The Philosophy of Disease (eBook)

Benjamin Smart (Autor)

eBook Download: PDF

2016 | 1st ed. 2015
X, 100 Seiten
Palgrave Macmillan UK (Verlag)
978-1-137-55292-1 (ISBN)

Infos

The Philosophy of Disease outlines a history of the philosophy of epidemiology. It provides a hybrid naturalist/constructivist account of disease and disease individuation and looks at causal concepts with respect to different aspects of public health to show that Smart's conceptual analysis can play a prescriptive and a descriptive role.

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Disease is everywhere. Everyone experiences disease, everyone knows somebody who is, or has been diseased, and disease-related stories hit the headlines on a regular basis. Many important issues in the philosophy of disease, however, have received remarkably little attention from philosophical thinkers. This book examines a number of important debates in the philosophy of medicine, including 'what is disease?', and the roles and viability of concepts of causation, in clinical medicine and epidemiology. Where much of the existing literature targets conceptual analyses of health and disease, this book provides the reader with an insight into these debates, and develops plausible alternative accounts. The author explores a range of related subjects, discussing a host of interesting philosophical questions within clinical medicine, pathology and epidemiology. In the second part of the book, the author examines the concepts of causation employed by clinicians and pathologists,how one should classify diseases, and whether the epidemiologist's models for inferring the causes of disease are all they're cracked up to be.

Autor

Benjamin Smart was awarded his PhD by the University of Nottingham, UK, in 2012, before lecturing for two years at the University of Birmingham, UK. He joined the University of Johannesburg, South Africa, in 2014 as a Senior Research Associate, where he now works as a Senior Lecturer.

Inhalt

AcknowledgementsList of abbreviationsIntroduction1. The Concept of Disease in Clinical Medicine The maximally value laden conception – Rachel Cooper on disease The pure statistical conception The frequency and negative consequences approach, and the line-drawing problem The etiological account of function, and disease as harmful dysfunction Disease as harmful function – 'drawing the line' on the etiological account of disease2. What is a Pathological Condition? Boorse's naturalism Objections to Boorse's naturalism The frequency and negative consequences approach revisited The etiological theory of pathological condition3. Concepts of Causation in the Philosophy of Disease Causation as counterfactual dependence Clinical medicine and the dispositional account of causation The classification of diseases, and the sufficient-cause model of causation4. Causal Inference in Public Health Hill's criteria and the evidence-based medicine evidence hierarchy The epidemiologist's potential outcomes approach Hernan and Taubman's potential outcomes approach Diffusing Broadbent – a Popperian take on the potential outcomes approach The importance of nonmanipulable causes5. Concluding Remarks

Produkt-Details

• Erscheint lt. Verlag: 29.4.2016
• Zusatzinfo: X, 100 p.
• Verlagsort: London
• Sprache: englisch
• Themenwelt: Geisteswissenschaften ► Philosophie ► Allgemeines / Lexika
• Themenwelt: Geisteswissenschaften ► Philosophie ► Metaphysik / Ontologie
• Themenwelt: Studium ► Querschnittsbereiche ► Epidemiologie / Med. Biometrie
• Themenwelt: Naturwissenschaften
• Themenwelt: Technik
• Schlagworte: Boorse's naturalism • broadbent • clinical medicine • Conception • Disease • Dysfunction • epidemiology • epidemiology potential outcomes approach • etiological • Function • Health • Hernan • Karl R. Popper • line-drawing problem • Metaphysics • Pathological Condition • Public Health • Rachel Cooper,statistics • Taubma
• ISBN-10: 1-137-55292-1 / 1137552921
• ISBN-13: 978-1-137-55292-1 / 9781137552921