Journal of Medicine and Philosophy, 36: 436–445, 2011 doi:10.1093/jmp/jhr033 Advance Access publication on August 23, 2011 © The Author 2011. Published by Oxford University Press, on behalf of the Journal of Medicine and Philosophy Inc. All rights reserved. For permissions, please e-mail: journals.permissions@oup.com Toward a Hermeneutical Conception of Medicine: A Conversation with Charles Taylor CHARLES TAYLOR McGill University, Montreal, Quebec, Canada FRANCO A. CARNEVALE* McGill University, Montreal, Quebec, Canada DANIEL M. WEINSTOCK Université de Montréal, Montreal, Quebec, Canada *Address correspondence to: Franco A. Carnevale, RN, PhD, McGill University, 3506 University, Montreal, Quebec, Canada H3A 2A7. E-mail: franco.carnevale@mcgill.ca Carnevale and Weinstock are the interviewers. I. INTRODUCTION In this interview, Charles Taylor discusses a number of philosophical questions in contemporary medicine. The interview was conducted in Montreal, Canada, on September 19, 2008. Only a portion of the interview is presented here be- cause of space constraints. The discussion examines concerns that recur through several of the papers published in this issue of the Journal of Medicine and Philosophy. Readers may find the introduction to this theme issue a helpful complement to the interview, where Taylor’s principal philosophical ideas and publications relevant to philosophy of medicine are outlined. II. EXAMINING THE INTERSECTION OF NATURAL SCIENCES AND HUMAN SCIENCES IN MEDICINE Franco Carnevale: There are a number of accumulating malaises within con- temporary medicine over how to think about a variety of problems. One problem is how medicine struggles with an intersection of natural sciences and human sciences. How can we articulate a philosophical conception of medicine that does not slide into a mind-body split? Charles Taylor: That is the really difficult thing, as it goes very deep in mod- ern culture in a sense, with Descartes. You can’t blame poor old René Des- cartes. It arose as part of the tremendous success of a kind of natural science Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/jmp/article/36/4/436/930529 by KIM Hohenheim user on 24 April 2022