Skip to main content
SpringerLink
Log in

Is medicine hermeneutics all the way down?

  • Published:
Theoretical Medicine Aims and scope Submit manuscript

Abstract

Several recent publications have suggested that hermeneutics, the method of literary criticism, might prove to be useful in medicine. In this essay I consider this thesis with particular attention to the claim that medicine “is hermeneutics all the way down”. After examining an anti-positivist critique of positivist medicine and arguing that hermeneutic interpretation involves a more radical critique of modern medicine, I examine the supposed consequences of hermeneutical universalism:relativism, skepticism andantirealism which further evaluation reveals to be only potential consequences of hermeneutics. A brief discussion ofphronesis and of the possible “texts” of medicine concludes the article.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this article

Log in via an institution

Price excludes VAT (USA)
Tax calculation will be finalised during checkout.

Instant access to the full article PDF.

Institutional subscriptions

Similar content being viewed by others

References

  1. Daniel S. The patient as text: a model of clinical hermeneutics,Theor Med 1986;7:195–210.

    Google Scholar 

  2. Gatens-Robinson E. Clinical judgment and the rationality of the human sciences.Med Phil 1986;11:167–178.

    Google Scholar 

  3. Gogel E, Terry J. Medicine as interpretation: the uses of literary metaphors and methods.Med Phil 1987;12:205–217.

    Google Scholar 

  4. Leder D. Clinical interpretation: the hermeneutics of medicine.Theor Med 1990;11:9–24.

    Google Scholar 

  5. Poirier S, Brauner D. The voices of the medicine record.Theory Med 1990;11:29–39.

    Google Scholar 

  6. Lock J. Some aspects of medical hermeneutics: the role of dialectic and narrative.Theory Med 1990;11:41–49.

    Google Scholar 

  7. Bowman C. Meta-diagnosis: towards a hermeneutical perspective in medicine with an emphasis on alcoholism.Theor Med 1992;13:265–283.

    Google Scholar 

  8. Baron R. Medicine hermeneutics: where is the “text” we are interpreting?Theor Med 1990;11:25–28.

    Google Scholar 

  9. Daniel: 199.

  10. Gatens-Robinson: 168.

  11. Gogel and Terry: 214.

  12. Leder: 10.

  13. Lock: 13.

  14. Bowman: 269.

  15. Palmer R.Hermeneutics. [Wild J, ed. 1st ed. 1969]. Evanston: Northwestern University Press, 1988:15

    Google Scholar 

  16. Ibid::33.

    Google Scholar 

  17. Heidegger M.Basic Writings. [Gray J, Stambaugh J, eds]. New York: Harper & Row, Publishers, 1977:86.

    Google Scholar 

  18. Palmer: 42.

  19. Palmer: 43.

  20. Bowman: 271.

  21. Bowman: 272.

  22. Bowman: 272.

  23. Gatens-Robinson: 171.

  24. Popper K.The Logic of Scientific Discovery. [1st ed. 1959] New York: Harper & Row, Publishers, 1968.

    Google Scholar 

  25. Leder: 19.

  26. Seldin D. The medical model: biomedical science as the basis of medicine.Beyond Tomorrow — Trends and Prospects in Medical Science. New York: The Rockefeller University, 1977.

    Google Scholar 

  27. Munson R. Why medicine cannot be a science.J. Med Phil 1981;6:183–208.

    Google Scholar 

  28. Whitehead A, Russell B.Principia mathematica, 3 vols. [2nd ed. 1925–27]. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1910–13.

    Google Scholar 

  29. Russell B.Our Knowledge of the External World. London: Allen & Unwin Publishers, 1914.

    Google Scholar 

  30. Carnap R.The Logical Construction of the World. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1967.

    Google Scholar 

  31. Giere R.Explaining Science — A Cognitive Approach. [Hull D, ed]. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1988.

    Google Scholar 

  32. Hanson N.Patterns of Discovery. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1983.

    Google Scholar 

  33. Polanyi M.Personal Knowledge. London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1958.

    Google Scholar 

  34. Kuhn T.The Structure of Scientific Revolutions. [2nd ed.] Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1970.

    Google Scholar 

  35. Feyerabend P.Against Method. London: New Left Books, 1975.

    Google Scholar 

  36. Quine W, Ullian J.The Web of Belief. New York: Random House, 1970.

    Google Scholar 

  37. Greenwood J.Philosophy of Science 1990;57:553–574.

    Google Scholar 

  38. Hacking I. Do We See Through A Microscope? inReadings in the Philosophy of Science. [Brody B, Grandy R., eds, 1st ed. 1971]. Englewood Cliffs: Prentice-Hall, Inc., 1989.

