Wonder, Health Humanities, Existential/Ethical Phenomenology, and Philosophy Practice

Dear Colleagues,

In the disciplines of “Health Humanities” and “Medical Humaninies”, the focus has been primarily on Art and Culture. However, Philosophy has always been a very important part of Humanities, despite the—strange—fact that philosophy and philosophizing as an existential practice and wisdom-seeking act have only received little attention. 

Philosophy in medical humanities is of course not a stranger, when talking about ethics in medicine and healthcare professions, or about ‘the philosophy of’ say, bioethics, human suffering, illness, death, compassion, empathy, human flourishing, etc. But this is not the kind of professional academic and analytical philosophy that this Special Issue wants to highlight, however relevant these philosophical theories and concepts may be for healthcare professions.

What we want to single out in this Special Issue is the relevance in Health Humanities and Medical Humanities of a ‘philosophical praxis’ understood as an existential and/or spiritual practice (Hadot, Nussbaum, Foucault, Patocka), with a special focus on the phenomenology of wonder, and with a departure from existential and ethical phenomenology and care ethics. In short, we want to dwell on how Care Ethics and Existential Health Communication can be understood as a philosophical and contemplative praxis.

The Ancient philosopher Epicurus writes: “Empty is the argument of the philosopher which does not relieve any human suffering. For just as there is no use in a medical art that does not cast the sickness of bodies, so too there is no use of philosophy, unless it casts out the suffering of the soul.” Similar to the discipline of “narrative medicine”, we want to inquiry how “philosophical medicine” and especially the sense of wonder (Heidegger, Buber, Marcel) can create spaces for saturated silences and spaces for human flourishing when enacted or ignited among healthcare professionals and their patients.

Research on this has already been done in Denmark through so-called Wonder Labs on hospice and hospitals (Hansen, 2015, 2016, 2018). However, this kind of philosophical and wonder-based dialogues and ‘communities of wonder’ around existential, ethical, and spiritual experiences and questions in healthcare practices has yet to be unfolded and brought into the discipline of Health Humanities and Medical Humanities.

How can philosophical wonder (thaumazein) and different forms of phenomenological, hermeneutic, and existential exercises and contemplative practices help healthcare professionals and patients and their relatives to enhance their “existential resilience”? How can insights from the discipline of philosophical counseling be a supplement to the psychological and pastoral counseling in existential and spiritual care?

Prof. Dr. Finn Thorbjørn Hansen
Guest Editor

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• philosophical praxis
• phenomenology of wonder
• health humanities
• medical humanities
• existential/ethical phenomenology
• existential resilience
• wonder-based dialogues
• existential health communication
• philosophical counseling
• spiritual care