Compassion, Necessity, and the Pharmakon of the Health Humanities

Health humanities is an emergent interdisciplinary field drawing on existing traditions of using resources from the arts and humanities in the education of health professionals. Cultivation of compassion is often cited, though not without some debate, as a fit goal for the health humanities. In thi...

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Autor principal:	Graham McCaffrey
Formato:	article
Lenguaje:	EN
Publicado:	University of Calgary 2016
Materias:	Health humanities compassion empathy Philosophy (General) B1-5802
Acceso en línea:	https://doaj.org/article/6a7f68b9a159436d80778719336f0a9e
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spelling	oai:doaj.org-article:6a7f68b9a159436d80778719336f0a9e2021-11-25T21:24:54ZCompassion, Necessity, and the Pharmakon of the Health Humanities10.11575/jah.v0i0.532921927-4416https://doaj.org/article/6a7f68b9a159436d80778719336f0a9e2016-08-01T00:00:00Zhttps://journalhosting.ucalgary.ca/index.php/jah/article/view/53292https://doaj.org/toc/1927-4416 Health humanities is an emergent interdisciplinary field drawing on existing traditions of using resources from the arts and humanities in the education of health professionals. Cultivation of compassion is often cited, though not without some debate, as a fit goal for the health humanities. In this paper, I undertake a critical reappraisal of the presumed link between health humanities and compassion. Firstly, I propose a model of the health humanities that takes up Derrida’s figure of the pharmakon, as polyvalent medicine or poison (among other meanings). Unlike Derrida, however, I treat the pharmakon as a substance, even when referring to arts and humanities. I then offer examples of negative effects of the pharmakon that both attest to its potency and unsettle comfortable assumptions that it is necessarily benign. Finally, I take up themes from Simone Weil’s reading of the Iliad to propose that necessity may be a useful alternative, or addition, to the ways we think about the goals of the health humanities Graham McCaffreyUniversity of CalgaryarticleHealth humanitiescompassionempathyPhilosophy (General)B1-5802ENJournal of Applied Hermeneutics (2016)
institution	DOAJ
collection	DOAJ
language	EN
topic	Health humanities compassion empathy Philosophy (General) B1-5802
spellingShingle	Health humanities compassion empathy Philosophy (General) B1-5802 Graham McCaffrey Compassion, Necessity, and the Pharmakon of the Health Humanities
description	Health humanities is an emergent interdisciplinary field drawing on existing traditions of using resources from the arts and humanities in the education of health professionals. Cultivation of compassion is often cited, though not without some debate, as a fit goal for the health humanities. In this paper, I undertake a critical reappraisal of the presumed link between health humanities and compassion. Firstly, I propose a model of the health humanities that takes up Derrida’s figure of the pharmakon, as polyvalent medicine or poison (among other meanings). Unlike Derrida, however, I treat the pharmakon as a substance, even when referring to arts and humanities. I then offer examples of negative effects of the pharmakon that both attest to its potency and unsettle comfortable assumptions that it is necessarily benign. Finally, I take up themes from Simone Weil’s reading of the Iliad to propose that necessity may be a useful alternative, or addition, to the ways we think about the goals of the health humanities
format	article
author	Graham McCaffrey
author_facet	Graham McCaffrey
author_sort	Graham McCaffrey
title	Compassion, Necessity, and the Pharmakon of the Health Humanities
title_short	Compassion, Necessity, and the Pharmakon of the Health Humanities
title_full	Compassion, Necessity, and the Pharmakon of the Health Humanities
title_fullStr	Compassion, Necessity, and the Pharmakon of the Health Humanities
title_full_unstemmed	Compassion, Necessity, and the Pharmakon of the Health Humanities
title_sort	compassion, necessity, and the pharmakon of the health humanities
publisher	University of Calgary
publishDate	2016
url	https://doaj.org/article/6a7f68b9a159436d80778719336f0a9e
work_keys_str_mv	AT grahammccaffrey compassionnecessityandthepharmakonofthehealthhumanities
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Compassion, Necessity, and the Pharmakon of the Health Humanities

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