DEFINING DISEASE: DESCRIPTION AND EXPLANATION IN THE NATURALIZATION OF THE CONCEPT OF DISEASE
DEFINING DISEASE: DESCRIPTION AND EXPLANATION IN THE NATURALIZATION OF THE CONCEPT OF DISEASE

Summary/Abstract: In his paper “The naturalization of the concept of disease” (2015) M. Lemoine offers a constructive critique of the naturalist/normativist debate. He argues that philosophers of both camps attempt to define the concept of disease by relying on the pre-naturalized notion of the disease. These pre-naturalized concepts Lemoine identifies with mere phenomenal descriptions of the disease while naturalized ones defines as those that involve causal explanations. My main goal in this paper is to show that such distinction cannot be found within ontogenetic cognitive development or in the history of medical knowledge and as such is not viable. At the end of the paper I offer a different account of what went wrong with the naturalist/normativist. Unlike Lemoine, I propose that the definitions of disease that naturalists and normativists come up with are the result not of the analysis of some descriptive concepts of disease but rather of the armchair analysis with no footing in everyday practice of ordinary people or medical practitioners.

• Details
• Contents