Health and subjectivity
- 1 January 1997
- journal article
- research article
- Published by SAGE Publications in Health: An Interdisciplinary Journal for the Social Study of Health, Illness and Medicine
- Vol. 1 (1) , 23-36
- https://doi.org/10.1177/136345939700100101
Abstract
This paper is an exploration of health as a state of subjectivity rather than as an observable condition of the body. Subjectivity is analysed as involving a pre-intentional conative dimension distinct from the biological and pragmatic dimensions of living. Using some concepts from Levinas to articulate this conative dimension, I argue that what Levinas describes as ‘love of life’– an inchoate feeling that the living of life is enjoyment and nourishment – is the pre-articulated experience of health. Health in this sense is when things go well with us in the conative mode of our subjectivity. Moreover, health in this sense is foundational to our very being as subjectivity. A professional concern for health must be sensitive to all modes of subjectivity in which health is experienced.Keywords
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