1,721,046 research outputs found
Causal Reasoning and Clinical Practice: Challenges from Molecular Biology
No full textNot only has the philosophical debate on causation been gaining ground in the last few decades, but it has also increasingly addressed the sciences. The biomedical sciences are among the most prominent fields that have been considered, with a number of works tackling the understanding of the notion of cause, the assessment of genuinely causal relations and the use of causal knowledge in applied contexts. Far from denying the merits of the debate on causation and the major theories it comprises, this paper is meant as a stimulus for theorists of causation in the philosophy of biomedicine, with a focus on clinical matters. Without aiming at putting forward an original theory of causation and starting from the narration of two actual but paradigmatic cases at the joints between biomedical research and clinical practice, we want to point out that some pathological situations addressed by molecular medicine actually prove resistant to (at least) some of our major epistemological accounts of causal explanation. Given this scenario, which is very frequent in our hospitals, our analysis aims to provide a stimulus for the debate among theorists of causation in biomedicine interested in real cases in science in practice. We believe that this might in turn encourage some more general rethinking of the complex intertwinement of science, philosophy of science and ethics, as well as of the role of philosophy of science for clinical medicine itself
Molecular pathways and the contextual explanation of molecular functions
Full text linkMuch of the recent philosophical debate on causation and causal explanation
in the biological and biomedical sciences has focused on the notion of mechanism.
Mechanisms, their nature and epistemic roles have been tackled by a range of
so-called neo-mechanistic theories, and widely discussed. Without denying the merits
of this approach, our paper aims to show how lately it has failed to give proper
credit to processes, which are central to the field, especially of contemporary molecular
biology. Processes can be summed up in the notion of ‘pathway’, which is far
from being just equivalent to that of ‘mechanism’ and has a profound epistemological
and explanatory relevance. It is argued that an adequate consideration of pathways
impels some rethinking of scientific explanation in molecular biology, namely
its functional and contextual features. A number of examples are given to suggest
that the focus of philosophical attention in this disciplinary field should shift from
the notion of mechanism to the notion of pathwa
What Philosophy for Medical Education? Theoretical Issues in Practice
Full text linkContinuing the international debate on teaching philosophy to
non-philosophers, we discuss why and how philosophy of science should be included in the training of young physicians.
We detail what philosophy contents and tools should be delivered, stressing that professional philosophers should teach
what biomedical students actually need. Some successful examples of philosophy courses in Italian Medical Schools are
presented, in the light of which we argue that jointly considering research issues, training initiatives, academic curricula
and institutional and organizational constraints can effectively
foster a rethinking of the role philosophy can play in medical
education – a role which might impact positively the future of
both philosophy and biomedicine
The logic of explanation in molecular biology: historical-processual and logical-procedural aspects
Full text linkThis work addresses biological explanations and aims to provide a philosophical
account which brings together logical-procedural and historical-processual aspects
when considering molecular pathways. It is argued that, having molecular features as
explananda, a particular non-classical logical language – Zsyntax – can be used to
formally represent, in terms of logical theorems, types of molecular processes (pathways), and to grasp how we get from one molecular interaction to another, hence
explaining why a given outcome occurs. Expressing types of molecular biology
processes in terms of the Zsyntax language allows us to represent causal interactions
by taking into account their context-sensitivity, and amounts to partly reviving the spirit
of the so-called received view of explanation – which aimed to capture scientific
explanatory accounts in terms of their logical structure and their appealing to nomological relations. Such a partial revival is pursued by invoking here non-classical
deductions and empirical generalisations, which are called to provide the epistemic
norms to explain the behavior of molecular pathways
Recensione a “La cura del paziente e la diversità spirituale. Per una medicina interculturale”(MIMESIS, 2024)
No full textRECENSIONE A “LA CURA DEL PAZIENTE E LA DIVERSITÀ SPIRITUALE. PER UNA
MEDICINA INTERCULTURALE”, (A CURA DI) GIOVANNI BONIOLO, ENRICA MARTINELLI
(MIMESIS, 2024
Going Beyond Counting First Authors in Author Co-citation Analysis
Full text linkThe present study examines one of the fundamental aspects of author co-citation analysis (ACA) - the way co-citation
counts are defined. Co-citation counting provides the data on which all subsequent statistical analyses and mappings
are based, and we compare ACA results based on two different types of co-citation counting - the traditional type that
only counts the first one among a cited work's authors on the one hand and a non-traditional type that takes into
account the first 5 authors of a cited work on the other hand. Results indicate that the picture produced through this non-traditional author co-citation counting contains more coherent author groups and is therefore considerably clearer. However, this picture represents fewer specialties in the research field being studied than that produced through the traditional first-author co-citation counting when the same number of top-ranked authors is selected and analyzed. Reasons for these effects are discussed
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