Abstract
Most medical interventions are aimed at the body: the body in pain, the sick body, the infected body, the wounded body, the old body, the dysfunctioning body, the fat body, the paralyzed body, the disfigured body, the athletic body, the pregnant body etc. Medical practices intend to cure, nurse or enhance the body—whether it is sick, impaired, at risk, or healthy. They seek to prevent, release or alleviate physical suffering.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution.
Buying options
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Learn about institutional subscriptionsNotes
- 1.
See Cory Shores’ contribution to this volume (Chap. 16) for a critique of the phenomenological approach to embodiment.
- 2.
A selection of entries from the Journal Intime is included in Naville’s study (1857). Fragments are translated by JS.
- 3.
The first author has been conducting a qualitative empirical study in which she follows for approximately 10–12 months women who have undergone breast surgery [either mastectomy (N = 11) or breast-saving surgery (N = 9)]. All respondents were interviewed twice or three times with an interval of 4 months. This study aims at making explicit the various ways in which these women habituate to their changed bodies.
References
Alcoff, L. M. (2005). Visible identities: Race, gender, and the self. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Bergoffen, D. (2009). Exploiting the dignity of the vulnerable body: Rape as a weapon of war. Philosophical Papers, 38(3), 307–325.
Cole, J. (2004). Still lives: Narratives of spinal cord injury. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
De Lamettrie, J. O. (1748). Machine man. In A. Thomson (Ed.), Machine man and other wrtings (A. Thomson, Trans. 1996) (pp. 1–40). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Descartes, R. (1641 [2008]). Meditations on first philosophy: With selections from the objections and replies. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Diprose, R. (1994). The bodies of women. Ethics, embodiment and sexual difference. London: Routledge.
Foucault, M. (1963). Naissance de la clinique. Paris: P.U.F.
Goffman, E. (1963). Stigma: Notes on the management of spoiled identity. London: Penguin.
Grosz, E. (1994). Volatile bodies: Toward a corporeal feminism. Bloomington: Indiana University Press.
Hacking, I. (2007). Our Neo-Cartesian bodies in parts. Critical Inquiry, 34, 78–105.
Henry, M. (2000). Incarnation. Une philosophie de la chair. Paris: Seuil.
Husserl, E. (1912 [1952]). Ideas pertaining to a pure phenomenology and to a phenomenological philosophy, second book (R. Rojcewicz & A. Schuwer, Trans. 1989). Dordrecht: Kluwer Academic Publishers.
Husserl, E. (1950). Ideen zu einer reinen Phänomenologie und phänomenologischen Philosophie. Erstes Buch. Husserliana III. The Hague: Matinus Nijhoff.
Huxley, A. (1950). Variations on a philosopher. In Themes and variations (pp. 1–152). London: Chatto and Windus.
Le Breton, D. (1990). Anthropologie du corps et modernité. Paris: Presses Universitaires de France.
Le Breton, D. (1993). La chair à vif: usages médicaux et mondains du corps humain. Paris: Editions Métailié.
Leder, D. (1990). The absent body. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Leder, D. (1992). A tale of two bodies. The Cartesian corpse and the lived body. In D. Leder (Ed.), The body in medical thought and practice. Dordrecht: Kluwer Academic Publishers.
Leder, D. (1999). Whose body? What body? The metaphysics of organ donation. In M. J. Cherry (Ed.), Persons and their bodies: Rights, responsibilities, relationships (pp. 233–264).Dordrecht: Kluwer Academic Publishers.
Legrand, D. (2006). The bodily self: The sensori-motor roots of pre-reflective self-consciousness. Phenomenology and the Cognitive Sciences, 5, 89–118.
Levinas, E. (1965 [1988]). Intentionalité et sensation. In En découvrant l’existence avec Heidegger et Husserl (pp. 145–162). Paris: Vrin.
Maine de Biran, F. P. G. (1812 [2001]). Essai sur les fondements de la psychologie. Oeuvres de Maine de Biran Tome VII-1 et 2. Paris: Vrin.
Merleau-Ponty, M. (1945). Phenomenology of perception (C. Smith, Trans. 1962). London: Routledge.
Merleau-Ponty, M. (1964). The visible and the invisible (Lingis, A. Trans. 1968). Evanston: Northwestern University Press.
Naville, E., & Maine de Biran, F. P. G. (1857). Maine de Biran: sa vie et ses pensées. Paris: Joel Cherbuliez.
Rendtorff, J. D. & Kemp, P. (2000). Basic ethical principles in European bioethics and biolaw: Autonomy, dignity, integrity and vulnerability (Vol. I.). Copenhagen: Centre for Ethics and Law.
Sartre, J.-P. (1943). Being and nothingness. An essay on phenomenological ontology (H. E. Barnes, Trans. 2007). London: Routledge.
Scully, J. L. (2008). Disability bioethics: Moral bodies, moral difference. Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield Publishers.
