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Document Details : Title: Waarom we beter niet zoeken naar een definitie van ziekte Author(s): DE BLOCK, Andreas , POORTHUIS, Michiel H.F. Journal: Tijdschrift voor Filosofie Volume: 80 Issue: 3 Date: 2018 Pages: 421-441 DOI: 10.2143/TVF.80.3.3285684 Abstract : Critics of medicalization claim that normal conditions are often incorrectly considered as medical conditions. To determine the correct extension of the concept ‘disease’, one often uses a conceptual analysis. It is, however, questionable whether a conceptual analysis of ‘disease’ can determine exactly which conditions are normal and which conditions are pathological. In this article, we contest the view that the necessary and sufficient conditions (determining the semantic content of the concept ‘disease’, as provided by a successful conceptual analysis) enable us to solve the problem of so-called borderline cases. For these borderline cases, it is unclear whether the necessary and sufficient conditions are fulfilled, because our intuitive judgments fail to determine the correct status of the borderline cases. The absence of an unambiguous concept of ‘disease’, however, has fewer negative consequences than one may assume, since the prescriptive power of a (successful) conceptual analysis of ‘disease’ is often overestimated. |
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