The magic mountain
a prelude to Engelhardt's phenomenology of illness
pp. 149-162
in: Reading Engelhardt, Berlin, Springer, 1997Abstract
Phenomenology as a philosophical method appears in many guises. In this paper, I shall use Edmund Husserl"s basic position and the novel The Magic Mountain by Thomas Mann to suggest a phenomenology of illness, and throughout the analysis I will dialogue with Engelhardt"s account of illness. Such a phenomenology should entail (1) a description of the essence or essences of disease as such essences appear to and within consciousness; (2) a lived experience of disease to an embodied subject; and/or (3) a noting and analysis of the structures and textures of the disease experience. In each of these areas, Husserl"s admonition to consider things-in-themselves is presupposed. Illness is an experiential configuration in the lived-world both for those who undergo illness and for those professional health-workers who attempt to diagnose and treat such infirmities. A full disclosure of what it means to be ill involves a consideration of the possible social roles which result from the ill condition.
