Oxford Textbook of Philosophy and Psychiatry

From our regular book review column.

Not all of us have been intrigued by philosophy. Plato,Descartes, Kant—those are names representing ideas we mayfeel we should know more about, but, what can you say? We arebusy clinicians, and keeping up with the latest developments inour field is already more than we can accomplish. And yet, weall probably confronted, at one point or another in our medicalschool education and beyond, fundamental philosophical questions,such as the definition of health, the meaning of suffering,or the ephemeral, subjective nature of pain.