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63Isn’t Everyone a Little OCD?Philosophy of Medicine 2 (1). 2021.This article develops the concept of wrongful depathologization, in which a psychiatric disorder is simultaneously stigmatized and trivialized. We use OCD as a case study to argue that cumulatively these two effects generate a profound epistemic injustice to OCD sufferers, and possibly to those with other mental disorders. We show that even seemingly positive stereotypes attached to mental disorders give rise to both testimonial injustice and wilful hermeneutical ignorance. We thus expose an ins…Read more
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21Culture-bound syndromesStudies in History and Philosophy of Science Part C: Studies in History and Philosophy of Biological and Biomedical Sciences 41 (4). 2010.
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42A Phenomenology of Tragedy: Illness and Body Betrayal in The FlyJournal of Media Arts CultureMany interpretations of David Cronenberg’s 1986 film The Fly read it as a film about monstrosity. Within this framework, the protagonist Seth Brundle’s progressive illness and decay are subsumed under his metamorphosis into a monster. Illness is taken to be a metaphor for the changes in Seth, changes that continuously turn him away from the human and towards the monstrous. Seth’s monstrosity, in turn, arises from the fusion of human and non-human, in this case the fusion of a man with an insect.…Read more
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44‘I Am Well, Apart from the Fact that I Have Cancer’: Explaining Wellbeing within IllnessIn Lisa Bortolotti (ed.), Philosophy and Happiness, Palgrave Macmillan. pp. 82-99. 2009.
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5What a mess: can we tidy up the concept of health?Philosophical Psychology. forthcoming.This is a review article of Elizabeth Barnes’ new book, Health Problems. In this article, I try to offer a sense of where this exciting sub-discipline of philosophy of medicine has got to. I do that in three ways. First, I make a few comments on the general idea that there are theories of health competing in the field of philosophy of medicine; second, I offer specific comments on the phenomenological approach; and finally, I comment on Barnes’ claim that health is messy. I do not provide an ove…Read more
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21Illness and authenticityIn Art and authenticity, Australian Scholarly Publishing. pp. 197-204. 2010.
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57Health, Illness and Disease: Philosophical Essays (edited book)Routledge. 2012.What counts as health or ill health? How do we deal with the fallibility of our own bodies? Should illness and disease be considered simply in biological terms, or should considerations of its emotional impact dictate our treatment of it? Our understanding of health and illness had become increasingly more complex in the modern world, as we are able to use medicine not only to fight disease but to control other aspects of our bodies, whether mood, blood pressure, or cholesterol. This collection …Read more
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Phenomenology and Naturalism: Volume 72: Examining the Relationship between Human Experience and Nature (edited book)Cambridge University Press. 2013.What is the relationship between phenomenology and naturalism? Are they mutually exclusive or is a rapprochement possible between their approaches to consciousness and the natural world? Can phenomenology be naturalised and ought it to be? Or is naturalism fundamentally unable to accommodate phenomenological insights? How can phenomenological method be used within a naturalistic research programme? This cutting-edge collection of original essays contains brilliant contributions from leading phen…Read more
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1Illness, Second Edition: The Cry of the FleshAcumen Publishing. 2013.What is illness? Is it a physiological dysfunction, a social label, or a way of experiencing the world? How do the physical, social and emotional worlds of a person change when they become ill? And can there be wellbeing within illness? In this remarkable and thought-provoking book, Havi Carel explores these questions by weaving together the personal story of her own serious illness with insights and reflections drawn from her work as a philosopher. Carel’s fresh approach to illness raises some …Read more
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42Introduction: culture-bound syndromesStudies in History and Philosophy of Science Part C: Studies in History and Philosophy of Biological and Biomedical Sciences 41 (4): 307-308. 2010.
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146Phenomenology and Naturalism: Examining the Relationship Between Human Experience and Nature (edited book)Cambridge University Press. 2013.What is the relationship between phenomenology and naturalism? Are they mutually exclusive or is a rapprochement possible between their approaches to consciousness and the natural world? Can phenomenology be naturalised and ought it to be? Or is naturalism fundamentally unable to accommodate phenomenological insights? How can phenomenological method be used within a naturalistic research programme? This cutting-edge collection of original essays contains brilliant contributions from leading phen…Read more
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28Phenomenology of IllnessOxford University Press. 2016.Havi Carel uses phenomenology to explore how illness modifies the ill person's body, values, and world. Carel argues that illness has received little philosophical attention. Phenomenology of Illness develops a phenomenological framework for illness and a systematic understanding of illness as a philosophical tool.
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29Whose values? Whose reasons? A commentary on ‘Rethinking disease: a fresh diagnosis and a new philosophical treatment’ by Powell and ScarffeJournal of Medical Ethics 45 (9): 592-593. 2019.In this short commentary, I reflect on the new definition of disease proposed by Powell and Scarffe. I suggest that the method they appeal to as objective, namely, rational justification, is open to several criticisms, which I outline and discuss.
