Chapter 1: Health: A Current Challenge for the Idiographic Sciences

This is the eighth volume of the Yearbook of Idiographic Science, the editorial project aimed at rethinking idiographic sciences in a new (old) light. This editorial series has been trying over the years to promote reflection, discussions and proposals by researchers and scholars of every background and from around the world.

The focus of this volume is health. As in previous editions, it has triggered great ferment, dialogue and debate, as well as elaborations and insights from different points of view. The volume reflects multiple perspectives and many different theoretical approaches—epistemological, medical, philosophical, semiotic, narrative, psychodynamic, hermeneutic, existentialist-phenomenological—and it also collects research reports and psychosocial interventions, extending its interest to a range of different contexts. Despite the fact that it is quite hard to define, health has passed under the scrutiny of a wide spectrum of epistemic instruments.