The Philosophical Meanings of Body and Their Functions in Medicine
Tārīkh-i pizishkī,
Vol. 12 No. 44 (1399),
10 November 2020
,
Page 1-14
https://doi.org/10.22037/mhj.v12i44.30068
Abstract
Background and Aim: The advent of the scientific revolution in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries changed people's attitudes toward the world, and they saw the world and nature as a great machine that operated according to causal and mechanical laws. Accordingly, the human body, which is part of this world, was considered a complex machine that is subject to the laws of nature. Descartes, a seventeenth-century French philosopher, compared the body of human to the machines of his time and concluded that the human body could, like other components of nature, be analyzed to its constituent parts, and thus examined the function of the components. Descartes' view had a profound effect on other sciences, especially medicine. In this article, with examining the worldview of modern medicine, we introduce "living body" to health managers that can help them to solve some of the problems of the health system
Materials and Methods: In this analytical library review study, the keywords including “mechanical body” and “lived body” is searched and studied in classics works of philosophers and contemporary researches so determined their exact meaning. After analyzing this information, the role of these meanings of the body that can have in medicine stated.
Findings: Modern medicine is based on a specific philosophical concept of the body, or more precisely, the Cartesian concept of the body. This Cartesian concept has led to many advances in medicine. But paying attention to the meaning of the Cartesian body has caused health workers to ignore the patient's lived experience of the disease. They need to consider another meaning of the body in order to pay attention to the patient's own experience; The lived body. This body represents all the states of human existence and paying attention to it can play a significant role in the patient's recovery.
Ethical Considerations: In this research, honesty and trustworthiness, citation of the texts used avoidance of bias in inferring the texts or analyzes have been observed.
Conclusion: Attention to the meaning of the body from a phenomenological point of view can play a significant role in solving the problems of modern medicine. This concept provides another model of the body that allows medicine to once again focus on medical humanization and reminds us the focus of the disease as it is experience.
© Copyright (2018) Medical Ethics and Law Research Center, Shahid Beheshti University of Medical Sciences, Tehran, Iran.
- Descartes Machine Body Medicine Lived Body Phenomenology
How to Cite
References
References
Svenaeus F. The Hermeneutics of Medicine and Phenomenology of Health. Switzerland: Springer-Science+Business Media; 2000. p.15, 49.
Nussbaum M. The Therapy of Desire: Theory and Practice in Hellenistic Ethics. New Jersey: Princeton University Press; 1994. p.51.
Leder D. The Absent Body. Chicago: University of Chicago Press; 1990. p.25, 147.
Descartes R. The World and Other Writings. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press;1998. p.99, 143.
Leder D. A Tale of Two Bodies, Cartesian Corpse and the Lived Body. Edited by Welton D. In: Body and Flesh. Massachusetts: Blackwell; 1998. p.236.
Descartes R. A Discourse on Method, Optics, Geometry and Meteorology. Translated by Olscamp P. Indianapolis: Hackett Publishing Company; 2001. p.101.
Welton D. The Body. Massachusetts: Blackwell; 1999. p.2.
Descartes R. Reflections on First Philosophy. Translated by Ahmadi A. Tehran: Samt Publishing; 1361. p.61. [Persian]
Cottingham J, Stoothof R, Murdoch D. The Philosophical Writings of Descartes. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press; 1991. p.326, 329.
Agazzi E. Illness as Lived Experience and as the Object of Medicine. Edited by Tymieniecka T, Agazzi E. In: Analecta Husserliana. Netherlands: Kluwer Academic Publishers; 2001.
Descartes R. Philosophical Letters. Translate and Edited by Steele Hall T. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1970. p.141.
Brown T. The Mechanical Philosophy and the "Animal Economy". New York: Arno; 1981. p.146, 216.
Mc Whinney IR. Medical knowledge and the rise of technology. Journal of Medicine and Philosophy 1978; 4(3): 293-304.
Marcum JA. Biomechanical and phenomenological models of the body, the meaning of illness and quality of care. Medicine, Health Care and Philosophy 2004; 7(3): 311-320.
Leder D. Medicine and Paradigms of Embodiment. The Journal of Medicine and Philosophy 1984; 9(1): 29-44.
Leder D. Phenomenological Critiques. Edited by Leder D. In: The Body in Medical Thought and Practice. Switzerland: Springer-Science+Business Media; 1992. p.22.
Merleau-Ponty M. The Structure of Behaviour. Translated by Fisher A. London: Metheu; 1967. p.188.
Merleau-Ponty M. Phenomenology of Perception. Translated by Smith C. Routledge: Taylor and Francis Company; 2005. p.3, 8, 75, 89, 104-105, 111, 133, 135, 163-164, 205.
Macann CH. Four Phenomenological Philosophers. London: Routledge; 1993. p.176.
Merleau-Ponty M. The Visible and the Invisible. Translated by Lingis A. Evanston: Northwestern University Press; 1968. p.189, 248.
Heidegger M. Being and Time. Translated by Macquarie J, Robinson E. Oxford: Blackwell; 1985.
Mazis G. Emotion and Embodiment within the Medical World. Edited by Toombs SK. In: Handbook of Phenomenology and Medicine. Netherlands: Kluwer Academic; 2001. p.205.
Merleau-Ponty M. Prose of the World. Translated by O’Neill J. Evanston: Northwestern University Press; 1973. p.254.
- Abstract Viewed: 219 times
- pdf (فارسی) Downloaded: 88 times