The Imaginary of the Transplanted Organ
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.15160/2282-5460/2844Keywords:
Aristotelian, Cartesian, Body, Instrument, OrganAbstract
Transplant medicine seems to illustrate well the gulf between a Cartesian conception of the body (a machine made of spare parts) and a phenomenological one (the body is the "vehicle of our being in the world", the seat of our experiences, suffering and valuations, the support on which our identity is built). Can we leave it at that, with the body irrevocably "bifurcated" in transplant medicine? This article answers in the negative. It demonstrates that the conception of the organ underlying transplant medicine is not Cartesian, but Aristotelian in origin, the organ being seen not as a separate part of a machine, but as an instrument (organon). However, viewing the organ as an instrument does not necessarily imply subscribing to the conception of an organ as a tool. Based on a commentary on Heidegger and Agamben, the article argues that there is a need to distinguish two separate meanings of the Greek concept of “organon”. This distinction leads to a few practical suggestions for doctors, engineers and healthcare policy-makers.
References
Agamben, G. (2016). The Use of Bodies. Engl. Trans. A. Kotsko. Redwood City: Stanford University Press.
Ben-David, O. B. (2005). Organ Donation and Transplantation. Body Organs as an Exchangeable Socio-Cultural Resource. Westport: Prager Publishers.
Bergson, H. (1944). Creative Evolution. Engl. Trans. A. Mitchell. New York: Random House Inc.
Byl, S. (1971). Note sur la polysémie d’Ὄργανον et les origines du finalisme. L’Antiquité classique, 40 (1), 121-133.
Carrel, A. (1939). Man the Unknown. New York and London: Harper & Brothers.
Carter, B. et al. (2024). Personality Changes Associated with Organ Transplants. Transplantology, 5 (1), 12-26 (https://doi.org/10.3390/transplantology5010002).
Descartes, R. (1999). Meditations and Other Metaphysical Writings. Engl. Trans. D. M. Clark. London: Penguin Classics.
Descola, P. (2014). Beyond Nature and Culture. Engl Trans. J. Lloyd. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Fox, R. C. et al. (1992). Spare Parts. Organ Replacement in American Society. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press.
Friedman, D. M. (2007). The Immortalists. Charles Lindbergh, Dr. Alexis Carrel, and Their Daring Quest to Live Forever. New York: ECCO-HaperCollins
Hacking, I. (2005). The Cartesian Vision Fulfilled: Analogue Bodies and Digital Minds. Interdisciplinary Science Review, 30 (2), 153-167.
Hacking, I. (2006). The Cartesian Body. Biosocieties, 1, 13-15 (https://doi.org/10.1017/S1745855205050064).
Haraway, D. (2006). A Cyborg Manifesto: Science, Technology, and Socialist-Feminism in the Late 20th Century. In J. Weiss et al. (eds). The International Handbook of Virtual Learning Environments (117-158). Dordrecht: Springer.
Heidegger, M. (1995). The Fundamental Concepts of Metaphysics: World, Finitude, Solitude. Engl. Trans. W. McNeill & N. Walker. Bloomington: Indiana University Press.
Le Breton, D. (1994). Dissecting Grafts: The Anthropology of the Medical Uses of the Human Body. Diogenes, 42 (167), 95-111 (https://doi.org/10.1177/039219219404216706).
Leder, D. (1990). The Absent Body. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Leder, D. (1992). A Tale of Two Bodies: The Cartesian Corpse and the Lived Body. In D. Leder (ed). The Body in Medical Thought and Practice (Philosophy and Medicine vol. 43) (17-36). Dordrecht: Springer.
Leder, D. (2002). Whose Body? What Body? The Metaphysics of Organ Transplantation. In M. J. Cherry (ed). Persons and Their Bodies. Rights, Responsibilities, Relationships (Philosophy and Medicine vol. 60) (233-264). Dordrecht: Springer.
Leister, M. B. (2020). Personality Changes Following Heart Transplantation: The Role of Cellular Memory. Medical Hypothesis, 135, Article ID: 109468 (https://doi.org/10.1016/j.mehy.2019.109468).
Leoni, F. (2008). Habeas Corpus. Sei genealogie del corpo occidentale. Milano: Mondadori.
