J J Sak

Publications of J J Sak

• ["Thinking styles" category in the study of the history of medical ideas]

  Authors: J J Sak

  Medycyna nowozytna : studia nad historia medycyny / Polska Akademia Nauk, Instytut Historii Nauki. 02/1999; 6(2):5-61.

  The author substantiates the thesis that the "thinking style" category reveals-when applied to reflection on the history of medicine-its predominance over other categories covered by the study of theThe author substantiates the thesis that the "thinking style" category reveals-when applied to reflection on the history of medicine-its predominance over other categories covered by the study of the progress of human knowledge, including also the paradigm category. The said predominance lies mainly in synchronic explanation of both the justifying and revealing contents through the "thinking styles" category (using the traditional terminology of the philosophy of knowledge). It becomes also possible to study the aspects not only of "oriented perception" but also "models of culture" as the factors that support one another in the process of elucidating the genesis and evolution of medical ideas. Thus, "thinking styles" cover with its explanatory range a wide field of research, not confined to explaining only one concrete fact or even a unique scientific discovery, but also applied to the system of links between various and even-on the face of it-very remote thinking patterns. The "thinking styles" category opens a perspective and necessity for search in the area of the history of medical thought on a considerably larger scale than in the case of classical, positivistic depictions of the history of medicine. In the opinion of the author, the questions about numerous relations and correlation of the studied discovery with the surrounding social and cultural time and space are unavoidable.When applying the "thinking styles" category, which should provide answers to such questions, it is not possible to escape the need for the studying of an interference network, horizontally and vertically. This calls for interdisciplinary studies that employ philosophical, historical and medical, social and psychological knowledge, which is a strong basis for continuous cooperation between these lines of knowledge to capture and understand the sense of the past. The author exemplifies his views. A long-term process of the migrating of the "microscopic" vision of the world, including the image of a human body, to the "nucleus" (center) that generates pattern thinking in 17th and 18th centuries led to the emergence of historical style of thinking by the end of 18th and in 19th centuries. The aforementioned migration was in all likelihood affected by a tendency encountered in all cultures during the Enlightenment to the rationalistic, materialistic and strictly scientific perception of reality. Here, the "patterns of culture" also play a significant role as elements that have an impact on the creation of thinking styles. Cultural transformations could exert an influence on the emergence of certain medical specialties such as pediatrics. An analysis of the Renaissance views on "eye"-related diseases displays a slow, creeping migration of thinking characteristics from the space of humoral thinking style to the modern thinking areas. Such spreading of beliefs that support the thesis of the continual nature of scientific change in medicine is also visible in the medicine of the 17th century.