Religijna perspektywa medycyny alternatywnej w konfrontacji z medykalizacją życia
The contrast between religious perspective of alternative medicine and medicalization of life

Summary/Abstract: The article is an attempt at describing the role of religious factors in defining health categories. These factors have again become a significant element of contemporary reflection on the quality of human life. The text refers to a number of arguments for such a direction of this analysis. First, there is a Weberian trail that leads the reflection through the relation between religious ethics and the economic system to the relation between ethics of that kind and actions in the domain of health care. Regarding Max Weber’s analysis of Confucian ethics one can discover certain similarities to that religious system which occur in the ideological plane of so-called alternative medicine. On the other hand, one can spot an analogous situation in the case of conventional medicine. Finally, the perspective of the sociology of knowledge offers theoretical instruments which allow one to capture religious idioms present in selected public statements on the health issue.

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