception _signalled the arrival of a major new philosophical and intellectual voice in post-war Europe. Breaking with the prevailing picture of existentialism and phenomenology at the time, it has become one of the landmark works of twentieth-century thought. This new translation, the first for over fifty years, makes this classic work of philosophy available to a new generation of readers. _Phenomenology of Perception _stands in the great phenomenological tradition of Husserl, (...) Heidegger, and Sartre. Yet Merleau-Ponty’s contribution is decisive, as he brings this tradition and other philosophical predecessors, particularly Descartes and Kant, to confront a neglected dimension of our experience: the lived body and the phenomenal world. Charting a bold course between the reductionism of science on the one hand and "intellectualism" on the other, Merleau-Ponty argues that we should regard the body not as a mere biological or physical unit, but as the body which structures one’s situation and experience within the world. Merleau-Ponty enriches his classic work with engaging studies of famous cases in the history of psychology and neurology as well as phenomena that continue to draw our attention, such as phantom limb syndrome, synaesthesia, and hallucination. This new translation includes many helpful features such as the reintroduction of Merleau-Ponty’s discursive Table of Contents as subtitles into the body of the text, a comprehensive Translator’s Introduction to its main themes, essential notes explaining key terms of translation, an extensive Index, and an important updating of Merleau-Ponty’s references to now available English translations. Also included is a new foreword by Taylor Carman and an introduction to Merleau-Ponty_ _by Claude Lefort. Translated by Donald A. Landes. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Hypatia 18.2 (2003) 227-229 [Access article in PDF] Humanity: A Moral History of the Twentieth Century by Jonathan Glover. New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 2001. Jonathan's Glover's considerable reputation rests on the philosophical inquiry into the nature of human identity and on his critical deployment of consequentialist ethics to address a number of urgent issues regarding the beginning and end of life. In his latest book, Humanity: (...) A Moral History of the Twentieth Century (2001), he brings some of these themes together to try to make sense of the disturbing record of mass brutality and inhumanity that stretches through the last century. The deaths he addresses are those of countless millions of noncombatants, caught up in successive waves of atrocities that vary in their geographical location, scale, and duration, but not in their capacity to overwhelm the moral expectations and moral restraints in which we usually put our trust. Glover spares no feelings in his detailed and relentless charting of both the sociopolitical context of decline into moral chaos and the specificities of each torturous and murderous assault.Drawing on a range of material—from contemporary documentation and eyewitness accounts to the subsequent reflections of historians, politicians, and social theorists—he attempts to find common explanatory threads for a catalogue of killing, rape, and mutilation that is the work not only of those given over to abandoned excess, but of those perpetrators who held fast to rational principles. A series of supposedly exceptional events, such as that at My Lai, is set against the enormities of Hiroshima, Rwanda, Stalinist show trials, the Gulag, and the Cultural Revolution in China, where state interests and state policy are expressly involved. Not surprisingly the atrocities of Nazi Germany, and particularly the holocaust, are given the deepest consideration, but Glover's wide-ranging approach makes clear that little distinguishes mid-century Germans as especially open to moral dereliction. The resolution that it must never happen again has been breached time and again in various places and in various forms.Despite a plethora of endorsements from philosophers such as Peter Singer and Martha Nussbaum, it would appear that Humanity is intended primarily for the lay reader. Certainly at a time when Israelis and Palestinians remain in a murderous face-off, when the world's primary military power, the United States, appears unmoved by "collateral" killing, and when India and Pakistan ratchet up the possibility of nuclear attack, every one of us could benefit from a little more insight into the often unchallenged slide from threat to war to moral atrocity. Glover clearly lays bare the mechanics of such developments, and effectively traces the ways in which each person might feel him or herself morally blameless by failing to grasp the outcomes of discrete individual acts [End Page 227].In his extensive account of Nazi Germany, Glover unravels the effects of distancing, of mindless obedience to authority, of putting efficiency before feeling, and of turning away rather than intervening in obvious wrongs. The hatred felt for the Jews and other less-than-ideal Aryans, and the desire to create by whatever means a purified state are paralleled worldwide by other conflicts, driven by what Glover calls "tribalism," or by a ruthless consequentialism in pursuit of putative social utopias (144). As he remarks of the Pol Pot regime: "As so often with social engineering, those doing the calculations of happiness became so immersed in means ("the Revolution") that they lost their grip on ends" (305). And, one assumes, vice versa. But what does this really tell us that is not already apparent in the description? The drawback of Glover's straightforward approach is that it eschews any deep level of analysis, and relies for insight, for the most part, on our existing moral beliefs and intuitions in the face of an accumulation of horrifying evidence of individual and state brutality. To make, and offer empirical support to, similar points over and over again, albeit with some significant variations, did not enhance my comprehension of the moral enormities, but rather served to reinforce their seeming inevitability.It is... (shrink)

Competing contemporary theories of health, the reductionist and the relativist of an objective goal, can be classified as objectivist theories. The ultimate goal of all living things is life, the standard by which states or functions can be measured, and thereby defined as healthy or disease states. While disease can be classified in a taxonomy of biological dysfunctions without remainder, health is a richer concept that includes not only biological values, but also moral values, both leading to the ultimate goal (...) of human flourishing. (shrink)

