Abstract
AbstractIn his Is There An Epistemic Role For History In Medicine? Thinking About Thyroid Cancer Nicholas Binney (Chap. 7, this volume) aims to show how historical work can have its epistemic function, that is: a role in understanding and therefore justifying medical knowledge and practice. From my perspective as a medical historian, Binney’s programmatic text raises three questions: (1) Is this epistemic role for history important?; (2) Is Binney’s argument convincing?; (3) How can a plea for history appear so ahistorical, or more positively put: how can we make Binney’s promising approach even more historical? In what follows, I will try and answer these questions.
Publisher
Springer International Publishing
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