An Analysis Of Critique Philosophy On Essence Of "Syndrome" And General Principle Of "Syndrome Differentiation And Treatment"

BackgroundAs the key concept of traditional Chinese medicine(TCM),"syndrome" has always been regarded as a material concept rather than a pure reason.However,theoretical scientific analysis of this presupposition is rarely reported.ObjectiveThe purpose of this study is to reflect and review the essence of syndrome by revealing the scientific connotation of the crtical issue in TCM,which is "whether syndrome is a material concept or a pure reason?",and to deduce,from the above result,the general principle of"syndrome differentiation and treatment"(SDT).MethodThis is a basic theoretical study.The methods of critique philosophy were used for qualitative analysis on the essence of syndrome.In the first half of this paper,through the fallacy analysis,it was proved that syndrome being a material concept is suspicious.In the second half,through the critique philosophical analysis we used at the first time,it was further analyzed that syndrome is a pure reason,with practical and historical evidences provided.ResultsHere we first showed that syndrome may not be a material concept,instead it has the pure reason characteristic.We searched and evaluated 76 articels of the material-based study of syndrome and found that the proof of the existence of syndrome(PES)that was pre-set in all these researches was a kind of empirism proof(100%).In addition,we also found other 2 kinds of PESs,namely cosmological proof and ontological proof,from other TCM literatures.Based on the fallacy analysis,through the analysis of the logical structure of these 3 kinds of PESs,it was found that all of these proofs are fallacious,suggesting synd;rome being a material concept is suspicious.Meanwhile,we introduced and applied the critique philosophical method at the first time.By the affirmation that syndrome is a kind of universal and objective knowledge,we found by analysis that the possible condition for“syndrome differentiation"(SD)is "infinity".Since "infinity" is solely a pure reason and cannot be obtained from the material world,the result of analysis that"infinity" is the possible condition of SD explained that syndrome has the pure reason characteristic.Finally,based on the above results,we deduced that the SDT in TCM is a dialectical process of integration between material concept and pure reason,and the link between "syndrome",the pure reason,and "clinical appearance,treatments",the material concept,is transcendental.Analogy strategies is used for the linkage.ConclusionThe discussion of the essence of syndrome may provide important theoretical information for the basic study and the cultural study of TCM.Our research showed that syndrome has the pure reason characteristic and the general principle of SDT is transcendental.The results may have a positive effect on perfecting the spiritual identification,promoting the cultural self-confidence,and facilitating the creative transformation of TCM.More internal reviews and interdisciplinary comparisons are needed to confirm their validity in the future.