Paul Unschuld's unanswerable question

[Guest guest]

> However, I must say that this business of absolutism has not been my

> experience, except in a few individuals. Perhaps I have been

> fortunate in practicing in Berkeley, California, where there has been

> such a wide range of styles, and local and visiting teachers with

> such diverse backgrounds, that it would have been hard to maintain

> " absolutism " . This diversity has always seemed very appealing and

> exciting to me.

>

> Do you have a sense of how extensive this problem is? Is it a big

> enough problem that we have to take special steps? if so, what should

> they be?

 

Rory,

 

This is a hard question to answer. There have been groups and

individuals who have been explicit that their's was the 'true

medicine' - I'm sure you can think of such people. On a more subtle

level is the less explicit version of this - people who would pay lip

service to plurality, but really thought that their's was, if not the

'true medicine', than the 'best medicine'. I speculate that if one

looked at either category, one would find that it was paradigmatized.

There would be a distinct theoretical modality, or set of theoretical

modalities, that people related to as a whole. So, in both cases,

individuals would relate to what they were doing as a unity, instead

of a plurality. Another way of saying this is that their practice

would be cohesive.

 

As I understand Unschuld's point, he is shattering this illusion of

unity, of wholeness, of cohesion - whatever you want to say about it,

or can say, CM as a totality is not coherent. It can't be bound

together. It can't be paradigmatized. For this reason, among other

reasons, it is not amenable to scientific research. This is not

unfortunate - it is also Chinese medicine's salvation, for to the

extent that it cannot be paradigmatized, so it cannot be subjected to

a research process, which in the cultural environment in which this

would take place, would lead to its biomedicalization. So, therefore,

CM, because of its intrinsic nature, must accept its incoherence, and

keep itself separate from scientific process. Therein, and only

therein, can CM find its freedom, although this is compatable with its

own nature.

 

This is a profound and difficult statement to live with, and this is,

I believe, why we find difficulty coming to terms with it. Given our

acculturation, it is counter-intuitive. As Jim quoted Tisbett:

'Westerners focus on or create salient objects, use attributes to

assign them to catergories, and apply

rules of formal logic to understand their behavior. By contrast, East

Asian thought relies far less on categories or on formal logic; it is

fundamentally dialectic, seeking a " middle way " between opposing

thoughts.

 

Unschuld's unanswerable question involves us, in our field, having to

forgo the process of categorising salient objects of our own creation,

and having to, as a consequence, suspend applying the rules of formal

logic to understand their behaviour. This is both the consequence of

the nature of Chinese medicine, and is also necessary for its survival.

 

If anyone thinks I'm off the mark, I'm happy for them to discuss it.

 

Wainwright

[Guest guest]

, " wainwright " wrote:

> As I understand Unschuld's point, he is shattering this illusion of

> unity, of wholeness, of cohesion - whatever you want to say about

it,

> or can say, CM as a totality is not coherent. It can't be bound

> together. It can't be paradigmatized. >>>

 

The " illusion of unity " should have already been shattered for most

of us by seeing how many other practitioners did so many varied and

different things. When I conduct a pulse seminar, we can agree on

the pulses but I always allow the practitioners to choose their own

treatment strategy. While many treatments seem odd, unexpected, or a

way that I would not personally choose to work, most change the

pulses to the better.

 

There is another way of looking at this problem. All of these

different styles and variations of CM still have rules, literature,

and theories in common. They vary most in how they apply and

reiterate these ideas. Even a few ideas in common can generate wide

and varied practices. Consider the Mandlebrot set. A virtually

infinitely complex fractal map is generated by a simple equation

with only 3 terms (N=N^2 + C)---interestingly many of the physical

laws of science have only three terms. The complex detail of the

diagram is generated when the resultant number becomes the new N and

this process is reiterated. So, similarly, when applying

Heaven/Earth/Man and qi/jing/shen in different ways, CM can become

richly complex and varied.

 

 

Jim Ramholz

[Guest guest]

At 7:59 PM +0000 10/17/03, wainwrightchurchill wrote:

>I speculate that if one

>looked at either category, one would find that it was paradigmatized.

>There would be a distinct theoretical modality, or set of theoretical

>modalities, that people related to as a whole. So, in both cases,

>individuals would relate to what they were doing as a unity, instead

>of a plurality. Another way of saying this is that their practice

>would be cohesive.

--

Well, is it not necessary to have some sense of theoretical cohesion,

in order to practice medicine. If the opposite of cohesion is

incoherence, are you advocating (on Unschuld's behalf) that Chinese

medicine should be practiced incoherently.

 

>As I understand Unschuld's point, he is shattering this illusion of

>unity, of wholeness, of cohesion - whatever you want to say about it,

>or can say, CM as a totality is not coherent. It can't be bound

>together.

--

It's one thing to say that Chinese medicine cannot be seen as as a

unity over it's history, because there is no constant within all the

examples that have existed historically. It's another to say that

there is no example of a form of Chinese medicine that is coherent

(which is what you seem to be implying). Over the past two millennia,

is there not a consistent use of yin-yang theory as the foundation of

a form of Chinese medicine? many authors refer to it, either

explicitly or implicitly, over the course of this period. That would

seem to be a coherent theory consistently used over the historical

period. Is Unschuld saying this is not so?

 

>It can't be paradigmatized. For this reason, among other

>reasons, it is not amenable to scientific research. This is not

>unfortunate - it is also Chinese medicine's salvation, for to the

>extent that it cannot be paradigmatized, so it cannot be subjected to

>a research process, which in the cultural environment in which this

>would take place, would lead to its biomedicalization. So, therefore,

>CM, because of its intrinsic nature, must accept its incoherence, and

>keep itself separate from scientific process. Therein, and only

>therein, can CM find its freedom, although this is compatable with its

>own nature.

--

If you accept that at the level of the practitioner, there has to be

coherence in order to practice, then there is something to study. If

the practitioner has several colleagues who practice based on the

same theoretical and clinical basis, then there is an example of a

coherent shared paradigm. If the theory is based in yin-yang, five

phases etc, it would be hard to argue that it was not Chinese

medicine.

 

>This is a profound and difficult statement to live with, and this is,

>I believe, why we find difficulty coming to terms with it. Given our

>acculturation, it is counter-intuitive. As Jim quoted Tisbett:

>'Westerners focus on or create salient objects, use attributes to

>assign them to catergories, and apply

>rules of formal logic to understand their behavior. By contrast, East

>Asian thought relies far less on categories or on formal logic; it is

>fundamentally dialectic, seeking a " middle way " between opposing

thoughts.

>Unschuld's unanswerable question involves us, in our field, having to

>forgo the process of categorising salient objects of our own creation,

>and having to, as a consequence, suspend applying the rules of formal

>logic to understand their behaviour. This is both the consequence of

>the nature of Chinese medicine, and is also necessary for its survival.

--

No doubt it is true that when you ask an average western practitioner

what is Chinese medicine, the answer is going to be different than if

you ask the same question of the average Chinese practitioner.

However, both would have something in mind when you say Chinese

medicine, and both would have an answer. In fact, most practitioners

of Chinese origin that I have encountered have a very strong sense

that Chinese medicine is a clearly distinguishable something, and are

quite ready to distinguish things that are not it.

 

By the way, don't you think that Unschuld's position is another form

of absolutism?

 

Rory

--