ABSTRACT
Rene Dubos and Ivan Illich are both theorists who have written critically about health and health policy, and both use remarkably similar, promising, but ultimately wrong-headed, definitions of health. Daniel Callahan, an ethicist, has pointed out what health is not, and illustrates the danger of confusing health and happiness, and confounding both with individual need. It is John McKnight, the great community organizer, who is not a health theorist or a health policy expert, who points the way to a usable social definition of health. The Dubosian definition is useful because it argues that health has meaning only in reference to a set of external relationships, essentially, that health is ability to function in relationships. Illich understood health to be an ability, and he even understood the importance of the cultural context, but he was focused on his view of authentic human existence and consciousness. Callahan is also sensitive to the confusion between health and longevity.
