The ill body and das Unheimliche (the Uncanny).
The ill body is sometimes phenomenologically interpreted as a "broken tool" encountered in an uncanny way. I argue that this is not what is most uncanny about illness. Within the context of an account of Freud and Heidegger's work, I argue that in health, we are generally alienated from the way our bodies will become inert, lifeless corpses. In the uncanniness of illness (and sometimes other situations), we may be reattuned to this horrific certainty and disabused of the comforting view that our bodies are reparable tools. I revisit Zaner's characterization of the uncanny and show how his notion of "chill and implicatedness" captures the dynamic sense of alienation that characterizes how we are bodily Being-toward death.
King's College London, Strand, UK. andrew.warsop@kcl.ac.uk
Andrew
A
Warsop
D004194:Disease / Q000523:psychology*; D006304:Health Status; D018594:Human Body; D006801:Humans; D010686:Philosophy, Medical