- Title
- Applying Habermasian "ways of knowing" to medical education
- Creator
- Walker, Paul; Lovat, Terence
- Relation
- Journal of Contemporary Medical Education Vol. 3, Issue 3, p. 123-126
- Publisher Link
- http://dx.doi.org/10.5455/jcme.20151102103550
- Publisher
- ScopeMed
- Resource Type
- journal article
- Date
- 2015
- Description
- Different ways by which we come to know something, are usefully applied to the pedagogy of medical education. Jürgen Habermas described three “ways” of knowing. These are empirical-analytic knowing (data collection), historical-hermeneutic knowing (understanding of meanings), and self-reflective critical knowing. These “ways” of knowing have an epistemological basis, which is able to be traced from the classical and medieval epochs of philosophical thought. Given that doctor-patient interactions have a fundamental basis in morality, the three “ways” of Habermas can be applied to the pedagogy of medical education. This fosters a clinical practice characterised by life-long self-reflective learning. The beneficent action which follows, based upon self-reflection, and impelling the clinician to act as an agent of change, benefits both patients and clinicians. Understanding the importance of Habermas’ three “ways” of knowing, impels a re-balancing of undergraduate and post-graduate medical education curricula, which would foster a progression from empirical-analytic data collection, through historical-hermeneutic understanding of meanings, to self-reflective critical knowing as a life-long objective in clinical practice.
- Subject
- epistemology; Habermas; medical education; reflective learning
- Identifier
- http://hdl.handle.net/1959.13/1314072
- Identifier
- uon:22698
- Identifier
- ISSN:2146-8354
- Language
- eng
- Full Text
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