After its unparalleled rise and expansion over the past century, medicine is increasingly criticized both as a science and clinical practice for lacking scientific rigor, for contributing to overmedicalization, and for failing to offer patient-centered care. This criticism highlights serious challenges which indicate that the scope and societal role of medicine are likely to be altered in the 21st century. Somogy Varga's ground-breaking book offers a new perspective on the challenges, showing that they converge on fundamental philosophical questions about the nature and aim of medicine. Addressing these questions, Varga presents a philosophical examination of the norms and values constitutive of medicine and offers new perspectives on how to address the challenges that the criticism raises. His book will offer valuable input for rethinking the agenda of medical research, health care delivery, and the education of health care personnel.
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Introduction: medicine at the crossroads; 1. Challenges to medicine at the end of ITS 'golden Age'; 2. Toward a normative philosophy of medicine; 3. Science and the nature of medicine: the systematicity thesis; 4. Inquiry in medical science: the understanding thesis; 5. Understanding in medicine; 6. The aim of medicine I: the autonomy thesis; 7. The aim of medicine II: current Alternatives; 8. Rethinking the challenges: the Moderate Position; Conclusion: disorientation and the 'greatest benefit to mankind'; References; Index.
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'This book offers a novel view of the nature and aims of medicine, which is deployed to defend medicine from excessive scepticism while respecting and developing the challenges that medicine faces today. It is an important contribution to the philosophy of medicine.' Jacob Stegenga, Professor of History and Philosophy of Science, University of Cambridge
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This book reassesses current criticisms of medicine, offers an account of its nature and aim, and suggests solutions to challenges.

Produktdetaljer

ISBN
9781009450010
Publisert
2024-05-23
Utgiver
Vendor
Cambridge University Press
Vekt
500 gr
Høyde
235 mm
Bredde
159 mm
Dybde
18 mm
Aldersnivå
G, 01
Språk
Product language
Engelsk
Format
Product format
Innbundet
Antall sider
244

Forfatter

Biographical note

Somogy Varga is Professor of Philosophy at Aarhus University, Director of the Center for Philosophy and the Health Sciences, and Visiting Research Professor at Ruhr University Bochum. He is the author of Scaffolded Minds (2019), Naturalism, Interpretation and Mental Disorder (2015), and Authenticity as an Ethical Ideal (2011).