Lock, M. (2002). Human Body Parts as Therapeutic Tools: Contradictory Discourses and Transformed Subjectivities. Qualitative Health Research, 12 (10), 1406-1418 (https://doi.org/10.1177/1049732302238751).
Mandressi, R. (2003). Le Regard de l’anatomiste. Dissections et invention du corps en Occident. Paris: Éditions du Seuil.
Mauss, M. (1973). Techniques of the Body. Economy and Society, 2 (1), 70-88.
Merleau-Ponty M. (2003). Nature. Course notes from the Collège de France. Engl. Trans. R. Vallier. Evanston: Northwestern University Press.
Mol, A. (2003). The Body Multiple. Ontology in Medical Practice. Durham: Duke University Press.
Morizot, B. (2014). La greffe d’organes révélatrice de schèmes ontologiques. L’éthique médicale au prisme de l’anthropologie de Philippe Descola. Cahiers de philosophie de l’Université de Caen, 51, 89-106.
Nancy, J.-L. (1992). Corpus. Paris: Métailié.
Nancy, J.-L. (2002). L’Intrus, CR: The New Centennial Review, 2 (3), 1-14 (https://doi.org/10.1353/ncr.2002.0052).
Nancy, J-L. & Andrieu, B. (2011). Entretien avec Jean-Luc Nancy. Corps 2011/1, 9, 49-55
Pearsall, P. et al. (2002). Changes in Heart Recipient Transplants that Parallel the Personalities of their Donors. Journal of Near-Death Studies, 20 (3), 191-206.
Plough, A. L. (1986). Borrowed Time: Artificial Organs and the Politics of Extending Lives. Philadelphia: Temple University Press.
Schicktanz, S. et al. (2017). The Utterable and Unuterrable. Anthropological Meaning of the Body in the Context of Organ Transplantation. Dilemata, 23, 107-127.
Schlich, T. (2013). The Origins of Organ Transplantation: Surgery and Laboratory Science, 1880-1930. Rochester, NY: University of Rochester Press”.
Schweda, M. et al. (2009). The “Spare Parts Person”? Conceptions of the Human Body and Their Implications for Public Attitudes towards Organ Donation and Organ Sale. Philosophy, Ethics, and Humanities in Medicine, 4 (4) (https://doi.org/10.1186/1747-5341-4-4).
Sharp, L. (1995). Organ Transplantation as a Transformative Experience: Anthropological Insights into the Restructuring of the Self. Medical Anthropology Quarterly 9 (3), 357-389 (https://doi.org/10.1525/maq.1995.9.3.02a00050).
Sharp, L. (2006). Strange Harvest. Organ Transplants, Denatured Bodies and the Transformed Self. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press
Sharp, L. (2014). The Transplant Imaginary. Mechanical Hearts, Animal Parts, and Moral Thinking in Highly Experimental Science. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press.
Silvia, C. (1997). A Change of Heart: A Memoir. New York: Little Brown and Company.
Simondon, G. (2017). On the Mode of Existence of Technical Objects. Engl. Trans. C. Malaspina & J. Rogove. Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press.
Simondon, G. (2014a). Imagination et invention (1965-1966). Paris: Presses Universitaires de France.
Simondon, G. (2014b). Sur la technique (1953-1983). Paris: Presses Universitaires de France.
Solhdju, K. (2020). Corps animés et âmes corporelles: apprivoiser les expériences des transplantations d’organes, Corps, 1 (18), 143-152 (https://doi.org/10.3917/corp1.018.0143).
Svenaeus, F. (2010a). The Body as Gift, Resource of Commodity? Heidegger and the Ethics of Organ Transplantation. Bioethical Inquiry, 7, 163-172 (https://doi.org/10.1007/s11673-010-9222-x).
Svenaeus, F. (2010b). What Is an Organ? Heidegger and the Phenomenology of Organ Transplantation. Theor Med Bioeth, 31, 179-196 (https://doi.org/10.1007/s11017-010-9144-y).
Svenaeus, F. (2012). Organ Transplantation and Personal Identity: How Does Loss and Changes of Organs Affect the Self? Journal of Medicine and Philosophy, 37, 139-158 (https://doi.org/10.1093/jmp/jhs011).
Wagner, D. (2013). Leben. Hamburg: Rowohlt.
Whitehead, A. N. (1920). The Concept of Nature. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Downloads
Published
Issue
Section
License
Copyright (c) 2024 Xavier
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.
