The ill body and das Unheimliche (the Uncanny)

Area of Science:

• Phenomenology
• Existential Philosophy
• Medical Humanities

Background:

• Illness is often perceived as a malfunctioning tool.
• This interpretation overlooks a deeper uncanny experience.
• Philosophical concepts from Freud and Heidegger offer alternative frameworks.

Purpose of the Study:

• To explore the phenomenological experience of illness.
• To argue that illness reveals a more profound uncanniness than that of a broken tool.
• To connect this uncanniness to existential concepts of mortality.

Main Methods:

• Phenomenological analysis of illness.
• Interpretation of philosophical texts by Freud and Heidegger.
• Revisiting Zaner's concept of the uncanny.

Main Results:

• Illness disabuses individuals of the notion that bodies are merely reparable tools.
• The uncanny experience of illness reattunes individuals to their mortality.
• Zaner's "chill and implicatedness" captures the alienation associated with Being-toward-death.

Conclusions:

• The most uncanny aspect of illness is its revelation of our finite existence.
• Illness forces a confrontation with the body's potential inertness.
• This confrontation is intrinsically linked to existential dread and the awareness of death.