Anatomy Morphological Anatomy from a Phenomenological Point of View

Anatomy Morphological Anatomy from a Phenomenological Point of View

In his book Lifelines Steven Rose states: “The challenge to the opponents of biological determinism is that, while we may have been effective in our critique of its reductionist claims, we have failed to offer a coherent alternative framework within which to interpret living processes”. We have the same challenge with regard to morphology. It is imperative to offer a satisfactory alternative framework. In trying to remedy this problem we have striven for two goals: first, to indicate an ‘alternative framework’ in morphology, and second, to show that the alternative framework opens new possibilities for interpreting morphological facts. We used a Goethean approach that allows us to position the detailed knowledge of Anatomy in the context of the whole of the organism. In this method, a careful description is followed by portraying the dynamic quality of the studied part, for instance the humerus. Comparison of different parts of the skeleton helps us to see patterns in what we have observed. We become aware of a blueprint that can eventually show us the role the humerus plays in the whole of the skeleton from a dynamic viewpoint. We chose the dynamic quality in morphology for this purpose since it allows us to see coherence in the facts. The dynamic quality in morphology can be shown to refer to functional processes in biology. This results in new concepts in morphology. These new concepts recapture an understanding of morphologic facts in living organisms. This gives us, for instance, a possibility of understanding the relation between consciousness and behavior to the shape of the body. We hope that this framework will be helpful for medical students, who have to learn and remember many anatomical details. Experience has taught us that an overview of the whole makes remembering the details easier. We present this module in an effort to aid medical students and others to take in the wonderful world of anatomical morphology and remember it better in later study and work. We want to emphasize that this module does not replace the textbook on anatomy. The information in the module is compact and presupposes the knowledge contained in regular textbooks.

Guus van der Bie MD

BOLK’S COMPANIONS
FOR THE STUDY OF MEDICINE

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