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39Vulnerabilization and De-pathologization: Two Philosophical SuggestionsPhilosophy, Psychiatry, and Psychology 30 (1): 73-76. 2023.In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Vulnerabilization and De-pathologizationTwo Philosophical SuggestionsHavi Carel, PhD (bio)Alastair Morgan raises useful and interesting philosophical critiques of the 'power-threat-meaning' framework proposed by Johnstone et al. (2018). In what follows I make two suggestions that may clarify some aspects of the debate. First, to broaden the notion of threat: we can think more broadly about adverse life events as the source of mental …Read more
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11The Distressed BodyJournal of Medicine and Philosophy 43 (3): 361-367. 2018.Leder, D. 2016. The Distressed Body. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
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109Phenomenology and Naturalism: Editors' IntroductionRoyal Institute of Philosophy Supplement 72 1-21. 2013.This is the editors' introduction to an edited volume devoted to the relation between phenomenology and naturalism across several philosophical domains, including: epistemology, metaphysics, history of philosophy, and philosophy of science and ethics.
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49II—Virtue Without Excellence, Excellence Without HealthAristotelian Society Supplementary Volume 90 (1): 237-253. 2016.In this paper I respond to Edward Harcourt’s suggestion that human excellences are structured in a way that allows us to see the multiplicity of life forms that can be instantiated by different groups of excellences. I accept this layered model, but suggest that Harcourt’s proposal is not pluralistic enough, and offer three critical points. First, true pluralism would need to take a life-cycle view, thus taking into account plurality within, as well as between, lives. Second, Harcourt’s pluralis…Read more
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34When someone close to us dies, we usually say that we are with them ‘in our thoughts’ or that they remain alive in our minds. The film Vital challenges this disembodied view of grief by posing the following question: what would grief be like if we could keep the dead with us not only in our memories, but materially? The film provides an intriguing answer to this question, provided through a unique setting, that of a medical school dissection class. Despite the macabre setting, Tsukamoto’s aim is…Read more
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391Epistemic injustice in healthcare encounters: evidence from chronic fatigue syndromeJournal of Medical Ethics 43 (8): 549-557. 2017.Chronic fatigue syndrome or myalgic encephalomyelitis remains a controversial illness category. This paper surveys the state of knowledge and attitudes about this illness and proposes that epistemic concerns about the testimonial credibility of patients can be articulated using Miranda Fricker’s concept of epistemic injustice. While there is consensus within mainstream medical guidelines that there is no known cause of CFS/ME, there is continued debate about how best to conceive of CFS/ME, inclu…Read more
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26Even Ethics Professors Fail to Return Library BooksPhilosophy, Psychiatry, and Psychology 24 (3): 211-213. 2017.Tamara Kayali Browne's suggestion to create a formal role in revision of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders for philosophers, sociologists, and bioethicists is interesting and stems from a well-supported concern about how nosological psychiatric categories interact with both the epistemic norms of science and philosophy and with their consequences in the world. Browne is grappling with a problem that is clearly stated and pressing. However, I am not convinced that her solu…Read more
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364Can I be ill and happy?Philosophia 35 (2): 95-110. 2007.Can one be ill and happy? I use a phenomenological approach to provide an answer to this question, using Merleau-Ponty’s distinction between the biological and the lived body. I begin by discussing the rift between the biological body and the ill person’s lived experience, which occurs in illness. The transparent and taken for granted biological body is problematised by illness, which exposes it as different from the lived experience of this body. I argue that because of this rift, the experienc…Read more
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7Suffering as Transformative ExperienceIn Michael S. Brady, David Bain & Jennifer Corns (eds.), Philosophy of Suffering: Metaphysics, Value, and Normativity, Routledge. pp. 165-179. 2019.In this chapter we suggest that many experiences of suffering can be further illuminated as forms of transformative experience, using the term coined by L.A. Paul. Such suffering experiences arise from the vulnerability, dependence, and affliction intrinsic to the human condition. Such features can create a variety of positively, negatively, and ambivalently valanced forms of epistemically and personally transformative experiences, as we detail here. We argue that the productive element of suffe…Read more
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172In August 2021, Froese et al. published survey data collected from 2,543 respondents on their subjective experiences living under imposed social distancing measures during COVID-19 (1). The questionnaire was issued to respondents in the UK, Japan, and Mexico. By combining the authors’ expertise in phenomenological philosophy, phenomenological psychopathology, and enactive cognitive science, the questions were carefully phrased to prompt reports that would be useful to phenomenological investigat…Read more
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378Epistemic Injustice in Psychiatric Research and PracticePhilosophical Psychology 1. 2022.This paper offers an overview of the philosophical work on epistemic injustices as it relates to psychiatry. After describing the development of epistemic injustice studies, we survey the existing literature on its application to psychiatry. We describe how the concept of epistemic injustice has been taken up into a range of debates in philosophy of psychiatry, including the nature of psychiatric conditions, psychiatric practices and research, and ameliorative projects. The final section of the …Read more
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Phenomenology and naturalism : editors' introductionIn Havi Carel & Darian Meacham (eds.), Phenomenology and Naturalism: Examining the Relationship Between Human Experience and Nature, Cambridge University Press. 2013.