To Look, to See, to Know [1947]

Fleck, Ludwik

doi:10.1007/978-94-009-4498-5_7

Cited by 41 publications

(31 citation statements)

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“…Anatomical handbooks, charts, models, and simulations converge on a consensual thought, and for this reason, sight style. A thorax schematically looks similar throughout literature (Buschhaus 2005;Stafford 1991), medical taxonomy is established as a common standard, and computer simulations of the inner body also share a common visual culture (Waldby 2000), not only in regard to medical but also to popular ways of looking (Fleck 1986e [1947, p. 147).…”

Section: Skilful Visions: a Radiological Sight Collective (Sehkollektiv)mentioning

confidence: 98%

“…8 In this respect and with the assumption that ''[t]o see, one first has to know, and then to know how, and to forget part of the knowledge'' (Fleck 1986e [1947, p. 134, italics in original) two basic capacities within the medical thought collective are prefigured, namely the formation of a more general and directed readiness to see and the embodiment of anatomical knowledge. I am here again relating to participatory observations during introductory lectures for first-semester medical students as well as to e-learning resources for advanced students in the elective course radiology.…”

Section: Skilful Visions: a Radiological Sight Collective (Sehkollektiv)mentioning

confidence: 99%

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‘Sehkollektiv’: Sight Styles in Diagnostic Computed Tomography

Friedrich

2010

Medicine Studies

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This paper aims to trace individual as well as collective aspects of 'sight styles' in diagnostic computed tomography. Radiologists need to efficiently translate the visualized data from the living human body into a reliable and significant diagnosis. During this process, their visual thinking and the created images are incorporated into a complex network of other visualizations, communication strategies, professional traditions, and (tacit) visual knowledge. To investigate the interplay of collective as well as individual dimensions of diagnostic seeing, the concept of 'sight collective' (Sehkollektiv) is developed. On the one hand, this concept is based on critical reading of Ludwik Fleck's epistemological writings and his notions of thought collective (Denkkollektiv) and thought style (Denkstil). On the other hand, it is tested by means of qualitative empirical studies in a radiological university clinic (participatory observations and informal interviews). By employing this approach, the paper traces the collective foundations of a certain diagnostic sight. Moreover, it shows how the individual abilities of radiologists to perform stylized seeing rely remarkably on software-based interactions with the processed images and on tacit dimensions of visual knowledge.

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Section: Skilful Visions: a Radiological Sight Collective (Sehkollektiv)mentioning

confidence: 98%

Section: Skilful Visions: a Radiological Sight Collective (Sehkollektiv)mentioning

confidence: 99%

‘Sehkollektiv’: Sight Styles in Diagnostic Computed Tomography

Friedrich

2010

Medicine Studies

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“…And we have also seen, from Fleck's standpoint, that an object of investigation cannot be divorced from a style of thought or the collective which thinks it (Fleck 1947(Fleck /1986. Thus, it is an uncontroversial step to perceive the individual physical body, the medical locus of health and disease, as a stylisation of collective thought, a construction in time and space.…”

Section: Ludwik Fteck -Timaght Styles Tfiou^t Coltectives Aaad the Cmentioning

confidence: 99%

Passive smoking and ill‐health: practice and process in the production of medical knowledge

Jackson

1994

Sociology Health & Illness

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This paper examines the development of medical knowledge about passive smoking from a constructionist perspective. It draws upon the work of Ludwik Fleck, particularly his central idea that facts are produced in relation to the possibilities of stylised thought. Early epidemiological insights into changing disease patterns, with regard to active smoking, are initially discussed and shown to be related to a style of thought which encourages the production of a world of disconnected bodies. The paper then explores how connections between those bodies were constructed, and the medicalisation of passive smoking advanced, by a stylised perception of tobacco smoke. Problems of 'subject' visibility, however, remained; problems overcome by the production rather than the revelation of facts, notably the distinction between mainstream and sidestream smoke. This development opened up the space for the emergence of the previously invisible passive smoker. This processual reordering of reality is then mapped onto other processual patterns and the stylisation of social relationships, particularly apparent in the later 'spouse as index' studies, is discussed. The point is further explored in an analysis of the ideas associated with biochemical markers, particularly the notion that once invisible social connections can now be rendered visible through a reading of these markers in the body.

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“…Carusi's suggestion that the visualisation software plays an important role in forming this common way of seeing is borne out by Kathrin Friedrich's analysis of computed tomography images (Friedrich 2010). Friedrich shows that software plays an important mediating role in setting up shared 'sight styles' across a team (Friedrich 2010), drawing upon Ludwig Flecks' notion of 'thought collectives' and 'thought styles' (Fleck 1979(Fleck , 1986e [1947). While Friedrich focuses on the software interface of images (the Graphical User Interface or GUI), we focus on the interactions around image processing that lead to images that have the features required for clinicians.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Implicit trust in clinical decision-making by multidisciplinary teams

Baalen

Carusi

2017

Synthese

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In clinical practice, decision-making is not performed by individual knowers but by an assemblage of people and instruments in which no one member has full access to every piece of evidence. This is due to decision making teams consisting of members with different kinds of expertise, as well as to organisational and time constraints. This raises important questions for the epistemology of medicine, which is inherently social in this kind of setting, and implies epistemic dependence on others. Trust in these contexts is a highly complex social practice, involving different forms of relationships between trust and reasons for trust: based on reasons, and not based on reasons; based on reasons that are easily accessible to reflection and others that are not. In this paper, we focus on what it means to have reasons to trust colleagues in an established clinical team, collectively supporting or carrying out every day clinical decision-making. We show two important points about these reasons, firstly, they are not sought or given in advance of a situation of epistemic dependence, but are established within these situations; secondly they are implicit in the sense of being contained or nested within other actions that are not directly about trusting another person. The processes of establishing these reasons are directly about accomplishing a task, and indirectly about trusting someone else's expertise or competence. These processes establish a space of reasons within which what it means to have reasons for trust, or not, gains a meaning and traction in these team-work settings. Based on a qualitative study of decision-making in image assisted diagnosis and treatment of a 123Synthese complex disease called pulmonary hypertension (PH), we show how an intersubjective framework, or 'space of reasons' is established through team members forging together a common way of identifying and dealing with evidence. In dealing with images as a central diagnostic tool, this also involves a common way of looking at the images, a common mode or style of perception. These frameworks are developed through many iterations of adjusting and calibrating interpretations in relation to those of others, establishing what counts as evidence, and ranking different kinds of evidence. Implicit trust is at work throughout this process. Trusting the expertise of others in clinical decision-making teams occurs while the members of the team are busy on other tasks, most importantly, building up a framework of common modes of seeing, and common ways of identifying and assessing evidence emerge. It is only in this way that trusting or mistrusting becomes meaningful in these contexts, and that a framework for epistemic dependence is established.

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To Look, to See, to Know [1947]

Cited by 41 publications

References 0 publications

‘Sehkollektiv’: Sight Styles in Diagnostic Computed Tomography

‘Sehkollektiv’: Sight Styles in Diagnostic Computed Tomography

Passive smoking and ill‐health: practice and process in the production of medical knowledge

Implicit trust in clinical decision-making by multidisciplinary teams

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