Essay: Why History and Philosophy

Why is the study of Chinese history and philosophy necessary to the modern practitioner of Chinese medicine? What relevance do these historical considerations have to the practice of clinical medicine in the modern world and why is reading, writing and discussing such thought important to a medical practitioner?

Chinese thought could be considered a conversation that is over two thousand years old, recorded in large part, by Confucian intellectuals known as ru who ran the imperial bureaucracy for millennia. History, philosophy, governance, social behaviors, values, virtues, cosmology, poetry, music, martial arts, medicine and art were all part of this conversation that took place in a land largely distinct from western civilization for much of known history. Themes reoccur regularly and are discussed not as disparate subjects but as part of a holographic understanding of life and its movements between Heaven and Earth. The “Square space” of Earth, bounded by the four directions and informed by the virtues of Heaven, is considered the “middle kingdom” bounded and conditioned by the realities of form and process. The challenge for the “cultivated individual”, junzi, was to study this “great way of things” and move with it, informed by these greater virtues and thus minimize struggle that causes disease and ageing. As such, it can be said that all conversations regarding Earth need to reference the principles of Heaven and all discussion of Heaven must account for the realities of Earth. This applies to all things.

Chinese medicine is governed by language and principles that are considerably different than those found in western thought. And as such, a working tour through these rooms of historical thought sheds light on the function and forms, principles and values that inform the medicine as it understands life and is practiced today.  These affected lenses of perception, over time, render the clinicians view more “Chinese” and appropriate to the diagnosis and methods of rectification. It is here that the more successful treatments are found.

This process of using the ideas learned instead of merely reciting them is a process of embedding them experientially into thought process. This is preliminary training for applying study to consideration and thought to action and is the basis for the development of the critical thinking necessary for clinical medicine; first sound inquiry, then informed consideration, followed by a thesis (or diagnosis) and then an application of intent (or treatment principle) to the observed. Without this process, one is left with mere guessing or opinions that are not rooted in a proven body of knowledge or constructive thought. There is no integrity of thought to such creative speculation and, as such, it has no place in clinical medicine.

As the clinician engages the patient with skillful methods of rectification, the frameworks of critical thinking and evaluation that include philosophical insights into the well considered nature of life inform the values of engagement and the patient becomes more than a medical case and becomes a human being between Heaven and Earth, participating in and subject to the consequences of their decisions in this great flux of life. It is in this studied and rich environment that the fullness of this medicine can express itself in helping people.

And the analysis of content and context, informed by this depth of philosophical consideration, is helpful to the clinician as Chinese medicine, its views and its values, is a hologram of Chinese thought developed over the millennia. The depth and breath can only be fully understood in the context of the evolution of ideas culminating in its modern version.