Is the Disease Concept Enough?
Redefining Health and Disease Through Conceptual Engineering
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.5195/pom.2026.228Keywords:
Disease, Health, Depression, AddictionAbstract
In the philosophy of medicine, the debate surrounding accounts of health and disease is typically centered on attempts to provide a proper conceptual analysis of a singular medicalized label, such as “disease,” that is meant to represent all pathological states. Instead of engaging in conceptual analysis, I attempt to redefine our concepts of health and disease through the process of conceptual engineering. To do so, I propose a novel hybrid account of health and disease and demonstrate how, by combining aspects of naturalist and constructionist accounts and distinguishing between two different medicalized labels—“disease” and “health condition”—my account can better serve the purposes of these concepts.
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