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Place, Space and Hermeneutics pp 115–126Cite as

A Hermeneutics of the Body and Place in Health and Illness

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Part of the book series: Contributions to Hermeneutics ((CONT HERMEN,volume 5))

Abstract

This essay explores the ways in which hermeneutic philosophy has shaped current research on the body. Using the experience of health and illness to frame the discussion and drawing on major figures such as Wilhelm Dilthey, Hans Georg-Gadamer, and Martin Heidegger as well as a number of contemporary theorists, the aim of the essay is to show how hermeneutics challenges core naturalistic assumptions we have about the body by bringing our attention to the situated place of the body as it is lived. By focusing on the ‘lived-body’ (Leib) rather than the ‘corporeal body’ (Körper), hermeneutics illuminates the tacit, situated understanding we have of the world, how the experience of illness can shatter this understanding and transform our self-interpretations, and the extent to which our bodies and their various ailments make sense to us only through the public meanings we give to them.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    I am thankful for the numerous conversations with Charles Guignon over the years on the nature of hermeneutic philosophy.For a rich and comprehensive account of the distinction between epistemological and ontological hermeneutics, see Guignon 1999.

  2. 2.

    Here I am especially indebted to Jenny Slatman (2014) and her masterful overview of phenomenological accounts of self-alienation and the multiple ways the ill-body is shaped by various social forces.

  3. 3.

    Thomas Fuchs (2003) describes this phenomenon in terms of a “vicious circle [that arises]… when a clumsy person gets ashamed, which in turn undermines spontaneous bodily-ness so as to make one even more clumsy, etc. The way our body is pre-reflectively lived influences the way we feel towards others, and vice versa.” (225)

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Philosophy, Florida Gulf Coast University, Fort Myers, FL, USA

    Kevin Aho

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  1. Kevin Aho
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Correspondence to Kevin Aho .

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  1. Department of Philosophy, University of Central Florida, Orlando, Florida, USA

    Bruce B. Janz

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Aho, K. (2017). A Hermeneutics of the Body and Place in Health and Illness. In: Janz, B. (eds) Place, Space and Hermeneutics. Contributions to Hermeneutics, vol 5. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-52214-2_9

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