[The best available explanations].

In 1959, C.P. Snow distinguished between the "two cultures"--the cultures of the natural and the human sciences. Medicine, however, does not and cannot belong to only one of these two cultures. It belongs essentially to both. The reason is that medicine is governed by certain ideals about what characterises a human life in dignity. These ideals define certain basic alternatives for action as immoral, for instance not to attempt to cure illness. This being so, there are certain phenomena which medicine cannot permit itself to ignore, thus it must seek the best available explanations of such phenomena where these explanations are to be found. Often the best explanations are to be found in the human sciences. Medicine needs concepts, theories and methods which enable its practitioners to grasp meaning, to describe social relations and to understand history.