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- Published on: 22 September 2017
- Published on: 22 September 2017A Shift in the MH long needed
Kristeva and her colleagues argue for a bilateral dialogue between the culture and the scientific Humanities and putatively objective Natural Sciences. As they are strikingly tracing back the Humanities' supplementary character for a dominant biomedical perspective of health and sickness, they establish decisive and inspiring landmarks to realigning the realm of Medical Humanities which needs to be continued. However, it remains unclear which concept of culture is applied and how to equate it to the Humanities as joined opposite of Science. Furthermore, when it comes to criticizing the monopole of evidence-based research in Natural Science, we should consider that it is not this approach that "runs the risk of exalting biology into an ‘essential Being’ and a normative stasis " (p. 3), but as well and in particular the interpretative act of clinicians and medecins which is worth having a deeper look in (as did Zimmermann 2016; Jurecic 2012; Hunter 1991). And, on the opposite, it would be interesting to focus not only on the perspective of the "experts" but as well on the patients' impact on co-creating the array between health and sickness. It would be beneficial to add this experiential dimension of everyday life to the discussion. At last, this well informed polemic offers thorough starting points for further discussion and gives new insights scholars have already been waiting for for so long.
Conflict of Interest:
None declared.