Explaining Disease: Philosophical Reflections on Medical Research and Clinical Practice (European Studies in Philosophy of Science)

This interdisciplinary monograph in philosophy of medicine examines models of explanation in health science and their relation with current medical trends, such as personalized and person-centered medicine. Medicine has provided challenging case studies for the general philosophy of science that have prompted rethinking of a wide range of philosophical notions – such as scientific law, theory and evidence – and contributed to the elaboration of pluralistic approaches to modeling, causality and explanation. The health sciences have increasingly recognized the role of philosophy of medicine as both a field of conceptual and methodological reflection, capable of addressing practical issues, and hence relevant for a proper understanding of the construction of medical knowledge, modeling practices, therapeutic strategies and preventive decisions. 'Explaining Disease' contains various case studies in medicine to describe the assumptions underpinning the construction of explanatory models of diseases. It shows the impact different explanatory strategies can have on practical matters, which in turn affect clinical evaluation and therapy and public health decisions. The book concludes with a few open-ended reflections to foster more thorough consideration of the role of philosophy of medicine can play its dialogue with the health sciences. [this sounds wrong. Either: of the role of philosophy of medicine in its dialogue with the sciences, or: of the role philosophy of medicine can play in its dialogue with the health sciences. Contents Chapter 1: Scientific Explanation: Theoretical Issues and Practical Implications 1.1 Scientific Explanation and Explaining Disease 1.2 Explanatory Questions and Explanatory Relations: What We Explain, and How 1.3 Explanations and Their Contexts 1.3.1 Plurality and Pluralisms 1.3.2 Does the Context Make a Difference? Chapter 2: Processes, Mechanisms, and Mechanistic Models 2.1 Mechanistic Approaches and Mechanisms in the Health Sciences 2.2 Mechanisms and Processes 2.3 From Epistemic to Ontic Explanation, and Back Chapter 3: Causal Evidence and Causal Explanations 3.1 Causal Explanation and Kinds of Causal Evidence 3.2 What Counts as Causal Evidence, and Why It Matters: Some Hints from the History of Causal Assessment in the Health Sciences 3.2.1 History of Research on Cholera, and von Pettenkofer’s “Lonesome Death” 3.2.2 The Zika virus. Causal Assessment and Causal Criteria 3.3 Causal Assessment and Theoretical (Mis-)Understanding Chapter 4: Complexity and Integration 4.1 Explanation and Complexity: Some Philosophical Issues from Cancer Studies 4.2 Cancer as a Complex Disease 4.3 Integrative Clustering 4.4 Taming Complexity: Medical Tools and Philosophical Explorations Chapter 5: Complexity and Resilience 5.1 A Mechanistic Explanatory Approach in the Mental Health Sciences: Promises and Limits 5.2 On Cognitive Reserve and Psychiatric Resilience 5.3 Psychiatric Resilience and Organization: Epistemological Challenges to Explanatory Practice Chapter 6: Functions and Functional Explanations 6.1 On some Philosophical Approaches to Functions 6.2 Functional Explanations and Explaining Diseases 6.3 Functional Explanations and Explanatory Practice Chapter 7: Interventionist Explanations 7.1 Woodward’s Interventionist Account 7.2 Interventionist Explanations in the Health Sciences 7.3 Interventions, Actions, and (or?) Causes 7.3.1 Gillies’ Action-Related Theory of Causality 7.3.2 Counterfactuals, Interventions and Causation Chapter 8: Varieties of Pluralism: A Qualified Defence 8.1 Plurality, Pluralisms and the Health Sciences 8.2 Should We All Be Pluralist? References Index