Elena Popa

Some philosophers argue that pragmatist accounts of causation require accepting perspectivalism—the view that causation depends on an agent’s perspective. This paper critically evaluates this inference by examining Price’s arguments for perspectivalism and against Woodward’s view. I demonstrate that Price’s positive argument rests on an unacceptable premise, and drawing on Woodward’s work, I propose a pragmatist realist view of causation that survives Price’s criticisms. This pragmatist realism identifies causes through human concerns and practices, but treats the causal relation as objective and independent of agential perspectives. The paper concludes by showing Ismael’s perspectivalist view is consistent with pragmatist realism.

In a recent paper, Harriet Fagerberg argues that the disease debate in the philosophy of medicine makes little sense as conceptual analysis but instead should proceed on the assumption that disease is a real kind. I propose an alternative view. The history and practice of medicine give us reasons to doubt that the category of disease forms a real kind. Instead, drawing on work by Quill R. Kukla, I argue that the disease debate makes good sense on an understanding of disease as an institutional kind. As well as explaining key features of the disease debate, this can facilitate a philosophical understanding of disease that captures the eclectic scope of medicine and the complex reasons why conditions get classified as diseases.