Comments on "context and reflexivity"
pp. 175-180
in: Tristram Engelhardt, Stuart Spicker (eds), Evaluation and explanation in the biomedical sciences, Berlin, Springer, 1975Abstract
Professor Zaner's paper is appropriately subtitled a "Genealogy of Self," for it represents an attempt to exhibit the emergence of the subject or self. He does this in language which does not presuppose — in the first part of the paper — direct acquaintance with any of the numerous philosophical traditions in which the "self" has in modern times been treated. To comprehend the phenomenon of "self" is a pressing task for us. Such a comprehension will enable us "to account for the specifically human" and "every discipline focusing on "the human' and "the human world' — social and behavioral science, history, theology, as well as the biomedical sciences, medical practice… finally depends for its sense and justifiability on the elucidation of the phenomenon of "self'" (pp. 155–156, emphasis added). Zaner clearly intends to speak to the issue of this Symposium in pointing out, in the text we just quoted, the role philosophy should play in the biomedical sciences. He is well aware that philosophy does not enter into this role out of a position of strength.