ABSTRACT
In this chapter we shall be concerned with the sort of knowledge on which medicine and social work are based. At first sight it seems obviously correct to say that medicine is based on the natural sciences and social work on the social sciences. We shall later argue that this claim is greatly oversimplified and shall suggest fundamental ways in which it ought to be modified, but there is a lot to be said for assuming the distinction as a working hypothesis. We shall therefore begin by examining the nature of the natural sciences on which medicine is thought to be founded.
