An Institutional Philosophy of Chiropractic

The following article examines the difficulty of establishing a philosophy of chiropractic for a college that has enough consistency, coherence and integration throughout the curriculum to constitute a body of knowledge. It proposes a consensus model for developing such a paradigm based on faculty debate and input. The report then examines two attempts to achieve this at the Canadian Memorial Chiropractic College and the Los Angeles College of Chiropractic. From this work the major traditional tenets of chiropractic have been identified. This consists of at least five distinct philosophies: vitalism, holism, naturalism, conservatism and critical rationalism. From these is derived a distinct chiropractic paradigm of health and health care. The paper then examines the implications of these for a curriculum.