"Sontheimer, Daniel MD" <[log in to unmask]> said:
>http://bmj.com/cgi/content/full/313/7072/1568
>See this article from BMJ. The havoc wrougt is not necessarily a bad thing.
I have seen it. Just a few points in reply to the article.
The article implies that medicine should no longer be viewed as "modern,"
in that it should no longer be seen "as making statements about an
objective, verifiable reality." I agree that the reality we deal with is
often difficult to see clearly, e.g., it is hard to tell what is going on
in a patient's psyche, what his/her concerns are, etc. But do we really
want to deny that we deal with an objective, verifiable reality?
The article implies that there are "multiple versions of the truth."
Certainly, different people have different ideas about the truth (in a
particular situation.) But do we want to deny that some versions might be
more accurate than others.
Post-modernists often try to force false dichotomies. Their argument here
is that no one can perfectly perceive the truth, therefore all perceptions
of the truth are flawed, therefore all perceptions of the truth are equally
good. The last statement clearly doesn't follow from the first two.
I quick rejoinder to the notion that there is no objective, verifiable
reality: Why should you trust anyone who says there is no such thing as truth?
>I believe posmodernism can be good for medicine and, in partiuclar
>counseling. Yes, science has always questioned itself, but often forgets
>that as one refocuses and refines question one can go from real to
>hyperreal.
Again, I await a convincing argument why postmodernism might be good, much
less some evidence that it is.
>I have just started reading Lyotard, Derrida and others, and have not made
>up my mind about postmodernism, but enjoy its spirit of inquiry.
The more postmodernism I read, the less convinced I am that it really has a
spirit of inquiry. It more often seems to have a spirit of hipper than
thou self-righteousness.
For some correctives against Lyotard, Derrida, and others I suggest:
Re postmodernism and science -
Gross PR, Levitt N. Higher Superstition: the Academic Left and its Quarrel
with Science. Baltimore: the Johns Hopkins Press, 1994.
Koertge N, editor. A House Built on Sand: Exposihg Postmodernist Myths
About Science. New York: Oxford University Press, 1998.
Sokal A, Bricmont J. Fashionable Nonsensce: Postmodern Intellectuals' Abuse
of Science. New York, Picador USA, 1998
Re postmodernism in other situations -
Ellis JM. Literature Lost: Social Agendas and the Corruption of the
Humanities. New Haven, Yale University Press, 1997.
Farber DA, Sherry S. Beyond All Reason: the Radical Assault on Truth in
American Law. New York, Oxford University Press, 1997.
---------------------------------------------------------
Roy M. Poses MD
Brown University Center for Primary Care and Prevention
Memorial Hospital of RI
111 Brewster St.
Pawtucket, RI 02860
USA
401 729-2383
fax: 401 729-2494
[log in to unmask]
|