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Toward A Holistic, Intercultural, And Polyphonic Perspective On Health Care: A Brief Prologue To The Paper Titled “Understanding The Personalistic Aspects Of Jola Ethnomedicine.”, Fernando Paulo Baptista

Journal of the Indiana Academy of the Social Sciences

As a prologue to the paper titled “Understanding the Personalistic Aspects of Jola Ethnomedicine,” the present essay provides a brief anthropologico-philosophical reflection, starting with classic Roman philosopher Seneca and his dictum that “each passing day we die,” and continuing on to the profound existential questions pondered by more contemporary thinkers, including Heidegger and Levinas, about life, death, being, time, totality, and infinity. These agonically deep questions are intimately related to the universal human angst about health, illness, and death and the seeking of a restoration to a functional corporal and mental harmony and well-being through various means and methods, whether …