Detachment from ourselves and from life is the first thing we shouldavoid. Feeling well or ill should not be confused with incommensurability, and health is certainly not a matter that deserves the interpretation of literature or hermaeneutics. By stating at the outset of The Enigma of Health that he intends to contribute to our thoughts about health, Gadamer disqualifies himself entirely. He has something to say about what Kant and Hegel thought about the subject. That casuistic approach stands to increase to a menace when applied to lecturing doctors and advising laymen concerning their health self-care, and it distorts and misconceives our concept of life, toward which we ought to cultivate respect, and certainly honesty. The intention of the book, The Enigma of Health, is not, as in the case of Norman Cousins or Mary Baker Eddy, to come down from the lofty pose of a professor of philosophy to the common level on which we all live and are aware of wellness or illness but to bring to bear the same methods which have been of such value as they have been in university courses on philosophy. In itself this is at least a dubious choice, and at most, as a case of mistaken priorities, it shows a failure to understand the reality it proposes to address. Gadamer argues that since we are concerned with health we should be interested to hear of new science on the subject. But although new health science is commercial it is not the essence of health which is in every body. That humanity thrives on the disuse of doctors and medicine, just as social affairs prosper without the use of lawyers and courts, should not be surprising to the wise. Health not only concerns us but is that of which we are aware. No medical technology can conceivably be better than internal maintenance and an internal monitoring sense inside ofeach and every living being. Ronald Jump runs The Institute of Formal Social Sciences

Categories: Philosophical, General