Normality, Abnormality, and Pathology in Merleau-Ponty

Description

Maurice Merleau-Ponty’s work draws our attention to how the body is always our way of having a world and never merely a thing in the world. Our conception of the body must take account of our cultures, our historically located sciences, and our interpersonal relations and cannot reduce the body to a biological given. Normality, Abnormality, and Pathology in Merleau-Ponty takes up Merleau-Ponty’s phenomenology of the body to explore the ideas of normality, abnormality, and pathology. Focusing on the lived experiences of various styles of embodiment, the book challenges our usual conceptions of normality and abnormality and shows how seemingly objective scientific research, such as the study of pathological symptoms, is inadequate to the phenomena it purports to comprehend. The book offers new insights into our understandings of health and illness, ability and disability, and the scientific and cultural practices that both enable and limit our capacity for diverse experiences. Contents Acknowledgments Introduction Normality, Abnormality, and Pathology in Merleau-Ponty’s Work The Case of Schneider: Merleau-Ponty’s Dynamic Conception of Embodiment Part I—Grounding a Phenomenology of Normality, Abnormality, and Pathology Part II—Practical Phenomenological Applications of Merleau-Ponty’s Theories of Normality, Abnormality, and Pathology Notes Part I Grounding a Phenomenology of Normality, Abnormality, and Pathology Chapter 1 Toward a Phenomenology of Abnormality Introduction Illness in the Phenomenology of Perception The Normal and the Pathological According to Goldstein and Canguilhem The Silence of Health Quantification of Pathology Statistics and Abnormality A Phenomenology of the Abnormal Notes Chapter 2 What Can We Learn about the Normal from the Pathological? Merleau-Ponty, Goldstein, and Neuropsychology Introduction Kurt Goldstein The Prescription Phenomenological Reduction-by-Proxy Notes Chapter 3 Merleau-Ponty and Ab/Normal Phenomenology: The Husserlian Roots of Merleau-Ponty’s Account of Expression Introduction Husserl’s Account of Expression Merleau-Ponty’s Account of Expression Merleau-Ponty as Ab/Normal Phenomenologist Notes Chapter 4 The Abnormalcy of “Normalcy”: Merleau-Ponty, Russon, and the Normativity of Experience Introduction Russon and the “Ideal of Normalcy” Merleau-Ponty and “Psychological Rigidity” Schizophrenic Hallucination Notes Chapter 5 The Need for Merleau-Ponty in Foucault’s Account of the Abnormal Introduction Foucault’s Account of the Abnormal Questioning Foucault’s Account Merleau-Ponty’s Aid Rooting Historical Structures in Phenomenological Patterns Hope of Application Conclusion Notes Part II Practical Phenomenological Applications of Merleau-Ponty’s Theories of Normality, Abnormality, and Pathology Chapter 6 Meandering Peripheries: A Ground without Figure for Relief Introduction A Description of my “Dream Eye” Merleau-Ponty on Figure-Ground in Vision In/Determinacy Conclusion Notes Chapter 7 The Insight of Dispossession: Examining the Phenomenological and Political Significance of Merleau-Ponty’s Account of the Spatial Level Introduction Possession Dispossession Politics of Belonging Conclusion Notes Chapter 8 Moving without Movement: Merleau-Ponty’s “I can” and the Memoirs of Bodily Immobility Introduction Continuity and LIS Butterflies Merleau-Ponty and Bodily Movement Notes Chapter 9 A Whole New World: Reimagining Divergent Sensory and Perceptual Experiences in Autism through Merleau-Ponty’s Phenomenology of Perception Introduction Autism: A Brief Overview Autism and the Senses Phenomenology of Sensation and Perception Things and Orientation Notes Chapter 10 Health and Other Reveries: Homo Curare, Homo Faber, and the Realization of Care Introduction Would You Like to Know When Your Child Will Die? Homo Curare, Homo Faber, and Flesh Existential Homeostasis and Existential Support Justice and the Realization of Care In Defense of Reveries of Egalitarian Health Notes Chapter 11 The Desexualization of Disabled People as Existential Harm and the Importance of Ambiguity Introduction Merleau-Ponty, Embodiment, and Social Identity Sexuality and Human Existence Theorizing the Harm of Desexualization of Disabled People Inspiration Porn, Devoteeism, and Derivatization Merleau-Ponty and Desexualization of Disabled People Conclusion Notes Works Cited Contributors Index