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Julio asked:
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I am a physician, and I am interested in thinking about health, disease and healing. Philosophically
thinking, what is health? What is disease? What is "to heal"? I am thinking that the only way we can
think about healing is in a metaphysical way, I mean, in the level of the being.
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I know this is not only a question, but an issue. Do you have any philosopher you could recommend
me in order to think more about this matter?
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Here's a resource for you, if you can access the American Philosophical Association publications.
They publish The APA Newsletter on Philosophy and Medicine.I'm a member, so I can access it. You
might have to ask a member for it. A website for them is: http://www.apa.udel.edu/apa/sitemap.html.
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In addition, there are people like Oliver Sachs, whom you know about, I assume. But as far as
questions like yours above, dealing with issues on that level of abstraction are concerned: if you're
talking about mentalhealth, I think you can find a lot of resources in the field of clinical psychology. If
you're talking about physicalhealth — on that level — it sounds as if you might want to do some
reading in, perhaps, evolutionary biology, and even in phenomenology. I'm thinking of Leder's book,
for example, The Absent Bodyand some of Merleau-Ponty's The Phenomenology of Perception.
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Although there is a great deal of literature on the themes above in alternative medicines and in
various Eastern medicines, I'm hesitant to recommend them, because the treatments are largely
based on the religious or philosophical principles rather than on science (i.e., controlled experiments),
so whatever biases and metaphysical leanings a particular system has is incorporated into its
medicine (and its definition of health and illness).
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Another possible resource would be to look up some of the various programs now being taught in
medical ethics, a hot field in philosophy right now. I'm sure you could find something there along the
lines you're looking for.
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Steven Ravett Brown
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