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905Epistemic Injustice and IllnessJournal of Applied Philosophy 34 (2): 172-190. 2016.This article analyses the phenomenon of epistemic injustice within contemporary healthcare. We begin by detailing the persistent complaints patients make about their testimonial frustration and hermeneutical marginalization, and the negative impact this has on their care. We offer an epistemic analysis of this problem using Miranda Fricker's account of epistemic injustice. We detail two types of epistemic injustice, testimonial and hermeneutical, and identify the negative stereotypes and structu…Read more
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809Healthcare Practice, Epistemic Injustice, and NaturalismRoyal Institute of Philosophy Supplement 84 1-23. 2018.Ill persons suffer from a variety of epistemically-inflected harms and wrongs. Many of these are interpretable as specific forms of what we dub pathocentric epistemic injustices, these being ones that target and track ill persons. We sketch the general forms of pathocentric testimonial and hermeneutical injustice, each of which are pervasive within the experiences of ill persons during their encounters in healthcare contexts and the social world. What’s epistemically unjust might not be only age…Read more
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665Pathocentric epistemic injustice and conceptions of healthIn Benjamin R. Sherman & Stacey Goguen (eds.), Overcoming Epistemic Injustice: Social and Psychological Perspectives, Rowman & Littlefield. pp. 153-168. 2019.In this paper, we argue that certain theoretical conceptions of health, particularly those described as ‘biomedical’ or ‘naturalistic’, are viciously epistemically unjust. Drawing on some recent work in vice epistemology, we identity three ways that abstract objects (such as theoretical conceptions, doctrines, or stances) can be legitimately described as epistemically vicious. If this is right, then robust reform of individuals, social systems, and institutions would not be enough to secure epi…Read more
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419Suffering and Transformative ExperienceIn David Bain, Michael Brady & Jennifer Corns (eds.), The Philosophy of Suffering: Metaphysics, Value, and Normativity, Routledge. pp. 165-179. 2020.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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373Epistemic Injustice in Healthcare: A Philosophical AnalysisMedicine, Health Care and Philosophy 17 (4): 529-540. 2014.In this paper we argue that ill persons are particularly vulnerable to epistemic injustice in the sense articulated by Fricker. Ill persons are vulnerable to testimonial injustice through the presumptive attribution of characteristics like cognitive unreliability and emotional instability that downgrade the credibility of their testimonies. Ill persons are also vulnerable to hermeneutical injustice because many aspects of the experience of illness are difficult to understand and communicate and …Read more
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371Epistemic 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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359Can 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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359Epistemic 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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327The Predicament of PatientsRoyal Institute of Philosophy Supplement 89 65-74. 2021.In this paper we propose that our understanding of pathocentric epistemic injustices can be enriched if they are theorised in terms of predicaments. These are the wider socially scaffolded structures of epistemic challenges, dangers, needs, and threats experienced by ill persons due to their particular emplacement within material, social, and epistemic structures. In previous work we have described certain aspects of these predicaments - pathocentric epistemic injustices, pathophobia, and so on.…Read more
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263Phenomenology 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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252Bodily doubtJournal of Consciousness Studies 20 (7-8): 7-8. 2013.In this paper I explore the tacit underlying sense of bodily certainty that characterizes normal everyday embodied experience. I then propose illness as one instance in which this certainty breaks down and is replaced by bodily doubt. I characterize bodily doubt as radically modifying our experience in three ways: loss of continuity, loss of transparency, and loss of faith in one's body. I then discuss the philosophical insights that arise from the experience of bodily doubt. The paper uses a Hu…Read more
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244Phenomenology 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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224Bernard N. Schumacher: Death and Mortality in Contemporary Philosophy, Trans. Michael J. Miller. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2010, 258 pp, $28.99 (paperback), ISBN 978-0-521-17119-9; Jeffrey P. Bishop: The Anticipatory Corpse: Medicine, Power, and the Care of the Dying. Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, 2011, 411 pp, $35.00 (paperback), ISBN 978-0-268-02227-3 (review)Theoretical Medicine and Bioethics 33 (6): 435-441. 2012.
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190Phenomenology and its application in medicineTheoretical Medicine and Bioethics 32 (1): 33-46. 2010.Phenomenology is a useful methodology for describing and ordering experience. As such, phenomenology can be specifically applied to the first person experience of illness in order to illuminate this experience and enable health care providers to enhance their understanding of it. However, this approach has been underutilized in the philosophy of medicine as well as in medical training and practice. This paper demonstrates the usefulness of phenomenology to clinical medicine. In order to describe…Read more
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183Temporal finitude and finitude of possibility: The double meaning of death in being and timeInternational Journal of Philosophical Studies 15 (4). 2007.The confusion surrounding Heidegger's account of death in Being and Time has led to severe criticisms, some of which dismiss his analysis as incoherent and obtuse. I argue that Heidegger's critics err by equating Heidegger's concept of death with our ordinary concept. As I show, Heidegger's concept of death is not the same as the ordinary meaning of the term, namely, the event that ends life. But nor does this concept merely denote the finitude of Dasein's possibilities or the groundlessness of …Read more
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173Neurodiversity, epistemic injustice, and the good human lifeJournal of Social Philosophy 53 (4): 614-631. 2022.Journal of Social Philosophy, EarlyView.
