Bloomsbury Press, under the editorship of James A. Marcum, Professor of Philosophy and Director of Medical Humanities at Baylor University, USA, has recently released an impressive volume of essays on the discourse between philosophy and medicine. The Bloomsbury Companion to Contemporary Philosophy of Medicine gives a thorough account of the current conversation between these two disciplines. This volume is divided into intuitive sections, ranging from the more analytic conversations of diagnostic definitions, to continental phenomenological discourses on illness and embodiment.

The handbook addresses philosopher Hillel Braude’s challenge when argues that ‘[p]hilosophy needs medicine to become more relevant’. Marcum and the authors of this collection engage with this summons by showing just how philosophy can provide the tools and the language to bring relevance to the different facets of medicine. The handbook seems to be aimed at an audience that has some background in either philosophy or medicine. Starting with an introduction, which unless the reader is familiar with the discourse, may seem a bit jargon-heavy, the editor outlines the complexity and richness of the conversation. Marcum provides a holistic picture of how philosophy is informing the discipline of medicine. This ranges from chapters on EBM (evidence-based medicine), to personalism and subjective phenomenological accounts of what it is to ‘be’ ill.

While the chapters differ in length, they cover a wide variety of subthemes, which means that the reader is left with a good overview of the current conversation. I was particularly impressed by the excellent engagement with the patient as subject, and the intricacies of what this entails from a phenomenological perspective. This is, for instance, shown through examining the distinction between the existential phenomenological classifiers that distinguish living (illness) and lived (disease) experience. Lydie Fialova’s chapter, ‘Medical Humanism Part 2: Inspirations of the Twentieth Century’, highlights the importance of developing the patient’s perspective in health care. Medical practice is different than scientific investigation, she writes, because the patient actively involved in his or her own health story. Thus Fialova writes that often ‘[t]he objectifying and generalising approach that is perfectly effective and desirable in the realm of science’ ought to be applied cautiously, in order to avoid ‘the disease [becoming]…the focus of intervention [while] the patient disappears into the background of their pathology’ (p. 186). Thoughtfully put.

Fialova also notes the trend in which technology ‘affects and transforms the nature of human action’ (p. 186), and, as with the other authors in the Companion, signals to challenges without the pitfalls of overly charged emotive language or broad generalisations. The reasoning throughout the book is logical, and points of tension are explained and clarified (as seen, for instance, in Tania Gergel’s chapter on ‘Gender Medicine and Phenomenological Embodiment’).

Overall, the book presents a thorough account of the current discourse between philosophy and medicine, with careful attention to the nuances of the patient-practitioner relation, the challenges of diagnosis and Evidence-Based Medicine (EBM), as well as insights into the experiences of illness and subjectivity. It is thoroughly recommended for anyone with some philosophical or medical background who wants to become acquainted with the ways in which philosophy can inform the challenges faced in contemporary medicine. 

© 2017 Anna Westin

Anna Westin, PhD, Lecturer in Ethics, London School of Theology