Philosophers on Medicine

Philosophy of Medicine on COVID-19

During the COVID-19 pandemic, scientists and policymakers have responded with unprecedented solutions. The pandemic has also forced a rethinking of science, public health

Sean Valles - Race in epidemiology and medicine

There is renewed research and attention to race in epidemiology and medicine, partly owing to developments in population genetics. Yet race is a contested category and po

Jacob Stegenga - Medical Nihilism

Medical Nihilism. Is it vestige of a bygone age in medicine beset with treatments like mercury and bloodletting? Or the proper conclusion of a line of argument about our

Miriam Solomon - Expert consensus in medicine

In medicine, consensus statements abound. They’re issued by government agencies and professional societies as the official word on the science and practice of medicine. B

Alex Broadbent - The causes of disease

The cause of tuberculosis is the germ Mycobacterium tuberculosis. Meanwhile, the causes of heart disease are variable: smoking, sedentary lifestyle, bad genes, and so on.

Evidence-based medicine

Evidence-based medicine or EBM was introduced in the early 1990s as a move to increase medicine’s uptake of published scientific evidence, especially evidence from clinic

Mental disorders and the DSM

Mental disorders cause suffering for many and pose challenges for the psychiatric profession. Throughout history, the way that society and psychiatry have thought about m

Marc Ereshefsky - Primer on health and disease

Health and disease are two concepts that dominate our lives. Analyzing these concepts has also dominated much of the discussion in the philosophy of medicine. Is health m

Clinical Judgment

The mastery of clinical judgment is what separates the expert clinician from the novice. Yet clinical judgment remains somewhat obscure. Is it a tacit knowledge? Or one t

Matthew Parrott - Delusions

Delusions are often defined as fixed false beliefs. They run contrary to common sense or counter-evidence that would convince any rational person, like the idea that alie

Elselijn Kingma - Metaphysics of pregnancy

Often, when philosophical questions are asked about pregnancy, they concern ethical problems about abortion, surrogacy or assisted conception. But the answers to these qu

Mary Walker - Overdiagnosis and the definition of disease

In recent years, physicians and health scientists have become increasingly concerned about overdiagnosis, the problem of diagnosing too many people as having a disease, b

Jeremy Simon - Are diseases real?

I had a cold last winter, and so did countless other people. We had sore throats and runny noses and maybe even a cough. At first glance, it seems hard to deny that the c

Maya Goldenberg - Vaccine hesitancy and public trust in healthcare

Vaccine hesitancy is a cautious or critical stance towards vaccines. By some estimates, it is on the rise among the public. Medicine and public health have responded to t

Miriam Solomon - Pick your medicine: evidence-based, narrative, or precision?

Evidence-based medicine. Narrative medicine. Precision medicine. Are these the names of new schools of medicine? Or of new models for medical research or practice? Or are

Alex Broadbent - What is medicine?

What is medicine? That question certainly has the ring of a paradigmatic philosophical problem. Yet surprisingly few contemporary philosophers have devoted sustained atte

Philosophers on Medicine - A New Frontier

The Best Physician is also a Philosopher. This is the title of a book by Galen, the famous physician of Antiquity. Was Galen right? Or is it that for many problems in hea