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Medicalization and technology: The analysis of healthism from the perspective of postphenomenology

Document Type : Research Paper

Authors

1 Associate Professor of Philosophy of Science, Research Institute of Human Sciences and Cultural Studies

2 phd student of Philosophy of Science and Technology, Research Institute of Humanities and Cultural Studies

Abstract

Inquiring into the relationship between technology and medicalization, particularly in the fourth wave of medicalization known as Healthism, is of utmost importance. Compared to the other waves of medicalisation, in Healthism, which is predominant and progressive today , biomedical research plays a critical role, technology is interwoven with it, and the "disease" that was at the center of the previous three waves is absent hereThese factors mean that all classical theories of medicalisation, such as Peter Conrad's, fail to understand and determine the fundamental role of technologies in healthism. This is because Conrad's account of medicalisation is disease-centric, based on the dualism between humans and technology, and focuses only on macro social, political, and economic processes that make medicalisation possible.
This paper argues for the idea that the link between the philosophies of technology and medicine can provide approaches to understanding and analyzing the fourth wave of medicalization.
In this paper, Healthism - is examined from a postphenomenological view of the philosophy of technology and based on the case study of self-tracking applications, focusing on technological intentionality and hermeneutic relations. it is argued that Conrad's sociological view is insufficient to determine the role of technologies in the medicalisation procesess and to understand the new wave of medicalsation.
It will be shown that postphenomenology can be used to provide new insight into medicalisation and discuss the aspects of medicalisation that have often been disregarded, as post-phenomenology can explicate medicalisation on the level of individual experience from the perspective of the relationship between humans and reality, while also examining the mediating role of technologies in these relationships.

Keywords

References
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Philosophy of Science
Volume 12, Issue 2 - Serial Number 2
February 2023
Pages 237-259
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