Paracetamol, poison, and polio: Why Boorse's account of function fails to distinguish health and disease
British Journal for the Philosophy of Science 61 (2):241-264 (2010)
| Abstract | Christopher Boorse's Bio Statistical Theory (BST) defines health as the absence of disease, and disease as the adverse departure from normal species functioning. This paper presents a two-pronged problem for this account. First I demonstrate that, in order to accurately account for dynamic physiological functions, Boorse's account of normal function needs to be modified to index functions against situations. I then demonstrate that if functions are indexed against situations, the BST can no longer account for diseases that result from specific environmental factors. The BST is impaled on either horn of this dilemma and therefore must be dismissed | |||||||||
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