Abstract

This paper explores the phenomenon of being ill (in cases of serious, chronic and terminal illnesses) both in its subjective and intersubjective dimensions. My main contention is that the philosophical tools of phenomenology uncover the framework for understanding the lived experience of the ill person as they privilege the first-person account of illness. It is through this that the essence of things and phenomena surrounding the body-in-illness are unveiled, as opposed to the medical world’s perspective, a third-person account of diseases. A phenomenology of illness underscores that illness is a substantial parcel of human existence that alters the ill person’s experience of the body, intersubjective relations with the other, and relation with the world entirely. This essay is constituted of four major sections dabbling with a phenomenological account of the experience of the lived body, the body-in-illness, the intersubjective dimension of the body-in-illness, and a note on health.