A Pragmatic Approach to Conceptualization of Health and Disease.

• Superior document: Philosophy and Medicine Series ; v.151
• Author: Schermer, Maartje.
• TeilnehmendeR: Binney, Nicholas.
• Place / Publishing House: Cham : : Springer International Publishing AG,, 2024.; ©2024.
• Year of Publication: 2024
• Edition: 1st ed.
• Language: English
• Series: Philosophy and Medicine Series
• Physical Description: 1 online resource (332 pages)

Table of Contents

Intro -- Acknowledgement -- Contents -- About the Editors -- About the Authors -- Chapter 1: Introduction -- Chapter 2: Prologue: A Pragmatist Approach to Conceptualization of Health and Disease -- 2.1 Introduction -- 2.2 Background Assumptions and Theoretical Starting Points -- 2.3 Connections with Classical Pragmatism -- 2.4 Problematic Situations Related to Health and Disease Concepts -- 2.4.1 Patients with Symptoms but No Pathology Are Not Understood as Diseased -- 2.4.2 Patients with Pathology or `Biomarkers´ but No Symptoms Are Understood as Diseased -- 2.4.3 Preventive Medicine Aimed at Preventing Pathology or Pathophysiology, as Opposed to Symptoms -- 2.4.4 Overdiagnosis -- 2.4.5 The False Presumption that Patients with the Same Disease Are Homogeneous -- 2.4.6 Problems with the Notion of Health -- 2.4.7 Institutional Designation of the Sick Role -- 2.5 Final Remarks -- References -- Chapter 3: Nature and Culture in Health and Disease: Historical Strategies in Medical Diagnostics for Navigating Between Criti... -- 3.1 Introduction: Diagnostic Essentialism and Nominalism -- 3.2 Diagnosis and Diagnostics Since the Nineteenth Century -- 3.3 Theories of Diagnosis in the 1920s: Crookshank, Koch and Vaihinger´s `As-If´ -- 3.4 Conclusion -- References -- Chapter 4: Epistemic Inclusion and the Silence of the Patients -- 4.1 Introduction -- 4.2 The Silence of the Patients -- 4.3 From Continuity to Discontinuity -- 4.4 Epistemic Inclusion -- References -- Chapter 5: The Variety of Historiographical Medical Relativism -- 5.1 Introduction -- 5.2 Cunningham on Incommensurability and Retrospective Diagnosis -- 5.3 Jewson´s Medical Cosmologies and the Modes of Production -- 5.4 Mol on Enactment and Ontological Politics -- 5.5 The Spectrum of Relativism -- 5.6 Cunningham´s Relativism of Distance.

5.7 Is Cunningham Is Committed to Equal-Validity Relativism? -- 5.8 Jewson´s Locality-Relativism -- 5.9 Mol´s Ontological Relativism: Between Equal Validity and Distance -- 5.10 Summary and Conclusions -- References -- Chapter 6: Cultivate Your Own Garden-Some Reflections on Martin Kusch´s Overview of Relativism in Medical History -- References -- Chapter 7: Is There an Epistemic Role for History in Medicine? Thinking About Thyroid Cancer -- 7.1 Introduction -- 7.2 Cancer and Malignancy in the Nineteenth Century -- 7.3 Bringing Order to Chaos: 1900-1950 -- 7.4 Differentiated and Undifferentiated Tumours -- 7.5 Papillary Carcinomas Comprised Mostly of Follicles -- 7.6 Papillary Carcinoma with no Papillary Structures at All -- 7.7 Lumps that Needed Splitting -- 7.8 Conclusion -- References -- Chapter 8: A Plea for More History -- 8.1 Is it Important? -- 8.2 Is it Convincing? -- 8.3 How to Make it Even More Historical? -- References -- Chapter 9: Scope Validity in Medicine -- 9.1 Introduction -- 9.2 Validity, Scope, and Scope Validity -- 9.2.1 Validity Concepts and the Guiding Ideal of a Construct -- 9.2.2 The Logic of Validation in Animal Models of Human Diseases -- 9.2.3 Scope Validity -- 9.3 Towards a Relational Epistemology -- 9.3.1 A Particularistic Perspective on Disease -- 9.3.2 Scoping Methods -- 9.4 Conclusion -- References -- Chapter 10: Scope Validity in Medicine: An Asset to the Epidemiologist´s Armoury -- References -- Chapter 11: The Biomarkerization of Alzheimer´s Disease: From (Early) Diagnosis to Anticipation? -- 11.1 Introduction -- 11.2 Biomarkers for Alzheimer´s Disease: Food for Thought -- 11.2.1 NIA-AA 2011 -- 11.2.2 NIA-AA 2018 -- 11.2.3 Draft NIA-AA 2023 -- 11.3 Biomarkers and Disease -- 11.4 AD Biomarkers: Promising Homogeneity and Certainty, Producing Heterogeneity and Probabilities.

