Epistemic Challenges and the Necessary Epistemic Responses

Abstract

The practice of medicine is different from the practice of science, although some have argued that medicine must increasingly approximate science if progress in medicine is to be made. There is a myth that science medicine will eliminate uncertainty. Science can remain contingent and pending as individual patients demand action and medical decisions cannot be put in abeyance. Some extrapolate from this difference that science and medicine are fundamentally different, for example, maintaining a distinction between practical and scientific medicine. Yet medicine, practical or otherwise, still requires the use of logic and thus philosophical analysis. Indeed, on closer analysis, medical and scientific reasoning are not fundamentally different—only the consequences are different. Variations of logic to provide utility require an expanded sense of logic. However, with growing appreciation that most living biological systems are chaotic and complex, the logic used in medicine must continue to evolve.