Experiential knowledge: From philosophical debate to health care practice?

Abstract

Despite experience-based expertise being increasingly common in health care, what experiential knowledge consists of remains a topic for debate. Here I propose a philosophical approach to clarify experiential knowledge, drawing on an analogous debate in philosophy of mind, which similarly targets the intuition that experience may generate unique knowledge. I outline the philosophical debate and explicate some relevant ideas for health care, so as to (a) evaluate whether and to what extent this analogous debate is helpful, and (b) supplement existing ideas on experiential knowledge with a philosophical analysis.