Intrinsic Kinds in Internal Medicine

Authors

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.5195/pom.2024.189

Keywords:

Disease, Internal medicine, Intrinsic kinds, Pathogenesis

Abstract

What do we mean when we diagnose a patient with a disease? What does it mean to say that two people have the same disease? In this paper, I argue that diseases are natural kinds, using a conception of kinds derived from John Stuart Mill and Ruth Millikan. I demonstrate that each disease is a natural kind and that the shared properties occur as a result of the pathogenesis of the disease. I illustrate this with diverse examples from internal medicine and compare my account to alternative ontologies.   

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Published

2024-11-01

How to Cite

Raburn, I. (2024). Intrinsic Kinds in Internal Medicine. Philosophy of Medicine, 5(1). https://doi.org/10.5195/pom.2024.189

Issue

Vol. 5 No. 1 (2024)

Section

Original Research

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Copyright (c) 2024 Ilana Raburn

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