University of Essex in the School of Philosophy and Art History and the Director of their Interdisciplinary Studies Centre, Colchester, UK.
Theor Med Bioeth. 2023 Jun;44(3):209-227. doi: 10.1007/s11017-023-09619-1.
With its rise in popularity, work in the phenomenology of medicine has also attracted its fair share of criticism. One such criticism maintains that, since the phenomenology of medicine does nothing but describe the experience of illness, it offers nothing one cannot obtain more easily by deploying simpler qualitative research methods. Fredrik Svenaeus has pushed back against this charge, insisting that the phenomenology of medicine not only describes but also defines illness. Although I agree with Svenaeus's claim that the phenomenology of medicine does more than merely describe what it is like to be ill, once one acknowledges its more far-reaching theoretical aspirations, one sees that it faces an even more difficult set of objections. Taking a cue from recent work by Rebecca Kukla, Russell Powell, and Eric Scarffe, I argue that the phenomenology of medicine could answer these objections by developing an institutional definition of illness. This not only allows the phenomenology of medicine to answer its critics, but it does so in a way that preserves its major achievements and extends its reach within the philosophy of medicine.
随着其受欢迎程度的上升，医学现象学的研究也引起了相当多的批评。其中一种批评认为，由于医学现象学只不过是描述疾病的体验，因此，它所提供的内容通过更简单的定性研究方法更容易获得。弗雷德里克·斯文内乌斯（Fredrik Svenaeus）反驳了这一指控，坚称医学现象学不仅描述而且定义了疾病。尽管我同意斯文内乌斯的观点，即医学现象学不仅仅是描述患病的感觉，但一旦承认其更深远的理论抱负，就会发现它面临着更困难的一系列反对意见。受丽贝卡·库克拉（Rebecca Kukla）、拉塞尔·鲍威尔（Russell Powell）和埃里克·斯卡夫（Eric Scarffe）最近工作的启发，我认为医学现象学可以通过制定疾病的制度定义来回答这些反对意见。这不仅使医学现象学能够回应其批评者，而且以一种既能保持其主要成就又能在医学哲学中扩大其影响力的方式回应。
