Medicine and Philosophy: A Twenty-first Century Introduction

This textbook introduces the reader to basic problems in thephilosophy of science and ethics, primarily using examples frommedicine. It is based on the conviction that philosophy, medicalscience, medical informatics, and medical ethics are overlappingdisciplines. It claims that the philosophical lessons of the twentiethcentury are not that nature is a social construction and thatanything goes with respect to methodological and moral rules.Instead, there is scientific knowledge, but it is never completelysecure; there are norms, but they are situation-bound; and therefore,it makes good sense to search for scientific truths and try toact in a morally decent way. Using philosophical catchwords, theauthors advocate fallibilism and particularism; a combinationthat might be called pragmatic realism.