Advances in Experimental Philosophy of Medicine

Abstract

This open access collection brings together a team of leading scholars and rising stars to consider what experimental philosophy of medicine is and can be. While experimental philosophy of science is an established field, attempts to tackle issues in philosophy of medicine from an experimental angle are still surprisingly scarce. A team of interdisciplinary scholars demonstrate how we can make progress by integrating a variety of methods from experimental philosophy, including experiments, sociological surveys, simulations, as well as history and philosophy of science, in order to yield meaningful results about the core questions in medicine. They focus on concepts central to philosophy of medicine and medical practice, such as death, pain, disease and disorder, advance directives, medical explanation, disability and informed consent. Presenting empirical findings and providing a crucial foundation for future work in this dynamic field, this collection explores new ways for philosophers to cooperate with scientists and reveals the value of these collaborations for both philosophy and medicine. The eBook editions of this book are available open access under a CC BY-NC-ND 4.0 licence on bloomsburycollections.com. Open access was funded by the European Research Council Starting Grant. This volume presents a sample of exciting new ‘naturalistic’ work on quasi-perennial topics in the philosophy of medicine, such as the demarcation of disease, life, death, pain and disability. Some chapters engage surveys and vignettes, others use corpus analysis or simulations, while others offer interesting reflections on how such experimental philosophy touches upon other new developments in philosophy (of medicine), such as conceptual engineering. A couple of contributions mainly focus on the limitations of experimental philosophy of medicine, and point out potential problems with its assumptions or goals.