Diagnostic Hypotheses and Practical Judgments: Towards a Characterization of Clinical Reasoning

In this article I lay the foundations towards a tentative characterization of clinical reasoning, one that highlights its reflective and inferential character, as well as its fallibility and orientation towards action. To this end, I put forward some epistemic considerations on medical knowledge followed by addressing the following questions: what tools exist for teaching clinical reasoning? and how to develop a clinical competence through critical thinking? Moreover, I offer an overview of clinical reasoning through the lenses of two theoretical perspectives in philosophy: the cognitive and the logico-argumentative and finally, I put forward my own approach belonging to the latter one.