Care and Cure

Care and Cure
Author: Jacob Stegenga
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
Total Pages: 0
Release: 2018-11-13
Genre: Medical
ISBN: 9780226590813

The philosophy of medicine has become a vibrant and complex intellectual landscape, and Care and Cure is the first extended attempt to map it. In pursuing the interdependent aims of caring and curing, medicine relies on concepts, theories, inferences, and policies that are often complicated and controversial. Bringing much-needed clarity to the interplay of these diverse problems, Jacob Stegenga describes the core philosophical controversies underlying medicine in this unrivaled introduction to the field. The fourteen chapters in Care and Cure present and discuss conceptual, metaphysical, epistemological, and political questions that arise in medicine, buttressed with lively illustrative examples ranging from debates over the true nature of disease to the effectiveness of medical interventions and homeopathy. Poised to be the standard sourcebook for anyone seeking a comprehensive overview of the canonical concepts, current state, and cutting edge of this vital field, this concise introduction will be an indispensable resource for students and scholars of medicine and philosophy.

Slow Cures and Bad Philosophers

Slow Cures and Bad Philosophers
Author: Carl Elliott
Publisher: Duke University Press
Total Pages: 212
Release: 2001-06-29
Genre: Medical
ISBN: 9780822326465

DIVExplores issue of how we should think about postmodern bioethics and suggests that many of the questions that bioethicists pose as problematic in postmodernity are, in fact, reactions to Wittgensteinian thought-- yet bioethicists as a rule are unfamiliar/div

Curing the Philosopher's Disease

Curing the Philosopher's Disease
Author: Richard H. Jones
Publisher: University Press of America
Total Pages: 306
Release: 2009-09-28
Genre: Philosophy
ISBN: 0761848118

Curing the Philosopher's Disease is a philosophical examination of the mysteries surrounding the foundations of science, philosophy, and religion. Much of Western philosophy and science is discussed in order to see our epistemological and metaphysical situation. The love/hate relation philosophers have with mystery is explored, as are the contributions of reductionists and antireductionists, postmodern relativists and critical realists, naturalists and the religious, and theologians and mystics. The thrust of the arguments affirms that there are limits to what philosophy, science, religion, and mystical experiences can tell us about reality. By acknowledging that some questions may be unanswerable and understanding the importance of that fact even as the answers remain ambiguous, our true situation in the world is revealed. Mystery should be reinstated as a basic feature when we reflect upon the nature of what we know and who we are. Mystery frames all of our claims to fundamental knowledge, and we must accept that it will remain a permanent fixture. Thus, the importance of mystery needs to be reaffirmed today, during an era when the fullness of reality is often ignored.

A Philosophical Disease

A Philosophical Disease
Author: Carl Elliott
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 225
Release: 2014-04-23
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 131782802X

Drawing on the work of Ludwig Wittgenstein and novelists such as Walker Percy, Paul Auster and Graham Greene, A Philosophical Disease brings to the bioethical discussion larger philosophical questions about the sense and significance of human life. Carl Elliott moves beyond the standard menu of bioethical issues to explore the relationship of illness to identity, and of mental illness to spiritual illness. He also examines the treatment of children born with ambiguous genitalia, the claims of Deaf culture, and the morality of self-sacrifice. This book focuses on a different sensibility in bioethics; how we use concepts, and how they relate to our own particular social institutions.

Philosophy of Medicine

Philosophy of Medicine
Author: Alex Broadbent
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Total Pages: 306
Release: 2019-01-17
Genre: Philosophy
ISBN: 0190612169

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.

Curing Their Ills

Curing Their Ills
Author: Megan Vaughan
Publisher: John Wiley & Sons
Total Pages: 359
Release: 2013-05-06
Genre: History
ISBN: 0745668941

Curing their Ills traces the history of encounters between European medicine and African societies in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Vaughan's detailed examination of medical discourse of the period reveals its shifting and fragmented nature, highlights its use in the creation of the colonial subject in Africa, and explores the conflict between its pretensions to scientific neutrality and its political and cultural motivations. The book includes chapters on the history of psychiatry in Africa, on the treatment of venereal diseases, on the memoirs of European 'Jungle Doctors', and on mission medicine. In exploring the representations of disease as well as medical practice, Curing their Ills makes a fascinating and original contribution to both medical history and the social history of Africa.

The Philosophy Cure

The Philosophy Cure
Author: Laurence Devillairs
Publisher: Macmillan + ORM
Total Pages: 247
Release: 2020-04-07
Genre: Self-Help
ISBN: 125023770X

The wisdom of famous philosophers distilled into practical takeaways for readers who seek to confront reality and carve out a livable space within it. For centuries, philosophers have considered the “big questions” of human life, mulling over everything from ethics to the definition of reality. Their ideas and insights are powerful and innovative, but often inaccessible and far too academic for most readers. In The Philosophy Cure: Lessons on Living from the Great Philosophers, scholar and expert on Cartesian philosophy, Laurence Devillairs has stripped away the convoluted language, translating the core ideas and wisdom of some of the most prominent philosophers into simple concepts for modern readers. She skillfully reveals that far from being impractical or distantly academic, philosophy is, at its heart, a deeply useful discipline ultimately concerned with what it means to live a good and fulfilling life. Perfect for readers who are intrigued with philosophy, but who are uninterested in reading dense academic texts, The Philosophy Cure reveals the true wisdom of the best-known philosophers—from Socrates to Kant and Descartes.

Gold and the Philosopher's Stone

Gold and the Philosopher's Stone
Author: Peter Grünewald
Publisher: Temple Lodge Publishing
Total Pages: 150
Release: 2002-05-03
Genre: Medical
ISBN: 9781902636313

Presenting far-reaching new therapeutic research, Peter Gruenewald examines the underlying spiritual aspects of constitutional treatment using medicines derived from the mineral kingdom. This constitutional approach is used in the treatment of chronic physical, neurological, developmental, emotional, behavioral, and mental conditions and illnesses, It centers on a system of nine minerals. Gruenewald traces these nine substances on their paths through the human organism and demonstrates their indications, effects, and interactions. He also develops a spiritual and alchemistic understanding of the actions of these substances, based on anthroposophic medical research. Gold, the sun metal, and carbon, the substance of organic life on Earth, occupy a central position in this study of the mineral system. The Philosopher's Stone is achieved through the "transformation of carbon" and the "creation of gold." The author shows how the important medicine Aurum (made from gold) relates to this process. He suggests that mineral therapy focused on the principle of transformation conceals future spiritual mysteries that relate to evolutionary laws inherent in the physical and higher bodies.

Medical Nihilism

Medical Nihilism
Author: Jacob Stegenga
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Total Pages: 242
Release: 2018
Genre: Medical
ISBN: 0198747047

Medical nihilism is the view that we should have little confidence in the effectiveness of medical interventions. Jacob Stegenga argues persuasively that this is how we should see modern medicine, and suggests that medical research must be modified, clinical practice should be less aggressive, and regulatory standards should be enhanced.