    Google Scholar 

  39. Greenwood: 558.

  40. Greenwood: 558.

  41. Donnelly W, Brauner D. Why SOAP is bad for the medical record.Arch Int Med, 1992;152:481–484.

    Google Scholar 

  42. Ibid::482.

    Google Scholar 

  43. Ibid::482.

    Google Scholar 

  44. Pellegrino E, Thomasma D.A Philosophical Basis of Medical Practice. New York: Oxford University Press, 1981.

    Google Scholar 

  45. Brody H. Philosophy of medicine and other humanities: toward a wholistic view.Theor Med 1985;6:243–255.

    Google Scholar 

  46. MacIntyre A.After Virtue. [1st ed, 1981]. Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, 1984.

    Google Scholar 

  47. Bohman J. Holism without skepticism: contextualism and the limits inThe Interpretive Turn [Hiley D, Bohman J, Shusterman R, eds]. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1991:129–155.

    Google Scholar 

  48. Bohman: 138.

  49. Taylor C. The dialogical self. InThe Interpretive Turn [Hiley D, Bohman J, Shusterman R, eds]. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1991:304–314.

    Google Scholar 

  50. Taylor: 5.

  51. Taylor: 313.

  52. Rouse J. Interpretation in natural and human science. InThe Interpretive Turn [Hiley D, Bohman J, Shusterman R, eds]. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1991:42–56.

    Google Scholar 

  53. Rouse: 49.

  54. Ibid: 50.

  55. Ibid: 54.

  56. Guignon C. Pragmatism or hermeneutics? epistemology after foundationalism. InThe Interpretive Turn [Hiley D, Bohman J, Shusterman R, eds]. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1991:81–101.

    Google Scholar 

  57. Kuhn T. The natural and the human sciences. InThe Interpretive Turn [Hiley D, Bohman J, Shusterman R, eds]. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1991:282–303.

    Google Scholar 

  58. Rouse: 55.

  59. Shusterman R. Beneath interpretation. InThe Interpretive Turn [Hiley D, Bohman J, Shusterman R, eds]. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1991:102–128.

    Google Scholar 

  60. Ibid::122.

    Google Scholar 

  61. Brody: 248.

  62. Daniel: 195.

  63. Needleman J.The Way of the Physician. San Francisco: Harper & Row, Publishers, 1985.

    Google Scholar 

  64. See note 47, Bohman.

  65. Ibid: 147.

  66. Dreyfus H. Heidegger's hermeneutic realism. InThe Interpretive Turn [Hiley D, Bohman J, Shusterman R, eds]. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1991:25–41.

    Google Scholar 

  67. Ibid::28.

    Google Scholar 

  68. Ibid::29.

    Google Scholar 

  69. Ibid::29.

    Google Scholar 

  70. Aristotle.Nichomachean Ethics VI,7:1141b,8.

  71. MacIntyre: 224.

  72. Gogel and Terry: 210.

  73. Brody H.Placebo and the Philosophy of Medicine: Clinical, Conceptual and Ethical Issues. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1980.

    Google Scholar 

  74. See note 44.

  75. Fulford K.Moral Theory and Medical Practice. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1989.

    Google Scholar 

  76. Sharpe V. Justice and care: the implications of the Köhlberg-Gilligan debate for medical ethics.Theor Med 1992;13:295–318.

    Google Scholar 

  77. Veatch R.The Patient-Physician Relation — The Patient as Partner, Part 2. Indianapolis: Indiana University Press, 1991.

    Google Scholar 

  78. Brody H.The Healer's Power. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1992.

    Google Scholar 

  79. Brody H.Stories of Sickness. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1987.

    Google Scholar 

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Division of Cardiology, The University of Texas Health Center at Tyler, P.O. Box 2003, 75710, Tyler, TX, USA

    M. Wayne Cooper (Professor of Medicine)

Authors
  1. M. Wayne Cooper
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Cite this article

Cooper, M.W. Is medicine hermeneutics all the way down?. Theoretical Medicine 15, 149–180 (1994). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00994023

Download citation

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00994023

Key words

Search

Navigation