Medical humanities and philosophy: is the universe expanding or contracting? 2007

William E Stempsey
Department of Philosophy, College of the Holy Cross, One College Street, Worcester, MA, 01610, USA. wstempsey@holycross.edu

The question of whether the universe is expanding or contracting serves as a model for current questions facing the medical humanities. The medical humanities might aptly be described as a metamedical multiverse encompassing many separate universes of discourse, the most prominent of which is probably bioethics. Bioethics, however, is increasingly developing into a new interdisciplinary discipline, and threatens to engulf the other medical humanities, robbing them of their own distinctive contributions to metamedicine. The philosophy of medicine considered as a distinct field of study has suffered as a result. Indeed, consensus on whether the philosophy of medicine even constitutes a legitimate field of study is lacking. This paper presents an argument for the importance of a broad conception of the philosophy of medicine and the central role it should play in organizing and interpreting the various fields of study that make up the metamedical multiverse.

UI MeSH Term Description Entries
D010686 Philosophy, Medical The underlying rationale or theoretical basis for the principles of MEDICINE. Medical Philosophy
D006801 Humans Members of the species Homo sapiens. Homo sapiens,Man (Taxonomy),Human,Man, Modern,Modern Man
D006809 Humanities Fields of inquiry in human constructs and concerns as opposed to natural processes and social relations. These are traditionally the study of literature, philosophy, and religion.
D033183 Interdisciplinary Communication Communication, in the sense of cross-fertilization of ideas, involving two or more academic disciplines (such as the disciplines that comprise the cross-disciplinary field of bioethics, including the health and biological sciences, the humanities, and the social sciences and law). Also includes differences in patterns of language usage in different academic or medical disciplines. Communication Research,Cross-Disciplinary Communication,Multidisciplinary Communication,Communication, Cross-Disciplinary,Communication, Interdisciplinary,Communication, Multidisciplinary,Communications, Cross-Disciplinary,Communications, Interdisciplinary,Communications, Multidisciplinary,Cross Disciplinary Communication,Cross-Disciplinary Communications,Interdisciplinary Communications,Multidisciplinary Communications,Research, Communication

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