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Dementia: Mind, Meaning, and the Person
Dementia is an illness that raises important questions about our own attitudes to illness and aging. It also raises very important issues beyond the bounds of dementia to do with how we think of ourselves as people - fundamental questions about personal identity. Is the person with dementia the same person he or she was before? Is the individual with dementia a person at all? In a striking way, dementia seems to threaten the very existence of the self. This book brings together philosophers and practitioners to explore the conceptual issues that arise in connection with this increasingly common illness. Drawing on a variety of philosophers such as Descartes, Locke, Hume, Wittgenstein, the authors explore the nature of personal identity in dementia. They also show how the lives and selfhood of people with dementia can be enhanced by attention to their psychosocial and spiritual environment.
328 pages, Hardcover
First published December 8, 2005
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November 5, 2011
Dementia: Mind Meaning and the Person is an edited book that collects papers on how the philosophical notion of person and the medical diagnosis of dementia inform each other.
For the carer (either trained or relative) it is a very useful resource in that it broadens the perspectives from which we can approach the person with dementia, and it gives possible answers to puzzling questions that we face with this illness.
For the philosopher, the import of this book is not that clear cut. Most of the papers revolve around very a very traditional notion of personhood, directly referenced to Locke (the most adventurous go as far as Kant or even Parfit). A handful of authors resort to a more hermeneutic/phenomenological tradition. To this extent there is not much variety in perspective, and, all in all, many papers end up sounding repetitive. There is no mention of aspects that I would regard as crucial in articulating the notion of person with a medical diagnosis: Foucault's study of the self, the biopolitical reflection on the relationship between subjectivity and medical approaches, and so forth.
This said, maybe the best contribution in the book is the introduction itself, which stresses the important of always considering the self and the person in context, thus through an approach that is defined as 'externalist'. This crucial hint is unfortunately overlooked though, its implications being of the utmost importance for the current philosophical reflection.
For the carer (either trained or relative) it is a very useful resource in that it broadens the perspectives from which we can approach the person with dementia, and it gives possible answers to puzzling questions that we face with this illness.
For the philosopher, the import of this book is not that clear cut. Most of the papers revolve around very a very traditional notion of personhood, directly referenced to Locke (the most adventurous go as far as Kant or even Parfit). A handful of authors resort to a more hermeneutic/phenomenological tradition. To this extent there is not much variety in perspective, and, all in all, many papers end up sounding repetitive. There is no mention of aspects that I would regard as crucial in articulating the notion of person with a medical diagnosis: Foucault's study of the self, the biopolitical reflection on the relationship between subjectivity and medical approaches, and so forth.
This said, maybe the best contribution in the book is the introduction itself, which stresses the important of always considering the self and the person in context, thus through an approach that is defined as 'externalist'. This crucial hint is unfortunately overlooked though, its implications being of the utmost importance for the current philosophical reflection.
Displaying 1 of 1 review