This chapter argues, in addition to the plausibility structures described in Chapter 6, that modern consciousness comprises a series of related bifurcations of life and that medicine is a social institution that is informed by understandings of human nature, human knowledge, and social structures that fall on the opposite side of the wall from religion. Modern Western societies advance this...
The path of healing, self-discovery, and tackling the existential questions as to why people use drugs is addressed in this chapter. The chapter outlines the healing concepts within the Quero tradition, as these peoples were direct descendants of the Inca from ancient Andean Peru. The cosmology and oral traditions through healing motifs are timeless irrespective of cultural and chronological...
Part II of II: This chapter explores philosophical responses to Cartesian dualism—notably Maurice Merleau-Ponty’s elaboration of phenomenology—and its relevance to medicine. With close reading of Merleau-Ponty’s Phenomenology of Perception, phenomenology’s attentiveness to lived experience and to embodiment is described. Next, discussion of the work of philosophers, clinicians, ethicists and...