TRANSFORMATIONS IN MEDICINE AND SELF-UNDERSTANDING OF THE HUMAN BEING Cover Image

TRANSFORMĂRI ÎN MEDICINĂ ŞI AUTOÎNŢELEGEREA OMULUI
TRANSFORMATIONS IN MEDICINE AND SELF-UNDERSTANDING OF THE HUMAN BEING

Author(s): Elena Colombetti
Subject(s): Anthropology
Published by: Studia Universitatis Babes-Bolyai
Keywords: human being; body and personal identity; generation; techno sciences; disease.

Summary/Abstract: Since the very beginning, the human being has known what medicine is because of their knowledge of illness and death. The history of medicine is, therefore, one of the places where the complexity of human being better arises. The particularity of the techne iatriké lies in the fact that the doctor doesn’t produce health, but simply restores it, or redresses a lost equilibrium. Medicine takes care of the patient by curing their health. But, along the time, medicine has been deeply transformed. Not only because of its greater capacity, but also because it has transformed its dynamism, most particularly in the techno-sciences era. These changes have involved a transformation of the way in which the human being understands himself. New categories have appeared: the human being is being conceptualized as something deliverable, a broader idea of responsibility towards the physical qualities of the new generations is emerging, and the oxymoron of sick people without any illness comes forward. All these changes and challenges call for a new comprehension of the role of the body in personal identity and restore anthropology as a central discipline in the ethics and bioethics field.

  • Issue Year: 55/2010
  • Issue No: 1
  • Page Range: 59-72
  • Page Count: 13
  • Language: Romanian