11.5 Implications for AD, With or Without Symptoms -- 11.6 Towards Anticipatory Healthcare -- 11.7 In Conclusion -- References -- Chapter 12: Biomarking Life -- 12.1 Do Biomarkers Promote a Shift from Ontological Concepts to Physiological Concepts? -- 12.2 Are Biomarkers Responsible for the Shift to Anticipation? -- 12.3 Do Biomarkers Decouple Disease from Suffering and Put the Person at the Center? -- 12.4 From Marking (What Is) Bad to Defining What Is Good -- 12.5 Conclusion -- References -- Chapter 13: Risk and Disease: Two Alternative Ways of Modelling Health Phenomena -- 13.1 Introduction -- 13.2 Explaining the Blurring of the Disease-Risk Distinction -- 13.2.1 The Plasticity of the Concepts of Risk and Risk Factor -- 13.2.2 About the Distinction Between Cause(s) of Disease and Disease -- 13.2.3 Probabilistic Modelling of Chronic Diseases -- 13.3 Limits of the Functionalist Conceptual Analysis of Disease for the Risk-Disease Distinction -- 13.3.1 The Functionalist Criterion for the Risk-Disease Distinction -- 13.3.2 Risk Level Is Used to Determine the Threshold for Disease -- 13.4 Risk Beyond the Normal-Pathological Dichotomy: An Alternative Gradualist Approach of Health -- 13.4.1 The Epidemiological Risk Approach as an Alternative Way of Modelling Health Phenomena -- 13.4.2 Neither Normal Nor Pathological -- 13.4.3 Advantages of the Risk Approach and a Gradualist Concept of Health -- 13.4.4 Challenges for the Risk Approach and a Gradualist Concept of Health -- 13.5 Conclusion -- References -- Chapter 14: Fundamental Concepts in Medicine: Why Risk and Disease Are Likely to Stay on Board -- References -- Chapter 15: A Pragmatic Approach to Understanding the Disease Status of Addiction -- 15.1 Introduction -- 15.2 The Vague Cluster Account -- 15.2.1 Vagueness -- 15.2.2 Cluster Concept Structure -- 15.2.3 Disease as a Vague Cluster Concept.

15.3 Addiction as a Borderline Disease -- 15.3.1 Dysfunction -- 15.3.2 Harm -- 15.3.3 Explanation in Biological/Psychological Terms -- 15.3.4 Lack of Direct Conscious Control -- 15.3.5 Conclusion on the disease status of addiction -- 15.4 Pragmatic Considerations in Specifying the Disease Status of Addiction -- 15.4.1 Pragmatic Reasons for Considering Addiction a Disease -- 15.4.2 Reasons Against Taking Addiction to Be a Disease -- 15.5 How Should We Precisify `Disease´ in the Case of Addiction? -- 15.6 Conclusion -- References -- Chapter 16: Addiction and Its Ambiguities: Some Comments from History -- 16.1 Contested Nature of Disease Status -- 16.1.1 The Addiction-Or Substance Use Disorder-Spectrum -- 16.2 Harmfulness of Drugs and Drug Policies -- References -- Chapter 17: Pragmatism in the Fray: Constructing Futures for `Medically Unexplained Symptoms´ -- 17.1 Introduction -- 17.2 A Change of Scene -- 17.3 Turning the Tables on `Somatisation´ -- 17.4 How to Take Symptoms Seriously? -- 17.4.1 `Forget (Biomedical) Explanation!´ -- 17.4.2 `Patients Need (Good) Explanations!´ -- 17.5 The Symptoms Clinic: Explanations as a Wager on an Unfinished Present -- 17.6 Conclusion: Choose Your Pragmatism Carefully -- References -- Chapter 18: The Bodily Deficit in Contemporary Healthcare -- References -- Chapter 19: Conceptual Engineering Health: A Historical-Philosophical Analysis of the Concept of Positive Health -- 19.1 Introduction -- 19.2 A Brief History of the Concept of Positive Health -- 19.2.1 Prelude -- 19.2.2 A Conference and a Position Paper -- 19.2.3 Developing the `New, Dynamic Concept´ into Positive Health -- 19.2.4 Uptake and Implementation -- 19.2.5 Critique -- 19.3 Conceptual Engineering -- 19.3.1 A New Meta-semantical Theory and Philosophical Methodology -- 19.3.2 The Target of Conceptual Engineering.

19.3.3 Conceptual Engineering in and for Medicine -- 19.4 Methods for Concept Evaluation -- 19.4.1 A Functional Approach -- 19.4.2 Carnapian Explication -- 19.4.3 Ameliorative Analysis -- 19.5 Assessing the Adequacy of Positive Health -- 19.5.1 Method of Choice -- 19.5.2 Through the Lens of Pragmatic Carnapian Explication -- Clarifying the Explicandum and Identifying the Task -- Assessing the Adequacy of the Proposed Explicatum -- 19.5.3 Through the Lens of Ameliorative Analysis -- Critical Analysis -- Assessing the Adequacy of the Ameliorative Concept -- 19.6 Conclusion -- References -- Chapter 20: On the Social and Material Lives of Health Concepts in the Wild -- References -- Chapter 21: Healthism, Elite Capture, and the Pitfalls of an Expansive Concept of Health -- 21.1 Introduction -- 21.2 Healthism and the Moral and Aesthetic Meanings of Health -- 21.3 The Tyranny of the Community -- 21.4 Healthy Eating -- 21.5 Healthy Sexuality -- 21.6 Healthy Gender Identity -- 21.7 Elite Capture of the Concept of Health -- References -- Chapter 22: Pragmatism, Pluralism, Vigilance and Tools for Reflection: A Reply to Quill Kukla -- 22.1 Introduction -- 22.2 Health as a Multifaceted Term and Its Relation to Disease and Well-Being -- 22.3 Health as a Value-Laden Term and the Need for Ongoing Reflection -- 22.4 Conclusion -- References -- Chapter 23: Epilogue: Towards a Toolbox for a Pragmatist Approach to Conceptualization of Health and Disease -- 23.1 Introduction -- 23.2 Insights into Some Problematic Situations -- 23.3 Further Themes and Issues -- 23.3.1 Disease and Diseases -- 23.3.2 Context -- 23.3.3 Concepts, Conceptions and Conceptualizations -- 23.3.4 Functions and Functioning of Concepts -- 23.3.5 Continuity and Change -- 23.4 Towards a Toolbox -- 23.4.1 A Toolbox of Disease Concepts -- 23.4.2 A Pragmatist Working Method -- 23.4.3 Concluding Remarks.

References.