Philosophy of Medicine (Nov 2024)

Intrinsic Kinds in Internal Medicine

  • Ilana Raburn

DOI
https://doi.org/10.5195/pom.2024.189
Journal volume & issue
Vol. 5, no. 1

Abstract

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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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