Three New Philosophical Categories for Holistically Assessing Complementary Medicine, Derived from the History and Theory of Medicine

Background: Based on recent medical-historical research, the attempt is made to introduce three new philosophical categories for holistically assessing complementary medicine and delineate their characteristics, genealogy, and socio-economic background. Apart from modern, predominantly rational science and culture, the history and theory of medicine are able to reveal dimensions and traditions of thinking that in the modern age have obviously been neglected or forgotten. Summary: As an example, homoeopathy appears to be constituted by what may be called lógos-thinking, hómoion-thinking and iásthai-thinking, thus connecting with three powerful traditions of thinking that can be traced back to Ancient Greece and pre-Socratic times. By contrast, modern technological medicine seems to be mainly fixed on lógos-thinking. Other realms of modern civilisation, such as science, art, education, politics, philosophy, and religion, to a large extent also suffer from a lack of, or are oblivious to, hómoion-thinking and iásthai-thinking. Key Messages: The introduction of these new categories may serve as a key to a raised awareness towards the shortcomings and one-dimensionality of the present lógos-driven world-view and for the opening up of a qualitatively richer multi-dimensional world and life. .