The Fragility of Philosophy of Medicine - Essentialism, Wittgenstein and Family Resemblances

This book about philosophy of medicine bestows a bottom-up and not a top-down approach. It starts from clinical medicine and epidemiology, analyzing their interrelations with philosophical instruments. The book criticizes the constant search for generalities and the essentialism that too often characterizes this discipline, which results in philosophers of medicine dialoguing with each other without direct contact with medical science. In the light of Ludwig Wittgenstein's philosophy, this book proposes an approach to the philosophy of medicine based on the quorum of language, what Wittgenstein calls family resemblances. In this way the author establishes a philosophy of medicine that is closely related to the medical clinic and to public health and as such avoids armchair philosophy. 'Don't think, but look', wrote Wittgenstein.

Lucien Karhausen graduated in medicine, from Brussels' Free University. he subsequently trained for five years in internal medicine at Memorial Hospital, Cornell Medical school in New York. Furthermore, he took a master's degree in epidemiology from the Harvard School of Public Health. Back in Belgium, he organized a a course on epidemiology for WHO's European Office . He was engaged by the European Commission in a radiation protection programme and became involved in the development of European medical research. He wrote several books in French on philosophical aspects of medicine.