Person, Society And Value: Towards A Personalist Concept Of Health (philosophy And Medicine)

Besides offering a critical analysis of the WHO definition and a review of both ancient and contemporary conceptions of health, the cooperative effort of physicians and philosophers presented in this book works through the challenges which any definition of health faces, if it is to be both truly personalist, and at the same time operational. The overall purpose of this book is to capture the essentials of human health and to propose the outlines for a personalist understanding of this concept, i.e., a conception that does justice to the personal nature of human beings by introducing dimensions that are essential to personal life and well-being, such as the realms of rationality, affectivity and freedom, the realms of meaning, values, morality, and spirituality, the realms of social and interpersonal relations. Front Matter....Pages i-x Introduction....Pages 1-15 Front Matter....Pages 17-17 According to Plato, the Evils of the Body Cannot be Cured without also Curing the Evils of the Soul....Pages 19-31 The General Systems Theory: An Adequate Framework for a Personalist Concept of Health?....Pages 33-53 Health: Two Idolatries....Pages 55-85 The Concept of Mental Health....Pages 87-107 What is Human Health? Towards Understanding its Personalist Dimensions....Pages 109-143 Front Matter....Pages 145-145 Health, Disease, and Persons: Well-Being in a Post-Modern World....Pages 147-163 The Good of Health: An Argument for an Objectivist Understanding....Pages 165-185 Empirical and Philosophical Aspects of a Definition of Health and Disease....Pages 187-206 Front Matter....Pages 207-207 Positive and Negative Aspects of the Who Definition of Health, and Their Implications for a New Concept of Health in the Future....Pages 209-227 The Challenge of Government in the Constructing of Health Care Policy....Pages 229-239 Epilogue....Pages 241-252 Back Matter....Pages 253-262