Abstract
Diagnosis is an ontological event. That is, to arrive at a diagnosis is not simply to solve a puzzle; it is to ratify a vision of reality. When the words “peptic ulcer disease”, for example, are pronounced, the ambiguous complaints of the patient — gnawing pain, hunger, and the like — are reorganized into a medically defined world. Events take on a new spatial contour: they now center around and radiate from the duodenum. Causality is given a mechanistic reading. It is physiological mechanisms — the secretion of acid, the erosion of tissues — that order this world. As diagnosis goes hand-in-hand with prognosis, a projected future is brought into being. Moreover, a certain course of action is prescribed, as diagnosis helps determine the proper mode of treatment. The symptoms of the patient are thus captured within a structured world-view, with spatial, temporal, causal, and prescriptive dimensions.
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© 1992 Kluwer Academic Publishers
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Leder, D. (1992). The Experience of Pain and its Clinical Implications. In: Peset, J.L., Gracia, D. (eds) The Ethics of Diagnosis. Philosophy and Medicine, vol 40. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-0-585-28333-3_10
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-0-585-28333-3_10
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