This master´s thesis examines which philosophical reflections underlie “psychological ownership”, and if philosophy can contribute to a theory of “psychological ownership”. It further examines which impact an understanding of technological philosophy has on telemedicine, and how a philosophical perspective can contribute to an accept of imple-menting telemedicine in health care systems, trough, an understanding of a technological philosophy.
Exceeding the theories examining the thesis, the definition of telemedicine according to WHO has been included, and OECD´s perspective on the use of telemedicine now and in the future and why telemedicine is important. Some parts of interviews have also been included, in order to examine how the theories, correspond with perspectives in a Danish pilot project.
The methods used to examine the theories are Gadamers hermeneutics, due to the under-standing and interpretation of transcriptions and theories. Furthermore, Heidegger´s exis-tential-phenomenological thinking is considered, which naturally combines phenomenol-ogy and hermeneutics.
The theories and backgrounds explaining “psychological ownership” can be seen in the context of property helping to understand how people develop feelings of ownership. John Locke states, that property is based on natural rights coming from one´s ownership achieved through one´s labour, and to nature´s common property when one´s labour can utilize it. James states, that people get psychological attached to certain things or people, and thus feel about these things or people, as they feel about themselves.
Dwelling and unsettledness also have an impact on how people develop feelings of “psychological ownership”. Martin Heidegger contributes to a philosophical understand-ing of this phenomenon in his theory on dwelling and unsettledness. He uses the term dwelling to explain, that a person is successfully pervaded in time and space, conducted with the perception of one being “within” or “belonging to” a certain place or group. Unsettledness can arise, if people are not familiar with certain places and areas, or if they are not contended with a situation or task.
In Heidegger´s theory of the philosophy of technology, he claims, that the question con-cerning technology contains two elements, which are means to end and human activity. He claims, that technology is an anthropological-instrumental arrangement, and this per-spective can be argued to blind him to the different contexts and multidimensionality’s of technology. A further issue of Heidegger´s perspectives on technology is, that they neither include a pragmatic-phenomenological perspective, nor do they include cultural, social, political and economic features.
The conclusive findings show, that the philosophical theories which are used, can con-tribute to a theory of “psychological ownership”, when using theories of property, dwell-ing and unsettledness. They further show, that technological philosophy can contribute to a diverse understanding on telemedicine and thus influence the impact of implement-ing telemedicine, through a technologic philosophical understanding of telemedicine.
There seems to be an issue, which appears when pilot projects are initiated, and are car-ried out to some extent, but are not applied on a larger scale in health care services. There also seems to be two opposite parts involved in telemedicine, those who are for and those who are against. A study in these two opponents view on telemedicine and pa-tients could reveal if it is possible to alter their views in order to promote their perspec-tives on telemedicine and patients in the future.