On the significance of the ideological struggle against Freudianism in modern medicine and philosophy

Currently, the old theory of Freud, with its primacy of instincts over consciousness, is manifested in the so-called sociological direction of psychoanalysis, called neo-Freudianism. Representatives of this new trend moved away from a purely Freudian position, explaining neuroses in terms of only one sexual desire.

Heraclitus and Hippocrates: the Paradigm of the Elements

The article analyses the remaining fragments and testimonies of Heraclitean philosophy and their connection with Hippocratic medicine. It is claimed that both schools belong to the same philosophical-scientific paradigm of the elements. Therefore, theoretical insights of the school of Cos might well serve explaining complicated and often difficult to interpret Heraclitean thoughts. Moreover, it is plausible that parts of Corpus Hippocraticum were written under the influence of the Heraclitean philosophy and therefore its analysis and interpretative application allows us to partially reconstruct the fragmented Heraclitean ideas into the single unified system. The article uses comparative analysis of both thinking traditions in regard to psychological, ethical, physiological, cosmological, and medical ideas. Similarities in explaining human nature are revealed. It is shown that science (medicine) and philosophy in Antiquity use the same paradigmatic utterances to describe reality. Therefore, there are many mutual interconnecting principles between early philosophy and medicine.

Review of the IX International Symposium on Bioethics "Health, Medicine and Philosophy: Survival Strategies"

The IX International Symposium on Bioethics on April 15-16, 2021 was a significant event for the bioethical community. There were discussed the applying of philosophical, theoretical, methodological and bioethical principles of modern medicine and the concept of health in the context of global challenges. The Symposium was organized by the Department of Philosophy of the Shupyk National Healthcare University of Ukraine and the Ukrainian public organization "Ukrainian Association for Bioethics"; Testemitanu State University of Medicine and Pharmacy; Sakharov International State Ecological Institute, Belarusian State University; Tashkent State Dental Institute; South Kazakhstan Medical Academy. The article highlights the key ideas of the reports of leading bioethicists, theorists of medicine and philosophers. Annotations of reports at the plenary session of the symposium are presented in more detail. In particular, there are represented the main thesis of the reports of Svetlana Pustovit, Tatiana Gardashuk, Olga Gomilko, Tatiana Mishatkina, Sergei Melnov, Vladimir Falko, Theodore Ţîrdea, Nikolai Kiselyov, Zamirа Mukhamedovа, Susan Miller. The main points of the resolution of the IX International Symposium, which were adopted by all participants, are reflected in this review.

Introduction: Bodies and Buildings in Motion

Since antiquity, motion had been a key means of designing and describing the physical environment. During the sixteenth through the eighteenth centuries, however, individuals across Europe increasingly designed, experienced, and discussed a new world of motion – one characterized by continuous, rather than segmented, movement. This chapter examines the shift from segmented to continuous motion in order to establish the architectural and cultural historical context for the following eight essays. It considers how architects and other authors stressed ever more putting individuals in motion through new types of built spaces and through new approaches to architectural treatises and guidebooks, while writers in other discourses encompassing science, medicine, and philosophy debated movements at all scales from the heliocentric universe to vibrating atoms.

EPIMENIDES VS EMPEDOCLES: how early greek philosophers fought еpidemics

The article attempts to highlight the development of the unity of medicine and philosophy in the context of combating epidemics of two early Greek thinkers Epimenides and Empedocles. The idea that Epimenides adheres to the divine origin of the disease is justified, but at the same time, in the process of ritual purification from the plague, it attracts elements of the Pythagorean view of healing, as well as close to Indo-Iranian traditions of the time. It is proved that in the course of the development of ancient thought, the view of the disease also evolves “from myth to logos”, which leads to the understanding of this phenomenon in Empedocles as an ontological problem. Accordingly, it has been established that, for the Sicilian philosopher, mass diseases (epidemics) are caused primarily by the fact that he is more prevalent in the world. If the society is engulfed by hatred and malice, then diseases will inevitably emerge and increase. Instead, overcoming and disappearing of epidemics are possible because peace and harmony between people will prevail. The author substantiates the thesis that helping residents to overcome epidemics in various ancient cities, testifies to the great importance of the early Greek thinkers, who combined not only reflection but also praxis.

Never Solo: Gratitude for My Academic Journey

Tom Beauchamp and I were asked by the editors of The Journal of Medicine and Philosophy to prepare “intellectual autobiographies,” with particular attention to sources and influences on our work, including but not limited to Principles of Biomedical Ethics. Of course, it is artificial and even impossible to try fully to separate the “intellectual” from other aspects of our lives. So, while emphasizing the “intellectual” aspects of my autobiography, I have attended to other aspects, too. The huge debts of gratitude I owe also mix the “intellectual” and other aspects of life.

Bioethics in the Ruins

In The Foundations of Bioethics (1986, 1996), former senior editor of The Journal of Medicine and Philosophy H. Tristram Engelhardt, Jr. (1941–2018) radically reassessed the nature and scope of bioethics, as well as the possibilities for this still-young field that he helped found, in light of the prevailing sociohistorical context, which he argued had been inadequately considered by bioethicists. This issue of The Journal of Medicine and Philosophy provides a snapshot of how bioethics is developing in the wake of Engelhardt’s critique. Topics covered include the relation between rule of law and US healthcare policy, the relation between autonomy and consent, the role of rights in bioethical discourse, the debate between naturalism and normativism in the theory of disease, and the question of when human individuals begin to exist. Although no single theme explicitly unites them, the papers in this issue were produced within and are fruitfully read in terms of what Engelhardt influentially characterized as a morally pluralistic postmodernity subsisting amidst the ruins of tradition. In the conclusion, I introduce a further wrinkle into this Engelhardtian picture—namely, the looming danger of a more general epistemological pluralism effected by new technologies like Deepfakes.