Philosophy of Medicine
Philosophy of Medicine

Author: Fred Gifford

Publisher: Elsevier

Published: 2011-08-23

Total Pages: 601

ISBN-13: 0444517871

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This volume covers a wide range of conceptual, epistemological and methodological issues in the philosophy of science raised by reflection upon medical science and practice. Several chapters examine such general meta-scientific concepts as discovery, reduction, theories and models, causal inference and scientific realism as they apply to medicine or medical science in particular. Some discuss important concepts specific to medicine (diagnosis, health, disease, brain death). A topic such as evidence, for instance, is examined at a variety of levels, from social mechanisms for guiding evidence-based reasoning such as evidence-based medicine, consensus conferences, and clinical trials, to the more abstract analysis of experimentation, inference and uncertainty. Some chapters reflect on particular domains of medicine, including psychiatry, public health, and nursing. The contributions span a broad range of detailed cases from the science and practice of medicine, as well as a broad range of intellectual approaches, from conceptual analysis to detailed examinations of particular scientific papers or historical episodes. Chapters view philosophy of medicine from quite different angles Considers substantive cases from both medical science and practice Chapters from a distinguished array of contributors

Philosophy of Medicine
Philosophy of Medicine

Author: Alex Broadbent

Publisher: Oxford University Press

Published: 2019-01-17

Total Pages: 306

ISBN-13: 0190612169

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Philosophy of Medicine asks two central questions about medicine: what is it, and what should we think of it? Philosophy of medicine itself has evolved in response to developments in the philosophy of science, especially with regard to epistemology, positioning it to make contributions that are medically useful. This book locates these developments within a larger framework, suggesting that much philosophical thinking about medicine contributes to answering one or both of these two guiding questions. Taking stock of philosophy of medicine's present place in the landscape and its potential to illuminate a wide range of areas, from public health to policy, Alex Broadbent introduces various key topics in the philosophy of medicine. The first part of the book argues for a novel view of the nature of medicine, arguing that medicine should be understood as an inquiry into the nature and causes of health and disease. Medicine excels at achieving understanding, but not at translating this understanding into cure, a frustration that has dogged the history of medicine and continues to the present day. The second part of the book explores how we ought to consider medicine. Contemporary responses, such as evidence-based medicine and medical nihilism, tend to respond by fixing high standards of evidence. Broadbent rejects these approaches in favor of Medical Cosmopolitanism, or a rejection of epistemic relativism and pluralism about medicine that encourages conversations between medical traditions. From this standpoint, Broadbent opens the way to embracing alternative medicine. An accessible and user-friendly guide, Philosophy of Medicine puts these different debates into perspective and identifies areas that demand further exploration.

Handbook of the Philosophy of Medicine
Handbook of the Philosophy of Medicine

Author: Thomas Schramme

Publisher: Springer

Published: 2017-02-14

Total Pages: 0

ISBN-13: 9789401786874

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This is the first wide-ranging, multi-authored handbook in the field of philosophy of medicine, covering the underlying conceptual issues of many important social, political and ethical issues in health care. It introduces and develops over 70 topics, concepts, and issues in the field. It is written by distinguished specialists from multiple disciplines, including philosophy, health sciences, nursing, sociology, political theory, and medicine. Many difficult social and ethical issues in health care are based on conceptual problems, most prominently on the definitions of health and disease, or on epistemological issues regarding causality or diagnosis. Philosophy is the discipline that deals with such conceptual, metaphysical, epistemological, methodological, and axiological matters. This handbook covers all the central concepts in medicine, such as ageing, death, disease, mental disorder, and well-being. It is an invaluable source for laypeople, academics with an interest in medicine, and health care specialists who want be informed and up to date with the relevant discussions. The text also advances these debates and will set the agenda for years to come.

La Mettrie
La Mettrie

Author: Kathleen Anne Wellman

Publisher:

Published: 1992

Total Pages: 368

ISBN-13:

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Julien Offray de la Mettrie, best known as the author of L'Homme machine, appears as a minor character in most accounts of the Enlightenment. But in this intellectual biography by Kathleen Wellman, La Mettrie--physician-philosophe--emerges as a central figure whose medical approach to philosophical and moral issues had a profound influence on the period and its legacy. Wellman's study presents La Mettrie as an advocate of progressive medical theory and practice who consistently applied his medical concerns to the reform of philosophy, morals, and society. By examining his training with the Dutch physician Hermann Boerhaave, his satires lampooning the ignorance and venality of the medical profession, and his medical treatises on subjects ranging from vertigo to veneral disease, Wellman illuminates the medical roots of La Mettrie's philosophy. She shows how medicine encouraged La Mettrie to undertake an impiricist critique of the philosophical tradition and provided the foundation for a medical materialism that both shaped his understanding of the possibilities of moral and social reform and led him to espouse the cause of the philosophers. Elucidating the medical view of nature, human beings, and society that the Enlightenment and La Mettrie in particular bequethed to the modern world, La Mettrie makes an important contribution to our understanding of both that period and our own.

