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The Pragmatist roots of scientific medicine: Reassessing Abraham Flexner's report on medical education.
- Source :
-
Studies in History & Philosophy of Science Part A . Aug2024, Vol. 106, p186-195. 10p. - Publication Year :
- 2024
-
Abstract
- Abraham Flexner's 1910 report on medical education is widely regarded as a watershed moment in the history of modern medicine in the US and beyond. Most commentators focus on its administrative and managerial impact, despite Flexner dedicating a sizeable portion of his report to a theoretical account of the kind of medicine that he seeks to implement. Close attention to these sections reveals a surprisingly coherent account of medicine that, based on a Deweyan Pragmatist philosophy of science, unites scientific investigator and medical practitioner in a new experimental paradigm of science. Flexner can develop an account that goes beyond a mere epistemic redefinition of medicine, providing the profession with a social, cultural, and ethical identity that avails itself of the extremely wide purview that Dewey granted to modern science. Due to the subsequent narrowing of philosophy of science to a delimited academic subdiscipline, these broad Pragmatist philosophical commitments at the roots of Flexner's scientific medicine remained a largely unexplored intellectual legacy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]
Details
- Language :
- English
- ISSN :
- 00393681
- Volume :
- 106
- Database :
- Academic Search Index
- Journal :
- Studies in History & Philosophy of Science Part A
- Publication Type :
- Academic Journal
- Accession number :
- 178885083
- Full Text :
- https://doi.org/10.1016/j.shpsa.2024.05.019