Abstract

The notions of health, disease, and illness as essentially applicable in all medical contexts have been extensively discussed within contemporary philosophy of medicine. Among the variety of perspectives offered there are two which seem to be currently dominating: the naturalistic and the normativist ones. The former approach, as represented by Boorse's biostatistical theory, tends to focus on the notion of disease, which is understood in terms of an impairment of statistically normal biological functioning. The latter one in turn, as developed for instance within the action-theoretical theory of Nordenfelt, denies the possibility of specifying health and illness in purely objective biological terms and provides an openly normative framework which is founded on the notions of human ability and vital goals. These two approaches, though obviously different in many nonnegligible aspects, still share one crucial feature: they are formulated from a third-person perspective and use third-person language, accordingly. Having made this point, Carel intended to develop a perspective which would do justice to first-person experiences, especially to those of an ill person. The phenomenological framework offered by her as well as its philosophical sources are briefly scrutinised.