The Significance of Reading 'Literatures Written by Patients'

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Bibliographic Information

Other Title
  • 「病の文学」を読む意義 (1)
  • 'Other Minds Problem' and the Solidarity of Lives
  • 他者理解の可能性と生命の連帯性

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Description

The purpose of this study is to consider the significance of reading "literatures written by patients" in the medical faculty. This study is divided into two parts. The first part deals with the philosophical question: "Can we understand patients as other minds at all?" The second part deals with the concrete methods and results of understanding patients by reading literatures written by patients. In this paper I deal with the first part.<br>         In the first, (1) I attempt to make clear the difficulty of understanding patients. It does not mainly concern the physiological pains, nor the qualia of sensations, but the mental sufferings that a patient's pains cause in his whole life. (2) Then, I try to solve a philosophical problem, namely, 'other minds problem'. I examine several philosophical standings, namely the analogy theory, the behaviorism, Schelling, Scheler, and Wittgenstein's arguments. From these examinations I draw the conclusion that understanding other minds is possible only in 'the second-person's view', not in 'the third-person's view'. In the third-person's view, we see another person as the unrecognizable object X. But in the second-person's view, we see another person as 'you'. I draw this conclusion from 'the tautological statement concerning self's pains' in Wittgenstein's argument and 'the negation of metaphysics' in the Scheler's argument. (3) Further, I consider the difficulty of understanding patient's sufferings in particular. Its difficulty does not consist in 'the spatial-physical irreplaceability', but in 'the temporal-historical irreplaceability between patients and other people. (4) Finally I consider the meaning of 'expression (text)'. I explain 'reading texts' as the condition to establish the concretesecond-person's relationship.<br>         To sum up, we can understand patents' sufferings in the second-person's relationship by reading the texts as their expressions.

Journal

  • Journal of Humanities in Medicine

    Journal of Humanities in Medicine 1 (0), 61-70, 2011

    The Japanese Association for Philosophical and Ethical Researches in Medicine (Kyushu)

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