Tag Archives: philosophy of medicine

The Oxford Handbook of Philosophy of Medicine

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We’re delighted that the Oxford Handbook of Philosophy of Medicine has been published, the result of the efforts of over 30 philosophers from all over the world. The Handbook brings together leading thinkers to chart the evolving relationship between philosophy and medicine. Edited by Alex Broadbent, the volume examines core philosophical questions about health, truth, and evidence, alongside contemporary challenges including social justice, gender, race, and the ethics of artificial intelligence.

The handbook highlights the cultural diversity of medical traditions and the opportunities this creates for a richer philosophy of medicine. Many contributors advocate reform within both philosophy and medicine, seeking to make each more responsive, humane, and self-aware. In doing so, the collection exemplifies one of CPEMPH’s guiding ideas: that reflection on medicine can and should change both medicine and philosophy for the better.

Philosophy of Medicine Reading Group (online)

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This term we will be tackling a variety of articles rather than a monograph. I hope this added flexibility can encourage new people to join, even if they cannot make the meeting every week.

Each week there will be two online meetings of the group to discuss the same section of text, one on Wednesday night at 5pm UK time, one on Thursday morning at 9 am UK time, in hopes of accommodating group members in a variety of time zones. There is no need to attend all meetings-please come when you can.

Schedule

May 21 and 22

Pappalardo F, Russo G, Tshinanu FM, Viceconti M. In silico clinical trials: concepts and early adoptions. Brief Bioinform. 2019 Sep 27;20(5):1699-1708. doi: 10.1093/bib/bby043. PMID: 29868882

May 28 and 29 

Serrahima, C., Martínez, M. The experience of dysmenorrhea. Synthese 201, 173 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11229-023-04148-9

June 4 and 5 

Dings R, Strijbos DW. Being in a position to know: attuned responsiveness as the hallmark of experiential knowledge and expertise in mental healthcare. Front Psychiatry. 2025 Jan 13;15:1490489. doi: 10.3389/fpsyt.2024.1490489. PMID: 39872434; PMCID: PMC11770679.

June 11 and 12

Zhou, J. (2025). Pregnancy Is a Survival Pathology: A Biostatistical Approach. Philosophy of Medicine, 6(1). https://doi.org/10.5195/pom.2025.214

June 18 and 19

Allen, H. (2024). Forsaking Fortune: Luck and Its Limited Utility to Cancer Diagnosis. Philosophy of Medicine, 5(1). https://doi.org/10.5195/pom.2024.188

June 25 and 26

Woodward, J., & Kendler, K. (2023). Polygene Risk Scores: A Philosophical Exploration. Philosophy of Medicine, 4(1). https://doi.org/10.5195/pom.2023.156

If you would like to join the group please go to https://groups.google.com/g/philmed-rg/

Covid Philosophy Week, 10-13 May 2021 – Registration Open

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The journal Philosophy of Medicine, the Department of HPS, Cambridge, and the Institute for the Future of Knowledge, U Johannesburg, bring you a multi-day programme of philosophical discussions responding to Covid-19. There are three events:

10-13 May, Conference: Philosophical Perspectives on Covid-19, hosted by Philosophy of Medicine and the Institute for the Future of Knowledge (UJ)

12 May, Workshop: The Individual and the Population, part of the series Rethinking the Ethics of Vaccination organized by Emma Curran and Stephen John (Cambridge HPS)

13 May, Panel: Philosophy of Medicine on Covid-19, hosted by Philosophy of Medicine and the Institute for the Future of Knowledge (UJ)

These events have been timetabled so that they do not clash and are accessible for as broad a range of time zones as possible.

Registration and further info for all three events available here: https://philmed.pitt.edu/philmed/CovidWeek

Warm regards,

The Editors, Philosophy of Medicine

https://philmed.pitt.edu/

1-day Conference: Philosophy in Medical Education, Tue 15 Sep https://philosepi.org/2020/09/14/conf-phil-med-edu/

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Conference: Philosophy in Medical Education

15th September 2020

Place:
Online, registration via eventbrite

The Sowerby Philosophy of Medicine Project at King’s College London invite attendees to a one-day online conference exploring theory and practice of teaching philosophy as part of the medical curriculum. This event is free, open to the public and all are welcome! Registered attendees will receive an access link shortly prior to the event’s scheduled start time. Please register by 8:30 AM on the 15th of September.

