PROCEEDINGS OF THE LATVIAN ACADEMY OF SCIENCES

Self-objectification of the body in relationship with subjectivity in the experience of anorexia nervosa: a comparison of Fuchs’s and Osler’s models

https://doi.org/10.53231/LZAV.24.1.8
Keywords: self-objectification, subjectivity, embodiment, phenomenology, anorexia nervosa
Language: In Latvian

The article analyses and compares the phenomenological models of anorexia nervosa of two philosophers — Lucy Osler and Thomas Fuchs. The two philosophers’ models share a number of common features, but the main difference lies in the interpretation of the role of self-objectification in anorexia nervosa. Drawing on Frederick Svaneaus’s distinction between “good” and “bad” objectification, it is argued that in Osler’s model self-objectification is “good”, whereas in Fuchs’s model it is “bad”. However, in the later stages of anorexia nervosa, self-objectification inevitably affects the lived body, so self-objectification also becomes “bad” in Osler’s model. Both for phenomenological reasons and because of the validity of other scientific studies, Osler’s model is singled out as more valid. Given the possibility that the experience of anorexia nervosa cannot be reduced to a single phenomenological structure, it is suggested that further research is needed to explore the relationship between Osler’s and Fuchs’s models of anorexia nervosa and co-morbidities such as depression, which often accompany anorexia nervosa.