Methodological Horizon for Understanding the Health-disease Process

Aims: Constructing a methodological horizon that makes possible the analytic of the health-disease process from the perspective of the philosophical hermeneutics.

Study Design: Qualitative research with interpretive hermeneutic approach.

Place and Duration of Study: Faculty of Medicine, Autonomous University of the State of Mexico, between August 2016 and July 2017.

Methodology: The theme of the study was themed to rehabilitate the methodological strategy to approach the understanding of the health-disease process. Through Foucault’s archeological method was confronted methodological work of Heidegger and Gadamer for the analytics following categories: hermeneutic situation, phenomenological reduction, phenomenological destruction and phenomenological construction; rehabilitating the medical tradition influenced by Claude Bernard, Karl Jaspers, Georges Canguilhem, Jacques Lacan, and Maurice Merleau-Ponty and Hans Jonas.

Results: The results show the structure of the methodological horizon that begins with a starting point to clarify the hermeneutical situation with the following structure: having previous, previous way of seeing and previous way of understanding. Continues with the elaboration of the horizon of meaning product of the phenomenological reduction and delimits the point of view, the direction of the gaze and the horizon of the gaze. Subsequently the destructive moment that includes two phases is developed: analytical and comprehensive. The hermeneutical task is concluded with the constructive moment in which the knowledge, explanations and understandings are incorporated, through the fusion of horizons; It includes two phases: reconstructive and critical.

Conclusion: The epistemic complexity of the health-disease process requires articulating multiple methods to understand it. Based on the methodological indications analyzed, the horizon is integrated by a point of departure and three moments: phenomenological reduction, constructive moment and deconstructive moment. This methodological approach opens horizons to the understanding of the health-disease process circumscribed to the world of life.