Podcast
Philosophize This!
This book explores how metaphors are used to describe illness and disease, and how these metaphors can shape our understanding of illness, affect treatment options, and influence the way we treat sick people. Sontag examines the metaphors used to describe tuberculosis in the 19th century and cancer in the 1970s, illustrating how these metaphors can objectify patients, oversimplify their conditions, and lead to harmful assumptions about the causes and treatments of these diseases.
The point of Susan Sontag's 1978 book called Illness as Metaphor was to get us to picture this use of the metaphor applied to the way we see illness and disease, and then how we end up treating people...
— Episode: Episode #178 ... Susan Sontag - How Much...
Episode: Episode #178 ... Susan Sontag - How Much Is Your V...
This book explores how metaphors are used to describe illness and disease, and how these metaphors can shape our understanding of illness, affect treatment options, and influence the way we treat sick people. Sontag examines the metaphors used to describe tuberculosis in the 19th century and cancer in the 1970s, illustrating how these metaphors can objectify patients, oversimplify their conditions, and lead to harmful assumptions about the causes and treatments of these diseases.
The point of Susan Sontag's 1978 book called Illness as Metaphor was to get us to picture this use of the metaphor applied to the way we see illness and disease, and then how we end up treating people differently who get sick as a result of it.
She starts the book by making a case for what's at stake when we uncritically use metaphors by examining all the different ways over the years that people have talked about the disease of tuberculosis.
And again in 1978, she writes one of the books we're referencing today called Illness as Metaphor.