Life Interpretation and the Sense of Illness within the Human Condition: Medicine and Philosophy in a Dialogue

Description

In medicine the understanding and interpretation of the complex reality of illness currently refers either to an organismic approach that focuses on the physical or to a 'holistic' approach that takes into account the patient's human sociocultural involvement. Yet as the papers of this collection show, the suffering human person refers ultimately to his/her existential sphere. Hence, praxis is supplemented by still other perspectives for valuation and interpretation: ethical, spiritual, and religious. Can medicine ignore these considerations or push them to the side as being subjective and arbitrary? Phenomenology/philosophy-of-life recognizes all of the above approaches to be essential facets of the Human Condition (Tymieniecka). This approach holds that all the facets of the Human Condition have equal objectivity and legitimacy. It completes the accepted medical outlook and points the way toward a new `medical humanism'. Front Matter....Pages i-xxi Front Matter....Pages 1-1 Illness as Lived Experience and as the Object of Medicine....Pages 3-15 The Construction of Illness: A Context Problem....Pages 17-32 Defining Disease: Much Ado about Nothing?....Pages 33-55 Critique of Freud’s Notion of Mental Illness....Pages 57-70 Cancer from the Medical and Existential Points of View....Pages 71-79 The Experience of Illness and the Meaning of Death....Pages 81-95 Front Matter....Pages 97-97 Application or Interpretation?....Pages 99-115 Medicine as a Practice and the Ethics of Illness....Pages 117-131 Sense or Nonsense of Illness in Ethics of the Body....Pages 133-146 The Loss of the Sense of Illness: Euthanasia and the Right to Die....Pages 147-152 Is It Possible to Give Sense to Illness?....Pages 153-179 Towards a New Approach to Medical Humanism....Pages 181-192 Front Matter....Pages 193-193 The Meaning of Suffering in Buddhism and Christianity....Pages 195-201 The Christian Interpretation of Suffering....Pages 203-211 La Maladie dans la Tradition Juive....Pages 213-233 La Souffrance de Job....Pages 235-248 Le Sens de la Maladie: Une Perspective Spirituelle Chrétienne....Pages 249-262 La Signification des Miracles de Jésus....Pages 263-278 Back Matter....Pages 279-287