The Epistemological Aspects in the Historical Works of Don Bates
Kenneth Rochel de Camargo jr.
Abstract
The object of this paper is to systematize an epistemological framework
of analysis derived from Don Bates’s extended essay “Medicine and The
Soul of Science,” and apply that framework to a number of problems connected
to medical knowledge, addressed in previous research by the author. The paper
also draws from Bates’s earlier work, especially the two-part “Closing the Circle”
on William Harvey and the reception of his ideas by his contemporaries, and
from contrasting and comparing it to the work of philosophers and historians of
science who tackled similar problems, most notably Ludwik Fleck, Thomas
Kuhn, and Ian Hacking. The resulting framework is based on three main concepts:
constructed coherencing, the unproblematic background knowledge
(UBK), and the mechanical mind. The paper closes with an application of that
framework to the discussion of knowledge in medicine and the definition of diseases
of analysis derived from Don Bates’s extended essay “Medicine and The
Soul of Science,” and apply that framework to a number of problems connected
to medical knowledge, addressed in previous research by the author. The paper
also draws from Bates’s earlier work, especially the two-part “Closing the Circle”
on William Harvey and the reception of his ideas by his contemporaries, and
from contrasting and comparing it to the work of philosophers and historians of
science who tackled similar problems, most notably Ludwik Fleck, Thomas
Kuhn, and Ian Hacking. The resulting framework is based on three main concepts:
constructed coherencing, the unproblematic background knowledge
(UBK), and the mechanical mind. The paper closes with an application of that
framework to the discussion of knowledge in medicine and the definition of diseases
Full Text: Untitled
ISSN 0823-2105
© 2012 Canadian Society for the History of Medicine/
Société canadienne d'histoire de la médecine