Abstract
In recent philosophy of mind a non-holistic view on concept possession, originally developed by Tyler Burge, has emerged as an alternative to holistic analyses of language mastery. The article discusses the implications of this view for analyses of communication in doctor—patient-interaction. The central question Burge's theory gives an answer to is this: to what extent must a doctor and a patient understand a medical term in the same way in order to communicate in the sense that they express the same concept by the term? Many empirical studies have shown that patients do not, typically, understand medical terms in the same way as doctors they encounter. Holistic approaches therefore imply that doctors and patients seldom communicate. Burge's position, on the other hand, implies that it is sufficient that patients have a minimal understanding. In an important range of cases doctors can make sure that patients have a minimal understanding by being explicit about common dictionary definitions of the terms in question.
Similar content being viewed by others
References
Alsvåg, H.: 1997, Sykepleie: Mellom Vitenskap og Pasient. Bergen: Fagbokforlaget.
Austin, J.: 1970, ‘Performative Utterances’, in: J. Urmson and G. Warnock (eds.), Philosophical Papers. Oxford: Oxford University Press, pp. 233-252.
Bach, K.: 1994, Thought and Language. Oxford: Clarendon Press.
Bechtel, W. and G. Graham (eds.): 1998, A Companion to Cognitive Science. Oxford: Blackwell.
Bilgrami, A.: 1987, Belief and Meaning. Oxford: Blackwell.
Bodeker, G.: 1999, ‘Health Ecology and the Biodiversity of Natural Medicine: Perspectives from Traditional and Complementary Health Systems’, in: M. Honari and T. Boleyn (eds.), pp. 209-223.
Broom, J.: 1988, ‘Good, Fairness and QALYs’, in: J. Bell and S. Mendus (eds.), Philosophy and Medical Welfare, pp. 57-73.
Burge, T.: 1982, ‘Other Bodies’, in: A. Woodfield (ed.), Thought and Object. Oxford: Clarendon Press, pp. 97-120.
Burge, T.: 1986, ‘Intellectual Norms and Foundations of Mind’, The Journal of Philosophy 83, 697-720.
Burge, T.: 1992, ‘Philosophy of Language and Mind: 1950–1990’, The Philosophical Review 101(1), 3-51.
Burge, T.: 1996, ‘Individualism and the Mental’, in: A. Pessin and S. Goldberg (eds.), The Twin Earth Chronicles. New York/London: M.E. Sharpe, pp. 125-142.
Bury, M: 1997, Health and Illness in a Changing Society. London/New York: Routledge.
Carnap, R.: 1937, The Logical syntax of Language. London: Routledge and Kegan Paul.
Christman, J. and T. Johnson: 1996, ‘Clinically Applied Anthroplogy’, in: Sargent and Johnson (eds.), pp. 88-113.
Christman, J. and T. Maretzki (eds.): 1982, Clinically Applied Anthropology: Anthropologists in Health Science Settings. Dordrecht: D. Reidel.
Davidson, D.: 1984, Essays on Truth and Interpretation. Oxford: Clarendon Press.
Davies, M.: 1996, ‘Philosophy of Mind’, in: C. Crayling (ed.), Philosophy: A Guide through the Subject. Oxford: Oxford University Press, pp. 250-336.
Davies, M.: 1987, ‘Tacit Knowledge and Semantic Theory: Can a Five Percent Difference Matter?’, Mind 96, 441-462.
Enelow, A., D. Forde and K. Brummel-Smith: 1996, Interviewing and Patient Care. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Featherstone, M. and M. Hepworth: 1991, ‘The Mask of Ageing and the Postmodern Life Course’, in M. Featherstone, M. Hepworth and B.S. Turner (eds.), The Body, Social Processes and Cultural Theory. London: SAGE Publications, pp. 371-389.
Foster, G. and B. Anderson: 1978, Medical Anthropology. New York: A. Knopf.
Foucault, M.: 1975, The Birth of the Clinic: An Archaeology of Medical Perception. New York: Vintage Books.
Fox, N.J.: 1993, Postmodernism, Sociology and Health. Buckingham: Open University Press.
Fodor, J. and E. Lepore: 1993, Holism: A Shopper’s Guide. Oxford: Blackwell.
Freidson, E.: 1988, Profession of Medicine. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Gannik, D. and L. Launsø (eds.): 2000, Disease, Knowledge and Society. Denmark/Fredriksberg: Samfundslitteratur.
