The philosopher and the malady. A historical reckoning

Phenomenological-existential culture widened our perception of life, health, and illness. In the light of philosophical reflection, the need arose to treat issues related with life and health within a much larger horizon than that allowed by traditional medical practice, adjacent to procedures of anamnesis, diagnosis and therapeutic prescription. The need has emerged to treat them not only in the light of medical competence but also, more specifically, as a social and humanistic issue. At the juncture between medicine and philosophy, of nature and culture, of organic and relational processes, the themes of life and health are seen to link with ethic thought. Bearing in mind this new and much profounder vision of the subject, to continue to think of the medical-sanitary system as a self-referential whole enclosed within itself, with no overture to humanists, exposes it to the danger of de-valuing the importance of lived experience and, consequently to reduce a patient's reactive resources to pathological conditions.