Chris,
A couple of ideas came to my "consciousness" following your comments.
One was a book "The Closing of The western Mind - the rise of faith and the fall of reason"" by Charles Freeman. A second was the concept that Aristotle and his contemporaries described of a third was a description of an American crime series "Law and Order" by my wife.
For the latter my wife explained how she liked the detail of the issues in the early series of programs. (the series started in 1990, covers complex multifaceted legal issues and has had 473 episodes!)
The Law and Order series presents - through stories - the case for the prosecution and defence and then the summation by the judge before the denouement. This is exactly how the Aristotelian dialogue takes place. The philosophers produce a hypothesis and an antithesis and debate until they achieve some sort of "thesis", I think.
"The closing of the Western Mind" discusses this "revolution in decision making and logic" (not dissimilar to the later Renaissance, Reformation and Enlightenment movements?) and examines the relative positions of belief and open mindedness in societies.
I wonder whether the presentation by scientists to policy makers should follow the Aristotelian model more?
R
HIFA profile: Richard Fitton is a retired family doctor - GP. Professional interests: Health literacy, patient partnership of trust and implementation of healthcare with professionals, family and public involvement in the prevention of modern lifestyle diseases, patients using access to professional records to overcome confidentiality barriers to care, patients as part of the policing of the use of their patient data Email address: richardpeterfitton7 AT gmail.com