Golde, P.: 1983, ‘Foreword: Clinical Anthropology as a Committed Profession’, in: P. Golde and D. Shimkin (eds.), Clinical Anthropology. Lanham, MD: University Press of America, pp. 75-86.
Grice, P.: 1975, ‘Logic and Conversation’, in: P. Cole and J. Morgan (eds.), Syntax and Semantics. New York: Academic Press, pp. 41-58.
Guttenplan, S. (ed.): 1996, A Companion to the Philosophy of Mind. Oxford: Blackwell.
Hassan, I.: 1985, ‘The Culture of Postmodernism’, Theory of Culture and Society 2, 119-132.
Helman, C.G.: 1984, Culture, Health and Illness. Oxford: Butterworth-Heinemann.
Hempel, C.G. and P. Oppenheim: 1948, ‘Studies in the Logic of Explanation’, Philosophy of Science 15, 135-175.
Hind, C. (ed.): 1997, Communication Skills in Medicine. London: BMJ Publishing Group.
Honari, M.: 1999, ‘Health Ecology: An Introduction’, in: Honari and Boleyn, pp. 1-24.
Honari, M. and T. Boleyn (eds.): 1999, Health Ecology: Health, Culture and Human-environment Interaction. New York/London Routledge.
Jacob, P.: 1987, ‘Thoughts and Belief Ascriptions’, Mind and Language 4, 300-325.
Kopelman, L and J. Moskop: 1981, ‘The Holistic Health Movement: A Survey and Critique’, The Journal of Medicine and Philosophy 6(2), 209-235.
Kripke, S.: 1982, Wittgenstein on Rules and Private Language. Oxford: Blackwell.
Kurtz, S., J. Silverman and J. Draper: 1998, Teaching and Learning Communication Skills in Medicine. Oxford: Radcliffe Medical Press.
Lupton, D.: 1994, Medicine as Culture. London: SAGE Publications.
Lyotard, J.F.: 1986, Just Gaming. Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press.
Mechanic, D.: 1968, Medical Sociology. New York/London: The Free Press.
Medin, D. and S. Waxman: 1998, ‘Conceptual Organization’, in: Bechtel and Graham (eds.), O.C., pp. 168-176.
Nersessian, N.: 1998, ‘Conceptual Change’, in: Bechtel and Graham (eds.), O.C., pp. 157-167.
Peacocke, C.: 1992, A Study of Concepts. Cambridge, MA: M.I.T. Press.
Peacocke, C.: 1997, ‘Holism’, in: B. Hale and C. Wright (eds.), A Companion to the Philosophy of Language. Oxford: Blackwell, pp. 227-247.
Putnam, H.: 1975, Mind, Language and Reality, Vol 2. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Putnam, H.: 1996, ‘Introduction’, in: A. Pessin and S. Goldberg (eds.), The Twin Earth Chronicles. New York/London: M.E. Sharpe, pp. xv-xxii.
Quine, W.: 1960, Word and Object. Cambridge, MA: M.I.T. Press.
Quine, W.V.: 1961, From a Logical Point of View. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
Richman, J.: 1987, Medicine and Health. London & New York: Longman.
Sargent, C. and T. Johnson (eds.): 1996, Medical Anthropology: Contemporary Theory and Method. Westport/London: Praeger Publishers.
Schaffner, K.: 1981, ‘Reductionism and Holism in Medicine’, Journal of Medicine and Philosophy 6(2), 94-235.
Silverman, D.: 1987, Communication and Medical Practice: Social Relations in the Clinic. London: SAGE Publications.
Sinclair, J. (ed. in Chief): 1995, Collins Cobuild English Dictionary. London: HarperCollins Publishers.
Starr, P.: 1982, The Social Transformation of American Medicine. New York: Basic Books.
Stein, H.F.: 1990, American Medicine as Culture. Colorado: Westview.
Wittgenstein, L.: 1953, Philosophical Investigations. Oxford: Blackwell.
Wittgenstein, L.: 1969, On Certainty. Oxford: Blackwell.
Winch, P.: 1987, Trying to Make Sense. Oxford: Blackwell.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Nordby, H. Doctor–patient-interaction is non-holistic. Med Health Care Philos 6, 145–152 (2003). https://doi.org/10.1023/A:1024195316365
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1023/A:1024195316365