Philosophy of Medicine: Should It Be Teleologically or Socially Constructed?

2001 ◽  
Vol 11 (2) ◽  
pp. 169-180 ◽  
Author(s):  
Edmund D. Pellegrino
Metagnosis ◽  
2020 ◽  
pp. 200-232
Author(s):  
Danielle Spencer

This chapter explores the second stage of the metagnostic narrative arc: subversion. Following the conception of a metagnostic revelation as both recognition and misrecognition, it examines the ways in which the revelation may unsettle labels and categories. First, central concepts of disability studies are introduced and explored, and it is suggested that terms such as disability and impairment are illuminated and interrogated by a metagnostic revelation, as it breaches the expected mapping between body and classification. Indeed, situating a given revelation requires a sudden renegotiation of the ontological balance between biological impairment and socially constructed disability, and also subverts customary narrative strategies for situating disability. Second, the individual’s relationship with a given disease is seen anew and challenged in light of metagnosis, as are concepts of disease, illness, and sickness. This chapter also serves as an introduction to key concepts in disability studies and philosophy of medicine.


2020 ◽  
pp. 66-74
Author(s):  
E. Zakablukovskiy

The article highlights certain aspects of the discussion on the topic of reductionism vs. holism in the philosophy of medicine. Classic radical reductionism is defeated by the concept of emergence. The s.c. bio-medical point of view on a malady, despite its relevance and clear benefit, is not recognized as universal as its adherents may claim, and it yields to an integral psycho-bio-social model. The author introduces a new classification of holism (vitalistic, social and individualistic) and makes appropriate recommendations to clinicians. It is social holism at the macro level that has proven effective in combating the spread of COVID-19.


Author(s):  
Jens Beckert ◽  
Richard Bronk

This chapter provides a theoretical framework for considering how imaginaries and narratives interact with calculative devices to structure expectations and beliefs in the economy. It analyses the nature of uncertainty in innovative market economies and examines how economic actors use imaginaries, narratives, models, and calculative practices to coordinate and legitimize action, determine value, and establish sufficient conviction to act despite the uncertainty they face. Placing the themes of the volume in the context of broader trends in economics and sociology, the chapter argues that, in conditions of widespread radical uncertainty, there is no uniquely rational set of expectations, and there are no optimal strategies or objective probability functions; instead, expectations are often structured by contingent narratives or socially constructed imaginaries. Moreover, since expectations are not anchored in a pre-existing future reality but have an important role in creating the future, they become legitimate objects of political debate and crucial instruments of power in markets and societies.


Author(s):  
Marilyn Fernandez

Does the burgeoning Indian Information Technology (IT) sector represent a deviation from the historical arc of caste inequality or has it become yet another site of discrimination? Those who claim that the sector is caste-free believe that IT is an equal opportunity employer, and that the small Dalit footprint is due to the want of merit. But they fail to consider how caste inequality sneaks in by being layered on socially constructed ‘pure merit’, which favours upper castes and other privileged segments, but handicaps Dalits and other disadvantaged groups. In this book, Fernandez describes how the practice of pure and holistic merit are deeply embedded in the social, cultural, and economic privileges of the dominant castes and classes, and how caste filtering has led to the reproduction of caste hierarchies and consequently the small Dalit footprint in Indian IT.


2010 ◽  
Vol 38 (3) ◽  
pp. 564-579 ◽  
Author(s):  
Janet E. Lord ◽  
David Suozzi ◽  
Allyn L. Taylor

The United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (the CRPD or the Convention), adopted on December 13, 2006, and entered into force on May 3, 2008, constitutes a key landmark in the emerging field of global health law and a critical milestone in the development of international law on the rights of persons with disabilities. At the time of its adoption, the U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights heralded the CRPD as a rejection of the understanding of persons with disabilities “as objects of charity, medical treatment and social protection” and an embrace of disabled people as “subjects of rights.”The text of the Convention itself, and the highly participatory process by which it was negotiated, signal a definitive break from previous international approaches that focused on disability within a medical model framework. In contrast to traditional approaches, the CRPD embraces a social model of disability, concentrating the disability experience not in individual deficiency, but in the socially constructed environment and the barriers that impede the participation of persons with disabilities in society.


2020 ◽  
Vol 4 (Supplement_1) ◽  
pp. 575-575
Author(s):  
Pamela Saunders

Abstract Sociolinguistics and discourse analysis provide tools through which to examine how friendship is socially constructed through language and communication. Research on social isolation and loneliness reveals the importance of social interaction on the psychological and physical health of older adults. Given that linguistic, communicative, and functional abilities decline as dementia progresses, it is challenging to identify markers of friendship. The Friendship Project is an ethnographic study of social interaction among persons with dementia living in a long-term care setting. The data are from transcripts and field-notes of social interactions among residents with a range of cognitive impairments over a six-month time period. Results reveal that persons with dementia employ specific linguistic features such as narrative, evaluation, evidentials, and pronominal reference to make meaning and create relationships over time. Practical implications will be discussed.


2021 ◽  
pp. 251484862110249
Author(s):  
Jessica C Barnes ◽  
Jason A Delborne

Innovations in genetics and genomics have been heavily critiqued as technologies that have widely supported the privatization and commodification of natural resources. However, emerging applications of these tools to ecological restoration challenge narratives that cast genetic technoscience as inevitably enrolled in the enactment and extension of neoliberal capitalism. In this paper, we draw on Langdon Winner’s theory of technological politics to suggest that the context in which genetic technologies are developed and deployed matters for their political outcomes. We describe how genetic approaches to the restoration of functionally extinct American chestnut trees—by non-profit organizations, for the restoration of a wild, heritage forest species, and with unconventional intellectual property protections—are challenging precedents in the political economy of plant biotechnology. Through participant observation, interviews with scientists, and historical analysis, we employ the theoretical lens provided by Karl Polanyi’s double movement to describe how the anticipations and agency of the developers of blight-resistant American chestnut trees, combined with chestnut biology and the context of restoration, have thus far resisted key forms of the genetic privatization and commodification of chestnut germplasm. Still, the politics of blight-resistant American chestnut remain incomplete and undetermined; we thus call upon scholars to use the uneven and socially constructed character of both technologies and neoliberalism to help shape this and other applications of genetic technoscience for conservation.


2021 ◽  
pp. 1-18
Author(s):  
Rory Cormac ◽  
Calder Walton ◽  
Damien Van Puyvelde

Abstract Covert action has long been a controversial tool of international relations. However, there is remarkably little public understanding about whether it works and, more fundamentally, about what constitutes success in this shadowy arena of state activity. This article distills competing criteria of success and examines how covert actions become perceived as successes. We develop a conceptual model of covert action success as a social construct and illustrate it through the case of ‘the golden age of CIA operations’. The socially constructed nature of success has important implications not just for evaluating covert actions but also for using, and defending against, them.


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