On the Patient’s Agency

Abstract

ABSTRACT Canguilhem’s take on the normal and the pathological offers an interesting insight to elaborate on a phenomenological account of illness and the medical encounter within the scope of Heidegger’s Daseinanalysis from Being and Time. Fredrik Svenaeus has drawn from the latter a definition of illness as an “unhomelike being in the world”. In this paper, I will elaborate on these concepts through the tale of Adriana, a cancer fighter that got diagnosed at age 26. Through her story, I will try to illustrate Canguilhem’s main criticism against medicine's current state, as well as describe phenomenologically what it means to be ill, and what illness does to the patient's being-in-the-world.