The Hermeneutics of Medicine and the Phenomenology of Health

Steps Towards a Philosophy of Medical Practice
2. Auflage 2022
ISBN: 978-3-031-07283-3
Verlag: Springer International Publishing

Buch, Englisch, Band 97, 171 Seiten, Paperback, Format (B × H): 155 mm x 235 mm, Gewicht: 295 g

Reihe: The International Library of Bioethics

This is the first monograph to deal with medicine as a form of hermeneutics, now in a thoroughly revised and updated edition, including a whole new chapter on medical ethics. The book offers a comprehensive philosophical argument why good medical practice cannot be curtailed to scientific investigations of the body but is a form of clinical hermeneutics performed by health-care professionals in dialogue with their patients. Medical hermeneutics is rooted in a phenomenology of illness which acknowledges and proceeds from the ill party’s bodily feelings, everyday life-world circumstances and self-understanding in aiming to restore health.The author shows how the works of classical phenomenologists and hermeneuticians – Martin Heidegger, Maurice Merleau-Ponty, Hans-Georg Gadamer and Paul Ricoeur – may be employed to understand how medical diagnosis is enveloped by professional empathy and clinical judgement and developed by scientific investigations of the patient’s bodily condition. Health and illness are ultimately considered to be ways of feeling at home or not at home in the world, and such experiences are the starting point of medical hermeneutics when aiming to make best use of scientific knowledge. The book is aimed at researchers and teachers in philosophy of medicine and medical ethics, and at physicians, nurses and other health-care professionals meeting with patients in ethically complex and challenging situations. Phenomenology and hermeneutics, most often considered as methods belonging to the humanities, are shown to be of vital importance for the understanding of medical practice and ethical dilemmas of health care.

Zielgruppe

Research

Autoren/Hrsg.

Svenaeus, Fredrik

Fachgebiete

• Medizin | Veterinärmedizin Medizin | Public Health | Pharmazie | Zahnmedizin Medizin, Gesundheitswesen Medizinische Ethik
• Geisteswissenschaften Philosophie Angewandte Ethik & Soziale Verantwortung Medizinische Ethik
• Naturwissenschaften Biowissenschaften Biowissenschaften Bioethik, Tierethik
• Geisteswissenschaften Philosophie Hermeneutik
• Geisteswissenschaften Philosophie Moderne Philosophische Disziplinen Phänomenologie
• Medizin | Veterinärmedizin Medizin | Public Health | Pharmazie | Zahnmedizin Medizin, Gesundheitswesen Public Health, Gesundheitsmanagement, Gesundheitsökonomie, Gesundheitspolitik
• Geisteswissenschaften Philosophie Angewandte Ethik & Soziale Verantwortung Bioethik, Tierethik

Inhaltsverzeichnis

Chapter 1. The Clinical Encounter.- Chapter 2. Phenomenology and Health Theory.- Chapter 3. Illness as Unhomelike Being in the world.- Chapter 4. The Hermeneutics of Medicine.- Chapter 5. Hermeneutics and Medical Ethics.

Über Autor(innen)

Fredrik Svenaeus is Professor of Philosophy at the Centre for Studies in Practical Knowledge, Södertörn University, Sweden. His main research areas are philosophy of medicine, bioethics, medical humanities and philosophical anthropology.