The Knowledge-Base of Clinical Medicine: Its Essence

Abstract

In medicine, as in general, a prerequisite for any thinking is possession of concepts; and correct thinking presupposes tenable concepts. So: Is the presence of M. tuberculosis a tenable conception of the cause of tuberculosis? Or is it, even, a cause of the disease? What is the essence of disease as a type of illness? Is Bayes’ theorem germane to the theory of diagnosis? What, exactly, is diagnosis, and what is prognosis? What is correct in correct diagnosis and good in good prognosis? Is there ‘gnosis’ other than dia- and prognosis? Etc. Today’s ‘authoritative’ dictionaries of medicine are not sources of the answers, tenable ones in particular. Nor is today’s medical education (Apps. 1–2.) Unsurprisingly, thus, even the basic essence of the knowledge-base of clinical medicine remains generally ill-understood, even by clinical academics.