ABSTRACT
This introduction presents an overview of the key concepts discussed in the subsequent chapters of this book. The book offers a geography of illness, showing how the surrounding world and the interaction with it change in illness. It discusses the social world and its transformation in illness. The book explores the notion of illness as dis-ability: as being unable to do, to act, and to move freely. It examines the fear of death as an integral part of illness. The book discusses the liminal state of living in the shadow of death and how that shadow may be lifted using the medical technology of organ transplantation. It introduces the notion of philosophical therapy. Continuing the discussion of Epicurus, the book turns to the idea that philosophical arguments should be "medicine for the soul". Phenomenology is a philosophical approach advocating a description of lived experience and consciousness.
