Resumen

RILLO, Arturo G. Ontologic approach to the original meaning of health from the point of view of philosophical hermeneutics. Rev Hum Med [online]. 2008, vol.8, n.1. ISSN 1727-8120.

Introduction: The original meaning of health was hidden with the arrival of medicine, allowing for the medicalization of life. To face this tendency, we require the recovery of health from human existence. Objective: To answer the question on the original meaning of health, analyzing the essence and finitude of human being and health as penitentiary. Material and methods: A hermeneutical research was conducted, including the following phases: analytical, comprehensive, reconstructive and critical. The categories for analysis were: original meaning, way-of-being, existence, being-in-the-world, being-healthy, and knowing-oneself-healthy. The main authors that we analyzed were Aristotle, Hippocrates, Hans-Georg Gadamer and Martin Heidegger. Results: Hermeneutical analysis of health unveils it as a way-of-being, where being-healthy and knowing-oneself-healthy are existential dimensions that allow man to include himself in life. Understanding health as a way of existing of the human being, recovers self-conscience of health as the ontologic and existential principle for understanding the responsibility of living. Conclusion: The original meaning of health consists in the possibility of realization of the human being in factual life, thus implying that ontologically, health is a way-of-being.

Palabras clave : health; attitude to health; self-conscience of health; hermeneutics of health; hermeneutics of medicine; philosophy of medicine.

        · resumen en Español     · texto en Español     · Español ( pdf )