Shaw, R. (2010). Organ donation in Aotearoa/New Zealand: Cultural phenomenology and moral humility. Body and Society, 16(3), 127–147.
Slatman, J. (2005). The sense of life: Husserl and Merleau-Ponty on touching and being touched. Chiasmi International, 7, 305–325.
Slatman, J. (2007). Recognition beyond Narcissism. Imaging the body’s ownness and strangeness. In H. Fielding, G. Hiltmann, D. Olkowski, & A. Reichold (Eds.), The Other. Feminist reflections in ethics (pp. 186–204). London: Palgrave.
Slatman, J. (2009a). Transparant bodies: Revealing the myth of interiority. In R. Van de Vall & R. Zwijnenberg (Eds.), The body within: Art, medicine and visualisation (pp. 107–122). London: Equinox Publishing.
Slatman, J. (2009b). A strange hand: On self-recognition and recognition of another. Phenomenology and the Cognitive Sciences, 8(3), 321–342.
Slatman, J. (2011). The meaning of body experience evaluation in oncology. Health Care Analysis, 19(4), 295–311.
Slatman, J. (2012). Phenomenology of bodily integrity in disfiguring breast cancer. Hypatia. Journal of Feminist Philosophy, 27(2), 281–300.
Slatman, J. (2014). Our strange body: Philosophical refelections on identity and medical interventions. Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press.
Slatman, J., & Widdershoven, G. (2009). Being whole after amputation. American Journal of Bioethics, 9(1), 48–49.
Slatman, J., & Widdershoven, G. (2010a). Hand transplants and bodily integrity. Body and Society, 16(3), 69–92.
Slatman, J., & Widdershoven, G. (2010b). Embodied self-identity in neuro-oncology: A phenomenological approach. AJOB Neuroscience, 1(3), 12–13.
Slatman, J., & Yaron, G. (2014). Towards a phenomenology of disfigurements. In K. Zeiler & L. Käll (Eds.), Feminist phenomenology and medicine (pp. 223–240). Albany: SUNY Press.
Toombs, S. K. (1999). What does it mean to be somebody? Phenomenological reflections and ethical quandries. In M. J. Cherry (Ed.), Persons and their bodies: Rights, responsibilities, relationships (pp. 73–94). Dordrecht: Kluwer Academic Publishers.
Toombs, S. K. (2001). Reflections on bodily change. The lived experience of disability. In S. K. Toombs (Ed.), Handbook of phenomenology and medicine. Dordrecht: Kluwer Academic Publishers.
Van Dijck, J. (2005). The transparent body: A cultural analysis of medical imaging. Washington: University of Washington Press.
Waldenfels, B. (1989). Körper - Leib. In J. Leenhardt & R. Picht (Eds.), Esprit/Geist. 100 Schlüsselbegriffe für Deutsche und Franzosen (pp. 342–345). München: Piper.
Winance, M. (2006). Trying out the wheelchair: The mutual shaping of people and devices through adjustment. Science, Technology and Human Values, 31(1), 52–72.
Young, I. M. (1990). Throwing like a girl and other essays in feminist philosophy and social theory. Bloomington: Indiana University Press.
Zeiler, K. (2009). Ethics and organ transfer: A Merleau-Pontean perspective. Health Care Analysis, 17(2), 110–122.
Zeiler, K. (2010). A phenomenological analysis of bodily self-awareness in the experience of pain and pleasure: on dys-appearance and eu-appearance. Medicine, Health Care and Philosophy, 13(4), 333–342.
Zwart, H. (2000). From circle to square: Integrity, vulnerability and digitalization. In P. Kemp, J. D. Rendtorff & N. M. Johansen (Eds.), Bioethcis and biolaw. Four ethical principles (Vol. II, pp. 141–153). Copenhagen: Centre for Ethics and Law.
Zwart, H. (2007). Integriteit. In M. Becker, B. Van Stokkom, P. Van Tongeren & J. P. Wils (Eds.), Lexicon van de Ethiek (pp. 166–169). Assen: Van Gorcum.
Zwart, H. & Hoffer, C. (1998). Orgaandonatie en lichamelijke integriteit. Een analyse van christelijke, liberale en islamitische interpretaties [Organ donation and bodily integrity. An analysis of christian, liberal and islamic interpretations]. Best: Damon.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2015 Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Slatman, J., Widdershoven, G. (2015). An Ethics of Embodiment: The Body as Object and Subject. In: Meacham, D. (eds) Medicine and Society, New Perspectives in Continental Philosophy. Philosophy and Medicine, vol 120. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-017-9870-9_6
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-017-9870-9_6
Published:
Publisher Name: Springer, Dordrecht
Print ISBN: 978-94-017-9869-3
Online ISBN: 978-94-017-9870-9
eBook Packages: Humanities, Social Sciences and LawPhilosophy and Religion (R0)