Theda Rehbock Philosophy Residency 2024 Scholarship Awards
We are thrilled to announce the recipients of the prestigious Theda Rehbock Philosophy Residency 2024/25 scholarships.
I Dr. Ruth Rebecca Tietjen
Assistant Professor, Department of Philosophy, Tilburg University
Project: Autotheoretical Explorations of the Politics of Loneliness
During my stay at Susimetsa, I am working on a project on the existential, social, and political foundations and implications of loneliness. First, I explore contemporary auto-theoretical accounts of loneliness to investigate the relationship between loneliness and social marginalization in connection with social categories such as class, age, and gender. This includes, for instance, Olivier David’s “Von der namenlosen Menge: ueber Klasse, Wut & Einsamkeit” (2023), Didier Eribon’s “Vie, vieillesse et mort d’une femme du people” (2023), and Nagata Kabi’s “My Lesbian Experience with Loneliness” (2016). Second, I compare and contrast these cases with cases in which members of privileged groups appeal to feelings of loneliness to justify their political demands. I am excited to work on this project in Susimetsa, hoping to find a solitary and inspiring place that allows me to fully delve into my project, thereby taking seriously the role of the material environment in understanding the experience of loneliness.
Residency Period: November 10th – November 24th 2024
II Urte Laukaityte
PhD Candidate at UC Berkeley
Project: “Symptom Perception as Inference: The Scope of Functional Neurological Disorder and its Implications for Psychiatry”
Functional symptoms pose a complex challenge in clinical theorising and yet their existence underscores the plausibility of at least some form of mind-body medicine. Terms related to the phenomenon under consideration have included ‘hysterical’, psychosomatic, psychogenic, conversion, dissociative, somatoform, and so on. Although the relevant terminological terrain is vast and not without peril, ‘functional neurological disorder’ here refers to the state of distressing clinical symptoms that are not grounded in underlying physiological disease.
Several key findings are crucial to bear in mind. Firstly, such symptoms can be truly debilitating, and prognosis is often quite poor. Secondly, although functional symptoms are more straightforwardly diagnosable in neurology, any organ system or bodily function can be affected. Thirdly, functional neurological disorder is also prevalent with the lowest epidemiological estimates yielding 50/100,000 regarding seemingly neurological symptoms alone. Fourthly, it is not a diagnosis of exclusion, as there are commonly positive clinical signs associated with the condition – it is not simply a matter of no medical cause being found. Finally, and relatedly, functional neurological disorder is distinct from feigning or malingering, as well as other medical conditions, though it can co-exist with them.
Current medical practice often involves passing patients with functional neurological disorder on to the management of psychiatrists. This artificially reinforces the conceptual boundary between ‘physical’ ailments that are assumed to preserve their tight coupling with underlying disease and ‘mental’ complaints, if not. Accepting just how widespread functional symptoms are due to the inferential nature of symptom perception calls into question the feasibility of such an undertaking. I tease out the implications the inferential model has for the relationship between subjective patient experience and clinical practice rooted in objective signs and measures of underlying disease. Granting that symptom reports cannot function as automatically and fully reliable indicators of physiological disease to be targeted, I consider ways for medical care to reorient and meaningfully integrate the phenomenology of illness not just instrumentally but in its own right.
Residency Period: December 3rd-December 20th 2024
