Original scientific paper

Personal Identity in Medical Discourses

Peter R. Ritter ; Ruhr University Bochum, Faculty of Medicine, – St. Joseph University Hospital/Medical Clinic I, Bochum, Germany

Abstract

Person and personal identity, originally philosophical concepts, find its application also in medical discourses. Moreover, their interpretations are not derived exclusively from historical context of philosophical and theological ideas, but acquire an ethical dimension on the level of human behaviour. Their special meaning is obtained in the patient-physician interaction, which is manifested in the bodily-phenomenal interpretation of personality: this ranges from autonomy and purposiveness of a reflectively structured consciousness to the apparent dissociation of the body and the person in the concept of brain death. The understanding of the human being as person is thereby a part of the anthropological paradigm that presents the basis for ethically acceptable action in medical crisis situations. The deficiency caused by the loss of personal autonomy is therefore an indication of a deficient corporeality, which medicine has chosen as its research object..

Keywords

person; identity; bioethics; patient–physician relationship; corporeality; anthropology

Hrčak ID:

101726

URI

https://hrcak.srce.hr/101726

Publication date:

19.2.2013.

Article data in other languages: croatian french german

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