Fredrik Svenaeus' book is a delight to read. Not only does he exhibit keen understanding of a wide range of topics and figures in both medicine and philosophy, but he manages to bring them together in an innovative manner that convincingly demonstrates how deeply these two significant fields can be and, in the end, must be mutually enlightening. Medicine, Svenaeus suggests, reveals deep but rarely explicit themes whose proper comprehension invites a careful phenomenological and hermeneutical explication. Certain philosophical approaches, on (...) the other hand - specifically, Heidegger's phenomenology and Gadamer's hermeneutics - are shown to have a hitherto unrealized potential for making sense of those themes long buried within Western medicine. Richard M. Zaner, Ann Geddes Stahlman Professor of Medical Ethics, Vanderbilt University. (shrink)

The terms "health", "disease" and "illness" are frequently used in clinical medicine. This has misled philosophers into believing that these concepts are important for clinical thinking and decision making. For instance, it is held that decisions about whether or not to treat someone or whether to relieve someone of moral responsibility depend on whether the person has a disease. In this paper it is argued that the crucial role of the 'disease' concept is illusory. The health/disease distinction is irrelevant for (...) most decisions and represents a conceptual straightjacket. Sophisticated and mature clinical decision making requires that we free ourselves from the concept of disease. (shrink)

The concept of disease has been the subject ofa vast, vivid and versatile debate. Categoriessuch as ``realist'', ``nominalist'', ``ontologist'',``physiologist'', ``normativist'' and``descriptivist'' have been applied to classifydisease concepts. These categories refer tounderlying theoretical frameworks of thedebate. The objective of this review is toanalyse these frameworks. It is argued that thecategories applied in the debate refer toprofound philosophical issues, and that thecomplexity of the debate reflects thecomplexity of the concept itself: disease is acomplex concept, and does not easily lenditself to definition.

The terms health, disease and illness are frequently used in clinical medicine. This has misled philosophers into believing that these concepts are important for clinical thinking and decision making. For instance, it is held that decisions about whether or not to treat someone or whether to relieve someone of moral responsibility depend on whether the person has a disease. In this paper it is argued that the crucial role of the disease concept is illusory. The health/disease distinction is irrelevant for (...) most decisions and represents a conceptual straightjacket. Sophisticated and mature clinical decision making requires that we free ourselves from the concept of disease. (shrink)

Ethical notions such as good and bad, are often treated as though they were ?symmetric? in the sense of having the same moral ?weight?, one in a positive the other in a negative sense. I argue that they are in fact ?asymmetric? and that the negative members of such pairs of notions are more fundamental and definite, logically speaking, and operationally more important than the positive members. Detailed arguments are given to show this for some non?moral notions, such as life (...) and death, health and illness; some semi?moral notions such as pleasure and pain; and finally for the moral notions of happiness, benevolence, right, and good and their negative counterparts. One of the intentions of the article is to show that a systematic view of such asymmetries may have consequences for one's view of the proper or desirable structure of a general theory of ethics: norms stating prohibitions and norms stating permissions will be seen to be, in a sense defined in the text, more fundamental and important than norms stating ('positive') obligations. (shrink)

Proceedings of the first trans-disciplinary symposium on philosophy and medicin held at Galveston, Texas, May 9-11,1974.

In this unique study Fulford combines the disciplines of rigorous philosophy with an intimate knowledge of psychopathology to overturn traditional hegemonies. The patient replaces the doctor at the heart of medicine. Moral theory and the logic of evaluation replace epistemology as the focus of philosophical enquiry. Ever controversial, mental illness is at the interface of philosophy and medicine. Mad or bad? Dissident or diseased? Dr Fulford shows that it is possible to achieve new insights into these traditional dilemmas, insights at (...) once practically relevant and philosophically significant. (shrink)

Publisher: Philosophical Library Publication date: 1953 Subjects: Medicine Medical / Diseases Medical / General Medical / Diseases Medical / Microbiology Science / Life Sciences / Biology / Microbiology Notes: This is an OCR reprint. There may be typos or missing text. There are no illustrations or indexes. When you buy the General Books edition of this book you get free trial access to Million-Books.com where you can select from more than a million books for free. You can also preview the (...) book there. (shrink)

Technology is believed to have liberated health care from dogmas, myths and speculations of earlier times. However, we are accused of using technology in an excessive, futile and even detrimental way, as if technology is compelling our actions. It appears to be like the monster threatening Dr. Frankenstein or like the socerer’s broom in the hand of the apprentice. That is, the same technology that should liberate us from myths, appears to be mythical. The objective of this article is to (...) investigate the background for the re-entrance of the myth: How we encounter it and how we can explain it. The main point is that a myth of technology is normative: it relates ‘is’ and ‘ought’ and directs our actions. This becomes particularly clear in health care. Hence, if there is a myth of technology, it is an ethical issue, and should be taken seriously. (shrink)