Philosophy and Medicine: an Aristotelian Reflection

The debate on the relationship between philosophy and medicine raised by both philosophers and physicians concerns the possibility of elaborating a practical philosophy of medicine as an autonomous discipline distinct from both philosophy and medicine as separate entities. Analysis reveals the close link between philosophy and medicine since its inception in ancient Greece as well as the difficulty of defining the epistemological status of medicine, which presents a dual character of science and practice. The impossibility of defining medicine as pure science, on a par with physics and mathematics, generates tensions between explanatory theories and therapeutic aims and between universal knowledge and understanding of the specific where medical science is confronted with the values that come into play in a clinical encounter. The doctor-patient relationship is the core of clinical medicine. The significant contribution that philosophical reflection (1) can offer to medical science is to be found in the practice of the therapeutic encounter and the analysis of the ethical dimensions involved in it. A practical philosophy, in the Aristotelian sense of the term, is understood as the expression of a form of rationality that differs from the scientific one, which does not seek knowledge as an end in itself but is directed towards an understanding that aims to guide actions. This reference is to that practical logic that allows the physician to deliberate on the most suitable means to achieve his end and the greatest good for the patient.