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160In 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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155Epistemic Injustice in PsychiatryPsychiatry Bulletin 41. 2017.Epistemic injustice is a harm done to a person in their capacity as an epistemic subject by undermining her capacity to engage in epistemic practices such as giving knowledge to others or making sense of one’s experiences. It has been argued that those who suffer from medical conditions are more vulnerable to epistemic injustice than the healthy. This paper claims that people with mental disorders are even more vulnerable to epistemic injustice than those with somatic illnesses. Two kinds of con…Read more
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147Illness, phenomenology, and philosophical methodTheoretical Medicine and Bioethics 34 (4): 345-357. 2013.In this article, I propose that illness is philosophically revealing and can be used to explore human experience. I suggest that illness is a limit case of embodied experience. By pushing embodied experience to its limit, illness sheds light on normal experience, revealing its ordinary and thus overlooked structure. Illness produces a distancing effect, which allows us to observe normal human behavior and cognition via their pathological counterpart. I suggest that these characteristics warrant …Read more
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136Expanding Transformative ExperienceEuropean Journal of Philosophy 28 (1): 199-213. 2019.We develop a broader, more fine-grained taxonomy of forms of ‘transformative experience’ inspired by the work of L.A. Paul. Our vulnerability to such experiences arises, we argue, due to the vulnerability, dependence, and affliction intrinsic to the human condition. We use this trio to distinguish a variety of positively, negatively, and ambivalently valenced forms of epistemically and/or personally transformative experiences. Moreover, we argue that many transformative experiences can arise gra…Read more
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110The Phenomenology of IllnessOxford University Press UK. 2016.The experience of illness is a universal and substantial part of human existence. Like death, illness raises important philosophical issues. But unlike death, illness, and in particular the experience of being ill, has received little philosophical attention. In Phenomenology of Illness Havi Carel argues that the experience of illness has been wrongly neglected by philosophers and provides a distinctively philosophical account of illness. Using phenomenology, Carel explores how illness modifies …Read more
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100A reply to 'towards an understanding of nursing as a response to human vulnerability' by Derek Sellman: Vulnerability and illnessNursing Philosophy 10 (3): 214-219. 2009.No Abstract
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98Phenomenology as a Resource for PatientsJournal of Medicine and Philosophy 37 (2): 96-113. 2012.Patient support tools have drawn on a variety of disciplines, including psychotherapy, social psychology, and social care. One discipline that has not so far been used to support patients is philosophy. This paper proposes that a particular philosophical approach, phenomenology, could prove useful for patients, giving them tools to reflect on and expand their understanding of their illness. I present a framework for a resource that could help patients to philosophically examine their illness, it…Read more
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95Institutional Opacity, Epistemic Vulnerability, and Institutional Testimonial JusticeInternational Journal of Philosophical Studies 29 (4): 473-496. 2021.ABSTRACT This paper offers an account of institutional testimonial justice and describes one way that it breaks down, which we call institutional opacity. An institution is opaque when it becomes resistant to epistemic evaluation and understanding by its agents and users. When one cannot understand the inner workings of an institution, it becomes difficult to know how to comport oneself testimonially. We offer an account of an institutional ethos to explain what it means for an institution to be…Read more
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90Illness: The Cry of the FleshRoutledge. 2014.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 well-being 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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84Film as philosophyThe Philosophers' Magazine 50 (50): 30-31. 2010.More people desperately require an organ than become donors themselves. When discussing organ donation, people mainly consider the question whether they want to donate, whereas empirically they are more likely to be on the receiving end. So it is rational for each of us to join the organ donor register and to agree to donate our relative’s organs, if we are ever in that situation
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81The Ubiquity of MoodsPhilosophy, Psychiatry, and Psychology 16 (3): 267-271. 2009.In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:The Ubiquity of MoodsMatthew R. Broome (bio) and Havi Carel (bio)Keywordsphenomenology, Heidegger, moods, affects, meaning, self, philosophyPhilosophy is often caricatured as one of the most disconnected and anemic academic enterprises. Yet in philosophers’ own accounts of what drew them to the problems they have sought to address they answer, typically, in two broad, passionate, ways: wonder or anxiety. As such, philosophy, and phil…Read more
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80The problem of organ donationThe Philosophers' Magazine 42 (3rd qu): 43-49. 2008.More people desperately require an organ than become donors themselves. When discussing organ donation, people mainly consider the question whether they want to donate, whereas empirically they are more likely to be on the receiving end. So it is rational for each of us to join the organ donor register and to agree to donate our relative’s organs, if we are ever in that situation
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78Moral and Epistemic Ambiguity in Oedipus RexJanus Head 9 (1): 91-109. 2006.This paper challenges the accepted interpretation of Oedipus Rex, which takes Oedipus’ ignorance of the relevant facts to be an established matter. I argue that Oedipus’ epistemic state is ambiguous, and that this in turn generates a moral ambiguity with respect to his actions. Because ignorance serves as a moral excuse, my demonstration that Oedipus was not ignorant bears significantly on the moral meaning of the play. I next propose to anchor this ambiguity in the Freudian notion of the uncons…Read more
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75The Philosophical Role of IllnessMetaphilosophy 45 (1): 20-40. 2014.This article examines the philosophical role of illness. It briefly surveys the philosophical role accorded to illness in the history of philosophy and explains why illness merits such a role. It suggests that illness modifies, and thus sheds light on, normal experience, revealing its ordinary and therefore overlooked structure. Illness also provides an opportunity for reflection by performing a kind of suspension (epoché) of previously held beliefs, including tacit beliefs. The article argues t…Read more