What counts as a disease and why does it matter?

APSE-CEU-IVC Talks
The Philosophy Department of the Central European University, the Institute Vienna Circle and the Unit for Applied Philosophy of Science and Epistemology (of the Department of Philosophy of the University of Vienna) are jointly organizing a series of talks this term

Date: 17/03/2022

Time: 15h00

Online Plattform: The meeting will be online via Zoom | Talks in Philosophy of Science and Epistemology PSE

Access:

univienna.zoom.us/j/61475205762

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Abstract:

I defend a radically pragmatist, radically pluralist account of disease. I claim that a wide variety of stakeholders make use of the concept of disease, and the concept serves irreducibly different purposes in different kinds of projects. There is just no unified notion of disease underlying these diverse strategic uses of the concept.  I argue that something is a disease if it is strategically useful to medicalize it, but there is often no unified answer to whether this is so. It is an implication of my account that there could be no diseases were there no institution of medicine. I explore and try to dissolve some of the seeming philosophical problems with such a claim.