The Philosophy of Disease

1. Front Matter

   Pages i-x

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2. Introduction

   1. Introduction

      • Benjamin Smart

      Pages 1-3

3. The Concept of Disease

   1. Front Matter

      Pages 4-4

      PDF

   2. The Concept of Disease in Clinical Medicine

      • Benjamin Smart

      Pages 5-21

   3. What is a Pathological Condition?

      • Benjamin Smart

      Pages 22-42

4. Disease and Causation

   1. Front Matter

      Pages 43-43

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   2. Concepts of Causation in the Philosophy of Disease

      • Benjamin Smart

      Pages 44-69

   3. Population Health and Causal Inference

      • Benjamin Smart

      Pages 70-89

   4. Conclusion: Context Dependency is Rife

      • Benjamin Smart

      Pages 90-91

5. Back Matter

   Pages 92-100

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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.

• Disease
• Clinical Medicine
• Rachel Cooper,statistics
• conception
• line-drawing problem
• etiological
• function
• dysfunction
• Pathological Condition
• Boorse's naturalism
• Public Health
• epidemiology potential outcomes approach
• Hernan
• Taubma
• Broadbent
• epidemiology
• health
• Karl R. Popper
• metaphysics

“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)

• University of Johannesburg, South Africa

  Benjamin Smart

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.

Policies and ethics