Problems of knowledge in contemporary Chinese medical discourse

Abstract

This study begins by criticizing the epistemological approach in medical anthropology to non-western medical knowledge and practice, arguing that implicit western dichotomies (especially those of theory and practice, reality and symbol) tend to be inappropriately imposed. It then examines some approaches to knowledge and practice in contemporary Chinese discourse on “traditional’ medicine, focussing particularly on recent use of the term ‘epistemology’ in Maoist writing and in professional commentaries on medicine. Commonalities between medical uses of yin and yang and Maoist dialectics are explored, and the Maoist concept of essence ( benzhi) is found to be important in medicine as well. It appears that though theory and practice are beginning to be drawn apart by some practitioners in the PRC, the classic texts that are still in use and the practical experience of senior Chinese doctors act as important constraints on the development of western style epistemological dualities in medical knowledge.