[Medical Connotations in the Term “Crisisˮ

Abstract

This paper attempts to show how medical terminology and medical connotations mark concepts that later become central to philosophical, cultural, political, and social discourse. In this case, the chosen concept is the notion of crisis, which has been central to medicine since antiquity, has marked with meanings all subsequent epochs, and has become significant for our entire modernity. In short, it shows how medical connotations carry over to unrestricted uses in the broader context of language, and the concept of crisis is open to uses of different orders and in diverse contexts. To arrive at the conviction that its use as a metaphor for states of decline, failure, degeneration, ruin prevails. It is said to be a crisis, but as in medicine, it refers to deterioration.