The philosophical foundations of classical Chinese medicine : philosophy, methodology, science /

With this volume, Lee (Manchester Univ., UK) picks up where her earlier study, The Philosophical Foundations of Medicine (CH, Jun'12, 49-5598), left off, providing a chiefly descriptive outline of the key philosophical concepts found in Classical Chinese Medicine (CCM). A third companion volume, detailing the implications of those concepts for the development of CCM, is described as forthcoming. Western, "scientific" medicine and CCM are founded in different philosophical/ontological worldviews and, Lee insists, as distinct paradigms that are subject to different standards of evaluation. In the present work, she focuses on an interpretation of central texts and concepts of the Daojia tradition that underlie CCM (such as Qi, Ziran, Zhouyi, and Yinyang) and the metaphysical and epistemological dimensions of the modes of thought. Captivatingly, Lee not only suggests that there is much for Western medicine to learn from CCM, but she envisions a broader convergence in the future "with modern science moving toward the Chinese model based on process-ontology, non-linearity and Wholism." Summing Up: Recommended. Upper-division undergraduates and above; researchers and faculty. --Charles D. Kay, Wofford College