Volume 44, Issue 3, September 2013, Pages 392–400
Abstract
This
paper is a critique of ‘integrative medicine’ as an ideal of medical
progress on the grounds that it fails to realise the cognitive value of
alternative medicine. After a brief account of the cognitive value of
alternative medicine, I outline the form of ‘integrative medicine’
defended by the late Stephen Straus, former director of the US National
Centre for Complementary and Alternative Medicine. Straus’ account is
then considered in the light of Zuzana Parusnikova’s recent criticism of
‘integrative medicine’ and her distinction between ‘cognitive’ and
‘opportunistic’ engagement with alternative medicine. Parusnikova warns
that the medical establishment is guilty of ‘dogmatism’ and proposes
that one can usefully invoke Karl Popper’s ‘critical rationalism’ as an
antidote. Using the example of Straus, I argue that an appeal to Popper
is insufficient, on the grounds that ‘integrative medicine’ can class as
a form of cognitively-productive, critical engagement. I suggest that
Parusnikova’s appeal to Popper should be augmented with Paul
Feyerabend’s emphasis upon the role of ‘radical alternatives’ in
maximising criticism. ‘Integrative medicine’ fails to maximise criticism
because it ‘translates’ alternative medicine into the theories and
terminology of allopathic medicine and so erodes its capacity to provide
cognitively-valuable ‘radical alternatives’. These claims are then
illustrated with a discussion of ‘traditional’ and ‘medical’
acupuncture. I conclude that ‘integrative medicine’ fails to exploit the
cognitive value of alternative medicine and so should be rejected as an
ideal of medical progress.
Keywords
- Integrative medicine;
- Acupuncture;
- Alternative medicine;
- Pluralism;
- Popper;
- Feyerabend
Copyright © 2013 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
