Gadamer's 'apologia for the art of healing': an application to gerontological nursing practice.

This paper will discuss Hans-George Gadamer's 'The Enigma of Health' Chapter 2, 'Apologia for the Art of Healing's (1965). In this chapter, Gadamer defends the art of healing as essentially an ability to reproduce and re-establish the health of an ill person. He considers modern medicine's progressive reliance on technology as mechanical rather than an art of healing. In support of this concept, I will also refer to Gadamer's Chapter 6, 'Between Nature and Art' and briefly to Beardsworth's 'Practices of Procrastination'. First, I will discuss the above works showing how the authors make their arguments and what conclusions they draw, and then I will relate these arguments and conclusions to nursing, gerontological nursing in particular.