The Characteristic and Implication of the View of Object in Oriental Medicine

한의학적(韓醫學的) 대상관(對象觀)의 특징과 성격

Recently some people in learned circles of oriental medicine raised a Question about a terminological problem, i.e., 'oriental medical'. This question was thought as an attempt to find out the identity of oriental medicine which exists among the various current medical knowledge systems. In spite of same object, human body, there are diverse medical knowledge systems which has different concepts and theories. This come from the difference of a view of object which defines the experiences of that. The knowledge system of oriental medicine was established by the view of object in oriental medicine which depended on the way of thinking as Yin and Yang. The view of object in oriental medicine has come out in the special cultural soil, namely, the oriental world. Because of this the view of object in oriental medicine cannot be seperated from the oriental world view. What distintive feature does the oriental world view have? It can be summarized as the holistic, dynamical and organic ideas of the world. The term 'oriental medical' is being used to emphasize the characteristic and the peculiarity of the oriental medicine among the various medical knowledge systems. Can the current so called scientific method accept this peculiar and special method of oriental medicine? The efforts of philosophers who had been stimulated by the awful scientific achivements and had tried to find out the unified method penetrating through all the empirical science by mobilizing the logic and mathematics has became out of date for the raise of a question about the inductive method. On the contrary, the theses of theory-laden observation was accepted widely and the relativism was accepted as a new established theory. But the relativism has its own problem. The relativism was founded upon the concept, the incommensurability, which Khun and Feyerabend had proposed. This concept was criticized strongly by some of philosophers because of its own self-refuting. The view of object in oriental medicine has a relative characteristic in the aspect of its urge that in accordance with the perspective a different medical knowledge system can be possible. But our possible choice is the moderate conceptual relativism. Therefore if the view of object in oriental medicine includes the relative aspect, there is the 'conceptual relativity' between the knowledge system of oriental medicine and the western medicine. This preview an important aspect for the standardization and modernizing research of oriental medicine by lending the knowledge of the western medicine. And when we choose the moderate conceptual relativism, it means that we do not support the extreme relativism, that is, 'anything goes'. The concept of truth and rationality cannot be abandoned, and it plays the role of the norm on the knowledge system of oriental medicine and other knowledge systems of medicine in a limited meaning. And the view of object in oriental medicine has an organic view about the human body and the characteristic which wants to interpret the phenomena of human body by using the holistic method. But the availability of this method will be evaluated by the achievements of oriental medicine. Finally what relationship does the theory of oriental medicine have with the world the theory is applied to? It is recognized that the theory of oriental medicine has the instrumental characteristic. But it can be thought the instrumentalism is different from the oriental medical standpoint in the aspect that the instrumentalism seperates the theoretical existence from the observational existence sharply. Because in the oriental thinking way there is no seperation between the mind of observer and the object and no conflict between the idealism and the realism like the western world. For this problem there must be a further study.