This paper represents a philosophical appraisal of Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) from the point of view of the philosophy of science. As it is generally the case with other versions of Traditional Medicine, rather than a coherent research program Traditional Chinese Medicine constitutes an array of various techniques and practices coupled with a diversity of very different speculative doctrines regarding the physiological structure of certain body parts as well as the purported etiology of disease and malfunction. This chapter starts off by describing some of the theoretical assumptions on which TCM relies with the aim of casting light on whether they, alongside the clinical techniques TCM encompasses, can significantly be considered as a scientific theory comparable with that of conventional medicine. In so doing the chapter examines a plurality of demarcation criteria between science and non-science coming from various existing philosophical frameworks old and new. While, as will be shown, a wealth of research based on RCTs (randomized control trials) points out that TCM´s degree of effectiveness is low, that is not the point this paper intends to make. Instead of such an empirical criticism, the author sustains a comparably stronger epistemic contention, namely: even if the clinical results of TCM fared better than they actually do, that observation alone would not be a good reason to consider this branch of traditional medicine as a scientifically respectable endeavor.
...MoreArticle Michael R. Matthews (2021) Feng Shui in Science Programmes. Science and Education (pp. 1319-1332).
Similar Citations
Article
Damian Fernandez-Beanato;
(2021)
Feng Shui and the Demarcation Project
(/isis/citation/CBB888062029/)
Article
Meifang Zhang;
Bing Liu;
(2021)
The Theoretical Foundations of Feng Shui and Science Education in China
(/isis/citation/CBB282177476/)
Thesis
Morris, William R.;
(2009)
Chinese Pulse Diagnosis: Epistemology, Practice, and Tradition
(/isis/citation/CBB001561158/)
Article
Michael John Paton;
(2021)
Science and Fengshui
(/isis/citation/CBB166915252/)
Article
Alexander Reutlinger;
(2022)
When do non-epistemic values play an epistemically illegitimate role in science? How to solve one half of the new demarcation problem
(/isis/citation/CBB412269629/)
Article
Bennett Holman;
Torsten Wilholt;
(2022)
The new demarcation problem
(/isis/citation/CBB597134997/)
Article
Sandra Harding;
(2019)
State of the field: Latin American decolonial philosophies of science
(/isis/citation/CBB256545692/)
Book
Collin Rice;
(2021)
Leveraging Distortions: Explanation, Idealization, and Universality in Science
(/isis/citation/CBB912709886/)
Book
C. Michele Thompson;
(2015)
Vietnamese Traditional Medicine: A Social History
(/isis/citation/CBB013500686/)
Article
Lin, Fu-shih;
(2000)
Toufa, jibin yu yiliao: Yi Han Tang zhijian de yixue wenxian weizhu de chubu tantao
(/isis/citation/CBB000203121/)
Article
Hsu, Elisabeth;
(2008)
A Hybrid Body Technique: Does the Pulse Diagnostic cun guan chi Method Have Chinese-Tibetan Origins?
(/isis/citation/CBB000931577/)
Article
Farquhar, Judith;
(2014)
Reading Hands: Pulse Qualities and the Specificity of the Clinical
(/isis/citation/CBB001450048/)
Article
Chang, Che-chia;
(2004)
Zhongguo chuantong fayixue de zhishi xingke yu caozuo mailo
(/isis/citation/CBB000530107/)
Article
Liang, Rong;
(2004)
Probing into the Academic Evolution of Tongue Inspection of TCM Before 1949
(/isis/citation/CBB000502063/)
Article
Taylor, Kim;
(2004)
Divergent Interests and Cultivated Misunderstandings: The Influence of the West on Modern Chinese Medicine
(/isis/citation/CBB000770514/)
Essay Review
Howard Chiang;
(2016)
Review of Bridie Andrews, The Making of Modern Chinese Medicine, 1850–1960 and Sean Hsiang-lin Lei, Neither Donkey nor Horse: Medicine in the Struggle over China's Modernity
(/isis/citation/CBB111859658/)
Article
Chang, Chia-Feng;
(1998)
Shenghua zhi yuan yu liming zhi men: Jin, Yuan Ming yixuezhong de mingmen shitan
(/isis/citation/CBB000203104/)
Article
Kohn, Livia;
(2007)
Daoyin: Chinese Healing Exercises
(/isis/citation/CBB000850170/)
Book
Hanson, Marta E.;
(2011)
Speaking of Epidemics in Chinese Medicine: Disease and the Geographic Imagination in Late Imperial China
(/isis/citation/CBB001251538/)
Article
Dear, David;
(2012)
Chinese Yangsheng: Self-help and Self-image
(/isis/citation/CBB001450725/)
Be the first to comment!