The Philosophy of Disease

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.

Benjamin Smart's short philosophical volume is a model of clarity for students, teachers, and practitioners in relevant domains, beyond philosophy, of anthropological and psychological, bio-medical and socio-cultural research. (R.A. Goodrich, metapsychology online reviews, Vol. 22 (5), January, 2018)

Autorentext
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
Acknowledgements
List of abbreviations
Introduction

1. 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 disease
2. 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 condition
3. 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 causation
4. 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 causes
5. Concluding Remarks