Doctor‘s role and understanding of modern society from the perspective of Jaspers' philosophy
This study sheds a light anew on a desirable role assigned to medical doctors in Korean society and to set forth the growing awareness on this issue, ther ...
Doctor‘s role and understanding of modern society from the perspective of Jaspers' philosophy
This study sheds a light anew on a desirable role assigned to medical doctors in Korean society and to set forth the growing awareness on this issue, thereby re-establishing it. A german philosopher and physician, Karl Jaspers cast a critical view on modern crises followed by a scientific breakthrough while he also asserts the cardinal part philosophy must perform, in order to reinstate the dignity of human existence. Namely, he voices criticism on general position of today’s medical science field which has gone the whole hog on empirical and instrumental worldview. One shall thereupon set basis on existential understanding of human being and then he also stresses the philosophy’s duty must firmly be procured for its settlement phase.
This study is meant to reflect on what Jaspers refers to ‘both wings on existential reasoning’. In other words, it is ought to draw out manifold qualifications anticipated on doctors and especially 'one wing' of philosophical reasoning that has been relatively neglected than its counterpart based on scientific knowledge so far. Particularly, psychiatrists shall face his or her patients in concept of human being as a whole. Furthermore, a psychiatrist should embrace philosophical understanding <verstehen> and reckon limitations which lie on established approach, not just lingering over the account <erklären> of natural science field. Namely, every medical doctor is supposed to refrain from dogmatizing their own hitherto best practiced way of cumulating and pursuing scientific knowledge. Rather they should think beyond the sphere while treating their patients. Hence reaching the point where they notice that every single person posseses the irreducible and individual cosmos of interiority, freedom and intelligibility, nothing different from themselves. Medical practice has long depended on causal explanation of natural science, only to find out it being never able to entirely unlock the existential clues. Jaspers hereby discusses on that each individual cannot be reduced to mere empirical entity, so much as an existence which transcends 'causally explanatory universe' as yet. A concept of single patient, viz. a human existence of holistic feature is what should be understood metaphysically and in a way of existentialism, therefore, an intrinsic and unique self.
To cut it short, it is contended here to put forward this philosophical comprehension method as a requisite for a physician or a psychiatrist: viewing human being out of all empirical verifiability. Such Jaspers' works bounce back and forth about the role of modern medical doctor, put this on a sound basis of figuring out the essence of human being, especially when confronted by critical situation like disease or disorder. We human beings crashing so, ceaselessly exert ourselves to recover independent and authentic selves [praesenti in se] and this is what being omitted from psychiatrists' as-found scientific perspective, of which methodological errors is well pointed out in Jaspers' texts. His study poses bold questions on researching the philosophical meaning of medical science and human entity of totality and also, seeking diagnosis for the perils lying upon it, its competence and accomplishments too.