Abstract
The purpose of this article is to show the relevance of dialogue philosophy, as it is conceived by the Existentialist philosopher Martin Buber, to healthcare and Caring Science, specially as the latter is defined in the Nordic Countries. The authors' thesis is that the contributions of dialogue philosophy are, inter alia, the following: 1) a concept of human being (hereafter Man) which is holistic, emphasizing Man's social nature and 2) an anthropological, epistemological and ethical foundation for both (i) a definition of health and sickness and (ii) the construction of a model for authentic communication between the caregiver and the patient. Concerning 1) (i), dialogue philosophy provides a holistic concept of Man, which permits one to distinguish between disease and illnese, two types of sickness, which may occur at the same time, but which sometimes occur independently of each other. The biomedical concept of sickness neglects this distinction and reduces all ill-health to disease. This is however detrimental to the patient's need of health- and socialcare. As to 2) (ii), dialogue philosophy distinguishes between two main types of knowledge: I-Thou- and I-It-knowledge. The latter designates a discursive knowledge of quantifiable and mea-sureable entities, whereas the former designates an intuitive knowledge of Man, that which philosophically speaking, is called ‘knowledge of other minds’. The authors hold that this distinction is very relevant to different levels of health care: diagnosis, relationship between health care professionals and patients, education and research.