Life Interpretation and the Sense of Illness Within the Human Condition

by Tymieniecka, Anna-Teresa; Agazzi, Evandro

• ISBN13: 9780792369837
• ISBN10: 0792369831
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2001-11-01
• Publisher: Kluwer Academic Pub

Summary

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'.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgements	vii
The Theme / The Human Condition as a System of Reference for the Medical Interpretation of Illness	ix
Editors' Introduction: The Complex Phenomenon of Illness	xi
A-T. Tymieniecka
A. Agazzi
Topical Introduction: Illness, Life, and The Human Condition	xv
A-T. Tymieniecka
SECTION I INTERPRETING ILLNESS AND MEDICINE IN THE CONTEXT OF HUMAN LIFE: EXPERIENCE VS. OBJECTIVITY
Illness as Lived Experience and as the Object of Medicine	3	(14)
E. Agazzi
The Construction of Illness: A Context Problem	17	(16)
C. Viesca
Defining Disease: Much Ado about Nothing?	33	(24)
J. Worrall
J. Worrall
Critique of Freud's Notion of Mental Illness	57	(14)
A. Grunbaum
Cancer from the Medical and Existential Points of View	71	(10)
M. V. Fiorentino
The Experience of Illness and the Meaning of Death	81	(18)
M. Reichlin
SECTION II NEW CHALLENGES TO THE UNDERSTANDING OF MEDICINE: THE ETHICAL PARAMETERS. TOWARDS A NEW ``MEDICAL HUMANISM''
Application or Interpretation? The Role of Clinical Bioethics between Moral Principles and Concrete Situations	99	(18)
P. Cattorini
Medicine as a Practice and the Ethics of Illness	117	(16)
R. Mordacci
Sense or Nonsense of Illness in Ethics of the Body	133	(14)
P. Kemp
The Loss of the Sense of Illness: Euthanasia and the Right to Die	147	(6)
R. Barcaro
Is it Possible to Give Sense to Illness?	153	(28)
J. Ladriere
Towards a New Approach to Medical Humanism	181	(14)
L. Cassiers
SECTION III THE LIFE-TRANSCENDING PARAMETERS IN THE INTERPRETATION OF SUFFERING, DEATH AND HUMAN EXISTENCE: BUDDHISM, JUDAISM, CHRISTIANITY
The Meaning of Suffering in Buddhism and Christianity	195	(8)
H. Barreau
The Christian Interpretation of Suffering	203	(10)
W. Pannenberg
La Maladie dans la Tradition Juive: Orthodoxie et Orthopraxie	213	(22)
M. R. Macina
La Souffrance de Job	235	(14)
J-M. Van Cangh
Le Sens de la Maladie: Une Perspective Spirituelle Chretienne	249	(14)
E. Bianchi
La Signification des Miracles de Jesus	263	(16)
J. Dore
Index of Names	279