Anti-psychiatrists contend that psychiatric practice is fundamentally misguided: it inappropriately medicalises difference by equating it with illness, resultantly forcing unwarranted "treatment" on the "mentally ill." I explain why the most popular realist accounts of mental illness-naturalism, constructivism, and hybridism-are typically considered vulnerable to this moral problem. Then, I...
This paper critically evaluates Matthew Burch's interpretations and critiques of the phenomenological account of health and illness, which are predominantly situated within the realm of static phenomenology within Husserl's framework, thereby neglecting the potential insights offered by genetic phenomenology. The primary focus of this paper is to explore genetic phenomenology in order to...
Guided by a phenomenological perspective, this paper aims to account for the existence of a corporeal consciousness-something that clinicians should take into account, not merely in the case of physical pathologies but especially in the case of mental disorders. Firstly, I will highlight three cases: schizophrenia, depression, and autism spectrum disorder. Then, I will show how these cases...
The phenomenology of bioethics is approached here in relation to the lived experience as it relates to the everyday lifeworld of persons suffering from mental illness. Taking a road less traveled, the purpose here is to elucidate ethical issues relating to sociality, using findings from qualitative phenomenological psychological research. Qualitative studies of schizophrenia and postpartum...
Often drawing on the phenomenological tradition, a number of philosophers and cognitive scientists working in the field of "embodied cognition" subscribe to the general view that cognition is grounded in aspects of its sensorimotor embodiment and should be comprehended as the result of a dynamic interaction of nonneural and neural processes. After a brief introduction, the paper critically...
Although transhumanism offers hope for the transcendence of human biological limitations, it generates many intrinsic and consequential ethical concerns. The latter include issues such as the exacerbation of social inequalities and the exponentially increasing technological capacity to cause harm. To mitigate these risks, many thinkers have initiated investigations into the possibility of moral...
Neuroimaging studies of brain-damaged patients diagnosed as in the vegetative state suggest that the patients might be conscious. This might seem to raise no new ethical questions given that in related disputes both sides agree that evidence for consciousness gives strong reason to preserve life. We question this assumption. We clarify the widely held but obscure principle that consciousness is...
This paper addresses a need to re-examine the mind-body dualism established since Descartes. Descartes' dualism has been regarded by modern philosophers as an extremely insufficient solution to the problem of mind and body, from which is derived a long opposition in modern epistomology between idealism and empiricism. This dualism, bifurcating the region of spirit and matter, and the...
An experience-centered approach reveals empirical foundations for shamanic healing. This article is based on data derived from surveys of Chinese, Japanese, Caucasian-American, and African-American populations and participant observation of over thirty Asian shamans. Respondents reported anomalous events such as apparitions, extrasensory perceptions, contact with the dead, precognitive dreams,...
This paper develops particular Strausian -like themes on the formation and structure of the Cartesian problematic. Particularly, my interest is to link the Cartesian 'invention' of consciousness (or 'the mental') in the philosophy of mind with the issues of representation and 'the problem of the external world' in epistemology. The Cartesian novelty becomes clear by comparing Cartesian...