The Predicament of Patients

Abstract

Abstract In this paper we propose that our understanding of pathocentric epistemic injustices can be enriched if they are theorised in terms of predicaments. These are the wider socially scaffolded structures of epistemic challenges, dangers, needs, and threats experienced by ill persons due to their particular emplacement within material, social, and epistemic structures. In previous work we have described certain aspects of these predicaments, such as pathocentric epistemic injustices and pathophobia. A wider systematic perspective is needed to integrate these and other concepts. By thinking predicamentally, we can better understand the interrelated social, epistemic, and practical obstacles experienced by ill persons and connect the many concepts available for theorising them (microaggessions, epistemic injustices, and so on).