Means, Ends and Medical Care

However, Wright’s project is not merely critical. More constructively, he draws extensively on empirical research coming out of the cognitive sciences concerning the nature of concepts, reasoning, and judgment, and he then appropriates this research into a broader pragmatist philosophical framework developed by the American philosopher John Dewey. Wright finds in Dewey’s theories of mind, thought, and experience a comprehensive account of human thinking that adequately captures the complexity of actual human conceptualization and reasoning. At the heart of this new view lies an acknowledgment of the central role of imagination and values in all of our thinking. He shows how we actually make sense of our experience by employing cognitive prototypes, metaphorically-defined concepts, radially structured categories, and other processes of imaginative reflection and evaluation. The result of Wright’s alternative view of mind and medical judgment is a practically useful model of medical reasoning that, although not specifiable by a set of fixed rules, can yet give realistic guidance for medical decisions. It is a sensitive model that each of us would want our own physicians to adopt.

Prof. Mark Johnson, Department of Philosophy, University of Oregon

'This is one of the best books I have read that addresses Dewey's method of intelligence in the context of practical, including clinical, decision-making. I loved it.'

Prof. Griffin Trotter, Center for Health Care Ethics, Saint Louis University, USA