Starozytne postawy wobec powinnosci medycznych

• Authors: Maria Nowacka

Title variants

EN

ANCIENT ATTITUDES VERSUS MEDICAL DUTIES

• Languages of publication: PL

Abstracts

EN

Rational medicine, i.e. the one which is not an attempt to conciliate forces evil to man, was shaped in Ancient Greece simultaneously with the birth of philosophical thinking. And in its beginning it was indistinguishable from philosophy because any in tellectual activity of man aiming at understanding something was philosophy. Even when within the frames of philosophy particular disciplines – astronomy, physics, biology, and also medicine – started to be aware of their autonomy, they still remained essentially philosophical. Ancient medicine is philosophical medicine because all its findings are understood in a philosophical context – deep conviction of philosophers that the universe is an orderly, proportional, and harmonic entirety is transmitted from physicians to patients. Such is the source of medical theory, according to which good health is a harmony of elements in human body, as well as subsequent conviction about peculiar isomorphism of macrocosm and microcosm. The only real indicator of autonomy of medicine from philosophy was a necessary element of realism regarding particular human being who was supposed to be effectively aided in his sickness by concrete means. Philosophy did not have to care about reality so philosophy could bend reality to its speculated theories without having to verify them in practice. However, natural empirism of medicine could not influence philosophy as medicine itself did not possess, and will not possess for a long time, so big scientific database that it could be an influencing factor on philosophica settlements. Ethics will become the common ground for mutual relations between medicine and philosophy. And on this ground a particular analogy between treating human body and healing human soul will be settled, an analogy incomparably more useful for philosophy than for medicine.

Keywords

EN

MEDICINE; ANTIQUITY; PHILOSOPHY; TREATMENT

• Publisher: Bialystok University Press
• Journal: Archeus. Studia z bioetyki i antropologii filozoficznej
• Year: 2011
• Volume: 12
• Pages: 33-54

Contributors

author

Maria Nowacka

• Uniwersytet w Bialymstoku, Katedra Bioetyki i Antropologii Filozoficznej, Pl. Uniwersytecki 1, 15–420, Bialystok, POLAND