Concept Of Arthritis Research Articles

Incomplete understanding of concepts and knowing in part what something is

Burge (1979) famously argued that one can have thoughts involving a concept C even if one’s understanding of C is incomplete. Even though this view has been extremely influential, it has also been taken by critics as less than clear. The aim of this paper is to show that the cases imagined by Burge (1979) as being ones in which incomplete understanding of concepts is involved can be made clearer given an account of direct concept ascriptions—such as “Peter has the concept of arthritis”—according to which these ascriptions are to be analysed in terms of ascriptions of the knowledge of what something is. The upshot is that the cases imagined by Burge (1979) can be explained is terms of the idea of subjects knowing in part what something is.

Incomplete Understanding, Deference, and the Content of Thought

Tyler Burge's influential arguments have convinced most philosophers that a thinker can have a thought involving a particular concept without fully grasping or having mastery of that concept. In Burge's (1979) famous example, a thinker who lacks mastery of the concept of arthritis nonetheless has thoughts involving that concept. It is generally supposed, however, that this phenomenon - incomplete understanding, for short - does not require us to reconsider in a fundamental way what it is for a thought to involve a particular concept. In this paper, I argue that the real significance of incomplete understanding has not been appreciated. To the extent that theorists of content address the phenomenon of thoughts involving incompletely grasped contents at all, they tend to assume that some hand-waving about deference to other thinkers who fully grasp the relevant concepts will take care of the inconvenient cases of incomplete understanding. The main lesson of Burge's arguments is often taken to be that the content of language and thought is socially determined. On this picture, we do not need to change our basic view about what it is to have a concept; we just need to recognize that some thinkers can manage to have a concept by piggybacking on others. In contrast, on the view I defend, taking incomplete understanding seriously forces us to rethink some of our most basic assumptions about the nature of mental content. Deference is a red herring. The role of society in determining the content of thought is not the main lesson, but at most a useful clue as to the nature of mental and linguistic content.

Social Externalism and Conceptual Errors

I offer a defence of individualism by critically examining the preconditions of Tyler Burge's famous thought-experiment involving the concept of arthritis. I argue that the thought-experiment relies on a problematic notion of conceptual error, one of which Burge himself should be critical, given his Quinean commitments. Once this misstep in the experiment is made explicit, individualism emerges as a much stronger position than it is usually taken to be. Questioning the assumption that the patient uttering ‘I have arthritis in my thigh’ makes a conceptual error makes it possible for the individualist to grant Burge the claim that the patient has the standard concept of arthritis, rather than his own deviant concept, and yet avoid the social externalist conclusions.

Aceclofenac may offer advantages in arthritis management

Although non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs) effectively relieve the pain and inflammation of osteoarthritis (OA), there remain suspicions that some, at least, may hinder the organised regrowth of cartilage. Recent in vivo research reviewed at the 15th Annual Meeting of the British Society for Rheumatology [ Brighton, UK; April 1998 ] during a symposium entitled ‘Current concepts in arthritis: reviewing the evidence’, suggests that not all NSAIDs are equivalent in this respect. * Aceclofenac has recently been shown to increase cartilage synthesis in chondrocytes cultured from patients with OA and rheumatoid arthritis (RA), but not in those from controls. Some NSAIDs exert an inhibitory effect on cartilage synthesis which can be associated with clinical deterioration, while others are neutral with respect to cartilage formation. The balance between efficacy and tolerability has always been problematic for NSAIDs, particularly as many patients who take these drugs for OA are elderly. The results of a meta-analysis focusing on patient compliance, which were also shown to delegates at the congress, revealed a clear and significant advantage for aceclofenac in terms of compliance and tolerability in patients with OA and RA.

A Resume of Some of the Current Concepts in Arthritis

From the Buffalo General Hospital and the School of Medicine, University of Buffalo.

A Simplified Concept of Arthritis

A Simplified Concept of Arthritis

A Concept of Arthritis

OUT of the great wilderness of pain the word “rheumatism” was born. It conveys an idea: it is not a diagnosis. Fortunately, it satisfies the less exacting laymen, but, unfortunately, too many members of our profession frequently submit it as a diagnosis to obviate a painstaking and skillful examination. “Rheumatism” is the refuge of careless doctors, who frequently learn too late that pain is a symptom of malignancy. Joint troubles are inevitable when joint conditions become chronic. From this fact there has developed a bewildering nomenclature, irrational ideas of etiology, confusing attempts at pathological classifications, and a mass of therapeutic hodge-podge, unrivalled by any disease except tuberculosis. When pulmonary tuberculosis was “consumption,” glandular tuberculosis was “King's evil,” and joint tuberculosis was “white swelling.” Miasma was the cause and the King's touch the cure. In our thinking concerning chronic infective arthritis, we are not far removed from the idea of the King's touch. It was only in 1907 that Nichols and Richardson, finding interest in the subject of arthritis from a pathological viewpoint, produced a series of observations which have remained classical in their description, and for a long time to come will form the basis upon which the condition is studied. They were not interested in the treatment, but they did reach the conclusion that, whether or not it was hypertrophic, atrophic, or mixed in character, all manifestations were infectious in origin, and were probably caused by the same organisms. The number of classifications of arthritis is almost as numerous as the number of men who have made a study of the condition. We claim nothing new, other than perhaps our approach to the practical business of diagnosing and treating arthritic conditions. We accept the classifications made by various workers as correct. When studying and treating chronic diseases we must be cautious in arriving at conclusions. We must keep in mind that there are but few healthy persons, and as investigators of particular conditions we must not be misled by our findings. Many obscure factors enter into the cause of disease, which, though obscure, may be very real. Identity of lesion does not signify identity of cause, and there are some peculiar fads unexplained in symbiotic relationships. The streptococcus causes many diseases and sometimes causes the train of symptoms and physical findings designated as arthritis. One may say that a patient suffering with a chronic streptococcic infection becomes physiologically old, regardless of age. Joint lesions, especially cartilagenous lesions, may have relatively slight power of repair, and with any method of actual cure, the functional restoration is impossible. The pathology of streptococcic infected tissue tends to progress, with long periods of remission. Many enthusiastic claims of cures in reality but represent these remissions.