The Nature of Disease

Description

Originally published in 1987, this book is about the classification of bodily conditions into diseases. It provides a full account of the concept of disease, examining the issue of whether disease status is something we discover or invent and the issue of whether disease attributions involve implicit value judgements. It investigates whether bodily conditions fall into natural kinds and whether these debates can be settled by discovering whether there are any natural boundaries dividing conditions into diseases and non-diseases. It considers whether the notion of disease is an evaluative notion or whether judgements about disease status are purely descriptive. The issue of whether other cultures with different values are justified in making different disease judgements is also discussed. Cover Half Title Title Page Copyright Page Original Title Page Original Copyright Page Dedication Table of Contents Acknowledgments Introduction: Medicine and the Need for Philosophy Why Philosophize? Sickness or Poor Training? Defect or Decay? Habit or Disease? Symptom or Normality? Disease or Way of Life? Naughty or Ill? A Medical or Political Problem? A Role for Philosophers Chapter 1: Invention or Discovery? From Anti-Psychiatry to Anti-Medicine Values and Classification Inventing Diseases Chapter 2: Taxonomic Realism 1: Natural Kinds Taxonomic Realism Medical Taxonomic Realism Natural Kinds (1) Whewell's Criterion (2) The Cluster Criterion (3) The Explanatory Nature Criterion (4) The Law-Like Connectedness Criterion Chapter 3: Taxonomic Realism 2: Semantics Introduction Semantic Theories What Language Do We Speak? Chapter 4: The Nature of Disease Introduction Pathological Conditions Do Diseases Constitute a Natural Kind? Do Diseases have a Nominal Essence? Disease and Explanation Chapter 5: The Normal and the Pathological Introduction Do Pathological Conditions Constitute a Natural Kind? The Nominal Essence of Pathology The Nature of Norms of Health Chapter 6: The Concept of Function Introduction The Problems The Evaluative Theory The Teleological Theory The Aetiological Theory Chapter 7: The Naturalist Theory Introduction The Concept of Malfunction Disease as Malfunctioning Objections Chapter 8: The Concept of Harm Introduction The Logic of Harm Theories of Human Good Naturalist Theories (1) The Functioning Properly Theory (2) The Hedonistic Theory (3) The Desire-Satisfaction Theory The Normative Theory Chapter 9: The Normativist Theory Introduction Death, Disability, Discomfort and Disfiguration Disease as Harm Objections Chapter 10: Disease Entities as Natural Kinds Introduction Are Disease Entities Natural Kinds? Is There a Determinate Number of Pre-Existing Diseases? Chapter 11: The Semantics of Disease Terms Introduction What Medical Language Do We Speak? A Taxonomy of Terms Conclusion: When is a Disease Not a Disease? Non-Existent Diseases Conclusions Bibliography Index