TITLE:
The Role of Philosophy in Modern Medicine
AUTHORS:
Mbih Jerome Tosam
KEYWORDS:
Philosophy of Medicine; Modern Medicine; Metaphysics; Ethics; Logic; Epistemology; Subjectivity; Bacon; Descartes
JOURNAL NAME:
Open Journal of Philosophy,
Vol.4 No.1,
February
27,
2014
ABSTRACT: In this paper I argue that contrary to what some
philosophers think, there exists a very close link between philosophy and
medicine. From ancient Greece with Hippocrates to the modern era, philosophy
has been at the basis of medicine. This is especially true of Western medicine
which greatly depends on the philosophies of Bacon and Descartes. Although the
two disciplines seem to pursue two disparate goals— philosophy being the
quest for truth while medicine is the quest for health, they are in
complementary ways striving for the enhancement of human wellbeing. While
medicine seeks to fight diseases of the body like bacteria and viruses,
philosophy seeks to fight the diseases of the mind like half-truths, prejudices,
woolly judgments and uncritical conceptions of the world, health and disease,
which have direct impact on health, and health delivery. Using substantive
examples, I show that the practice of medicine raises questions beyond the
scope of medicine, questions to which only philosophy may
provide answers because they fall within its scope. Daily, physicians are
confronted with questions in such philosophical areas like metaphysics,
epistemology, ethics, and logic. Moreover, I argue that one of the weaknesses
of modern Western medicine is its over-dependence on the Cartesian ontology
which considers human bodies as machines which need to be studied using
scientific logic, and the physician as a technician whose job is to repair
dysfunctioned bodies. This modern metaphysical outlook resulted in the neglect
of the patient as a subjective being. This deficiency cannot be overcome
without reviewing the Cartesian reductionist worldview which is at its
foundation.