Body Matters is a unique and fascinating account of human afflictions in a world dominated by biomedical notions of disease and illness. In a truly interdisciplinary collaboration between philosophy and sociology, James and Kevin Aho use the insights of phenomenology to help us see ourselves and our afflictions in a more thoughtful way.
- Gesine Hearn, Idaho State University,
James and Kevin Aho have written an important book.
Metapsychology Online, March 2010
The Ahos accomplish a remarkable feat. Their writing is lively and engaging while their observations are deep and important. This is the most insightful study of today's experience of health matters I have yet seen.
- Charles Guignon, University of South Florida,
The book is a great contribution to the critical literature on health and illnesses. It is unique in its attempt to apply Husserl and Heidegger to health and illness….It is elegantly written and filled with numerous examples illustrating the argumentation.
Springer Science and Business Media, August 3, 2010
This book should be especially welcomed by those working within medical humanities, though not so much by philosophers and others interested in phenomenology...It brings together, even if in a much simplified way, a set of intuitions originating mainly in Edmund Husserl’s phenomenology, neatly synthesizes and applies them to modern biomedicine with a critical intent. The outcome is comprehensive as far as the phenomenologically inspired divergent conceptualizations of pathological states of mind and body are concerned, and it is also often thought-provoking, well written and accessible to newcomers to the field.
The European Legacy – Toward New Paradigms