ABSTRACT
Little attention has been paid in the philosophy of disease to the social surroundings of patients and the key epistemic role this environment plays in producing and transmitting knowledge and meaning about diseases. For those with contested illnesses, it may well be the case that their relationship with their diagnosis is stable, and that they are comfortable with the category that places them within. What may be more fractious, however, is their relationship with their family, with their partner, with their colleagues. This chapter looks at precisely these relationships ordinarily neglected (by philosophy at least) and makes the case that for many individuals it is on these sites that the most profound identity-building occurs, as individuals react against the way they perceive themselves to be categorised, and against the way in which their disease is de facto defined by others around them.
