The Entanglement of Fact and Value in Medical Activity According to Wittgenstein’s Later Philosophy

Document Type : Original Article

Authors

1 Nothing

2 Baqiyatallah University of Medical Sciences

Abstract

The modern era began with a radical critique of the tradition and questioned its presuppositions and drew antitheses opposed to the theses of the tradition. One of the implicit theses of the era of tradition era that facts and values are correlated. This correlation was due to metaphysical presuppositions most of which were abandoned. One such presupposition was mediaeval Realism which was overthrown in that period by Occam’s nominalism and his modernist successors. Hume makes explicit this implicit assumption and ruled on the separation of facts and values based on modern empiricism. If we determine the separation of these, one of the consequences is the separation of sciences and ethics from each other. So, if medicine is viewed as a mere science, then value has no place in it. In this treatise I attempt to provide a synthesis between facts and values based on Wittgenstein’s philosophy. Then, I will use it in medical practice and show that, ironically, it can be seen as an important field in science that shows the possibility of this synthesis in the best way.

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