What is medical knowledge? Can medicine be explained scientifically? Is disease a scientific concept or do explanations of disease depend on values? What is 'evidence-based' medicine? Are advances in neuroscience bringing us closer to a scientific understanding of the mind?
The nature of medicine raises fundamental questions about explanation, causality, knowledge and ontology - questions that are central to both philosophy and medicine. This book presents the fundamental questions of the philosophy of medicine for those approaching the subject for the first time, including:
- Understanding the doctor-patient relationship: the phenomenology of the medical encounter.
- Models and theories in biology and medicine: what role do theories play in medicine? Are they similar to scientific theories?
- Randomised controlled trials: can scientific experiments be replicated in clinical medicine? What are the philosophical criticisms directed at RCTs?
- The concept of evidence in medical research: what do we mean by 'evidence-based medicine'? Should all medicine be based on evidence?
- Causality in medicine.
- What do advances in neuroscience reveal about the relationship between mind and body?
- Defining health and illness: are explanations of illness objective or value-dependent?
- Evolutionary medicine: what is the role of evolutionary biology in understanding medicine? Does it make a difference?
Extensive use of empirical examples and case studies is covered throughout, including debates about smoking and cancer, the use of placebos in randomised controlled trials, the controversy over PSA testing and investigating the causes of HIV. This is an indispensable introduction to philosophy of medicine and philosophy of science lectures.