Epistemology of Medical Knowledge

Abstract

The attempts of the Positivist School to establish the logical and methodological requisites of scientific knowledge at the beginning of the 20th Century stimulated the creation of epistemological discourses on the statute of knowledge. The view of science that the positivists bequeathed to us is still very important in the scientific community today. We continue to establish differences between ”objective data” and ”subjective data”; what we consider basic science and what we consider to be applications of that science. Beyond the valuable contribution of positivism, science today does not question the legitimacy of objective knowledge, but rather seeks to adapt it so that it can be used to analyze and resolve problems through the consideration of ”valid knowledge”. This knowledge is not assessed exclusively for its objectivity or neutrality, but rather from the perspective of what the knowledge contributes to the understanding of problems facing humans and its capacity to generate solutions to those problems. We are going to examine the implications of this assertion for the discipline of Medicine from an epistemological point of view.