The Philosophical Foundations of Modern Medicine
The Philosophical Foundations of Modern Medicine

Author: K. Lee

Publisher: Springer

Published: 2011-12-02

Total Pages: 331

ISBN-13: 0230353258

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An exploration of the philosophical foundation of modern medicine which explains why such a medicine possesses the characteristics it does and where precisely its strengths as well as its weaknesses lie. Written in plain English, it should be accessible to anyone who is intellectually curious, lay persons and medical professionals alike.

Medical Philosophy
Medical Philosophy

Author: David Låg Tomasi

Publisher: Columbia University Press

Published: 2016-10-11

Total Pages: 355

ISBN-13: 3838269357

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This innovative book clarifies the distinction between philosophy of medicine and medical philosophy, expanding the focus from the ‘knowing that’ of the first to the ‘knowing how’ of the latter. The idea of patient and provider self-discovery becomes the method and strategy at the basis of therapeutic treatment. It develops the concept of ‘Central Medicine’, aimed at overcoming the dichotomies of Western–Eastern medicine and Traditional–Integrative approaches. Evidence-based and patient-centered medicine are analyzed in the context of the debate on placebo and non-specific effects alongside clinical research on the patient-doctor relationship, and the interactive nature of human relationships in general, including factors such as environment, personal beliefs, and perspectives on life’s meaning and purpose. Tomasi’s research incorporates neuroscience, psychology, philosophy, and medicine in a clear, readable, and detailed way, satisfying the needs of professionals, students, and anyone who enjoys the exploration of the complexity of human mind, brain, and heart.

Medicine and Philosophy in Classical Antiquity
Medicine and Philosophy in Classical Antiquity

Author: Philip J. van der Eijk

Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Published: 2005-05-12

Total Pages: 420

ISBN-13: 1139443534

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This work brings together Philip van der Eijk's previously published essays on the close connections that existed between medicine and philosophy throughout antiquity. Medical authors such as the Hippocratic writers, Diocles, Galen, Soranus and Caelius Aurelianus elaborated on philosophical methods such as causal explanation, definition and division and applied key concepts such as the notion of nature to their understanding of the human body. Similarly, philosophers such as Plato and Aristotle were highly valued for their contributions to medicine. This interaction was particularly striking in the study of the human soul in its relation to the body, as illustrated by approaches to specific topics such as intellect, sleep and dreams, and diet and drugs. With a detailed introduction surveying the subject as a whole and an essay on Aristotle's treatment of sleep, this wide-ranging and accessible collection is essential reading for the student of ancient philosophy and science.

Plato's Rivalry with Medicine
Plato's Rivalry with Medicine

Author: Susan B. Levin

Publisher:

Published: 2014

Total Pages: 315

ISBN-13: 0199919801

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While scholars typically view Plato's engagement with medicine as uniform and largely positive, Susan B. Levin argues that from the Gorgias through the Laws, his handling of medicine unfolds in several key phases. Further, she shows that Plato views medicine as an important rival for authority on phusis (nature) and eudaimonia (flourishing). Levin's arguments rest on careful attention both to Plato and to the Hippocratic Corpus. Levin shows that an evident but unexpressed tension involving medicine's status emerges in the Gorgias and is explored in Plato's critiques of medicine in the Symposium and Republic. In the Laws, however, this rivalry and tension dissolve. Levin addresses the question of why Plato's rivalry with medicine is put to rest while those with rhetoric and poetry continue. On her account, developments in his views of human nature, with their resulting impact on his political thought, drive Plato's striking adjustments involving medicine in the Laws. Levin's investigation of Plato is timely: for the first time in the history of bioethics, the value of ancient philosophy is receiving notable attention. Most discussions focus on Aristotle's concept of phron sis (practical wisdom); here, Levin argues that Plato has much to offer bioethics as it works to address pressing concerns about the doctor-patient tie, medical professionalism, and medicine's relationship to society.

Medical Philosophy: Conceptual Issues In Medicine
Medical Philosophy: Conceptual Issues In Medicine

Author: Mario Augusto Bunge

Publisher: World Scientific Publishing Company

Published: 2013-05-30

Total Pages: 287

ISBN-13: 9814508969

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This is the first book that analyzes and systematizes all the general ideas of medicine, in particular the philosophical ones, which are usually tacit. Instead of focusing on one or two points — typically disease and clinical trial — this book examines all the salient aspects of biomedical research and practice: the nature of disease; the logic of diagnosis; the discovery and design of drugs; the design of lab and clinical trials; the crafting of therapies and design of protocols; the moral duties and rights of physicians and patients; the distinctive features of scientific medicine and of medical quackery; the unique combination of basic and translational research; the place of physicians and nurses in society; the task of medical sociology; and the need for universal medical coverage. Health care workers, medicine buffs, and philosophers will find this thought-provoking book highly useful in their line of work and research.