Explaining Cancer by Anya Plutynski, Hardcover | Indigo Chapters

This book addresses a variety of philosophical questions that arise in the context of the scientific study of cancer and medicine. In particular, it uses scientific debates about classification, diagnosis, the cell and molecular biology of cancer, environmental epidemiology, and evolutionarymedicine as a launching point for philosophical analysis. For instance, chapter one concerns how scientists classify cancer, and whether (or in what sense) these classifications reflect nature's "joints". Chapter two concerns the problem of drawing a line between disease and disease risk, particularly in the context of early stage cancers. Chapter three is concerned with centrality of mechanistic and (broadly) reductive approaches to cancer causation, and criticisms of that approach in the scientific literature. Chapter four concerns environmental epidemiology and standards ofevidence for claims about exogenous causes of cancer. Last but not least, chapter five concerns how evolutionary and developmental history have made us vulnerable to cancer. These questions are an entree into a family of longstanding philosophical debates about natural classification in science and medicine, the problem of drawing the line between disease and health, the centrality of mechanistic reasoning in science, pragmatics and evidence, the roles of models andmodeling in science, and the nature of scientific explanation. | Explaining Cancer by Anya Plutynski, Hardcover | Indigo Chapters