Diagnosis
by
Every medical system features processes for assessing a patient’s complaint, distinguishing one pathological state from another, and attributing manifested symptoms to specific causes. In other words, every medical system trains practitioners in its protocols for diagnosis. From the Greek διαγιγνώσκω (distinguish, discern), diagnosis is a practice for determining “the nature of a diseased condition” (OED Online 2021, “diagnosis”). To make a diagnosis is to comment on the very nature of disease and health—if only indirectly—and diagnostic systems tacitly advance strong normative claims about states of “illness” and “health.” The ontological, sociolinguistic, sociological, anthropological, and comparative aspects of diagnosis—both entity and practice—have compelled research for decades. Broadly speaking, diagnoses do ideological work by designating certain bodies and states of being as abnormal while leaving a residual category of bodies that are considered normal and nonpathological. A diagnosis provides a name for an abnormal state of health, often adding commentary on causes and probable outcomes. Diagnoses are also typically further ordered into categories, coming to make up a taxonomy. The abstract principles that organize a diagnostic taxonomy reveal the ways of thinking common to the medical paradigm in which they are used. Recurrent questions about these abstract principles of diagnosis include the...
This essay may be found on page 55 of the printed volume.