EN
Defining the general category of illness implies certain assumptions in three research plains: philosophical anthropology, epistemology, and axiology. These plains constitute three theoretical dimensions of comprehending illness. The article makes an attempt to determine anthropological bases of the category of illness. It aims at answering the question if explaining of the category of illness, based exclusively on biological norms, is justified in philosophy and medicine. In attempts to answer the question posed in the title of the paper, there are useful both, contemporary disputes about the nature of mental illness, and the personalistic theory of human being.