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KMID : 0387320000100010031
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Korean Journal of Health Policy and Administration
2000 Volume.10 No. 1 p.31 ~ p.56
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Teh impact of Rene´ Descartes´s Mind-Body Theory on Medicine
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Ban Duk-Jin
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Abstract
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A purpose of this study is to study on Rene´ Descartes´s mind-body theory in medical aspect. Thouth Rene´ Descartes was not so much a doctor as a philosopher, he had health and medical science at heart. When he came into the world in 1596, he was in poor health. Therefore, he suffered from his bad health. Descartes´s ideas absolutely colored Western thought for three hundred years, especially, his mind-body theory, mechanistic life-view, and reductionism had important effect on medical study and science of public health. As a rule, we know that his mind-body theory was applicable to mind-body dualism, and his mind-body dualism was connected with biomedical model of medicine. But by this study, his mind-body theory was not only mind-body dualism but also mind-body monism, And he asserted mind-body interaction too. In other words, he advocated mind-body dualism in scientific aspect, but he knew mind-body monism from his experence, He confessed this fact to Princess Elizabeth of Bohemia, he wrote mind-body interaction in 『Discours de la methode』, 『Meditationes de prima philosophia』, and 『Traite des passions de l´ame』etc. However, only mind-body dualism of his mind-body theories was written in our medical text book, morever mental realm was excluded from the persuit of learning. Descartes advocated a mechanistic world-view and mechanistic life-view, he regarded human body as a machine part. And a patient corresponds to a troubled machine, a doctor deserves a repairman. But this point of view made holistic understanding of man impossible. Descartes divide the whole into basic building blocks, we named the approach Reductionism. Reducationism led to ontological concept in medical science, bacteriology established ´specific cause-specific disease-specific therapy´. We examined medical influence of Descartes´s thought, we need to draw out a philosophic basis of medical science and science of public health by a close study of his records.
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KEYWORD
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mind-body theory, mechanistic life-view, reductionism, mind-body dualism, biomedical model, mind-body monoism, mind-body interaction, holistic understanding, ontological concept, philosophic basis of medical science
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