Programme
10:00 – 11:15Juliette Ferry-Danini (Paris) – “Considerations from the French experience: Why teaching philosophy should not mean humanising doctors.”
11:15 – 11:30Break
11:30 – 12:45Alexander Broadbent (Johannesburg) – “‘Either philosophy can make the difference between life and death, or it has no place in medical education.’ Discuss.”
12:45 – 13:45Lunch
13:45 – 15:00Raffaela Campaner (Bologna) – “What philosophical approaches in medical education? Theoretical and empirical issues.”
15:00 – 15:15Break
15:15 – 16:30Jonathan Fuller (Pittsburgh) – “Philosophy of medicine as a core discipline for learning the theory of medicine.”
16:30 – 17:00Concluding remarks: Alexander Bird (King’s/Cambridge)

General inquires can be directed to Harriet Fagerberg at harriet.fagerberg@kcl.ac.uk

Announcing a New Journal: Philosophy of Medicine

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We are thrilled to announce the launch of a new academic journal, Philosophy of Medicine. The journal’s website is live for submissions at http://philmed.pitt.edu.

Philosophy of Medicine is an open-access journal that publishes exceptional original philosophical research and perspectives on all aspects of medicine, including medical research and practices. Through its public-facing section The Examination Room, it also publishes content for the wider public, including health professionals and health scientists.

The mission of Philosophy of Medicine is to serve as the flagship journal for the field by advancing research in philosophy of medicine, by engaging widely with medicine, health sciences and the public, and by providing open-access content for all.

The journal is led by Alex Broadbent as inaugural Editor-in-Chief and Jonathan Fuller as Deputy Editor in Chief (see the full editorial team here: https://philmed.pitt.edu/philmed/about/editorialTeam). It is published by the University of Pittsburgh Library System through Open Journal Systems (OJS) with generous financial support from the Center for Philosophy of Science at the University of Pittsburgh and the Faculty of Humanities at the University of Johannesburg.

Queries about the journal can be sent to phil.med@pitt.edu.

The editors of Philosophy of Medicine look forward to stewarding the journal through this exciting new phase in the development of our field.

Warmly,

Alex Broadbent and Jonathan Fuller

Co-Founding Editors

Philosophy of Medicine

Great piece from @JonathanJFuller ‘What’s Missing in Pandemic Models: Philosophy is needed to put the science of COVID-19 in perspective.’ In @NautilusMag #epitwitter

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http://nautil.us/issue/84/outbreak/whats-missing-in-pandemic-models

Jonathan Fuller writes: “In the COVID-19 pandemic, numerous models are being used to predict the future. But as helpful as they are, they cannot make sense of themselves. They rely on epidemiologists and other modelers to interpret them. Trouble is, making predictions in a pandemic is also a philosophical exercise. We need to think about hypothetical worlds, causation, evidence, and the relationship between models and reality.”

Read more…

Boston Review: ‘COVID-19 has revealed a contest between two competing philosophies of scientific knowledge. To manage the crisis, we must draw on both’ says @JonathanJFuller #epitwitter

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http://bostonreview.net/science-nature/jonathan-fuller-models-v-evidence

‘How do the coronavirus models generating these hypothetical curves square with the evidence? What roles do models and evidence play in a pandemic? Answering these questions requires reconciling two competing philosophies in the science of COVID-19.’ Great piece which will still be interesting a week, month, year and decade from now, unusually at present.

M, PhD and PostDoc opportunities at UJ

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The University of Johannesburg has released a special call offering masters, doctoral and postdoctoral fellowships, for start asap, deadline 8th Feb 2020.

These are in any area, but I would like to specifically invite anyone wishing to work with myself (or colleagues at UJ) on any of the areas listed below. From May 2020, I will be Director of the Institute for the Future of Knowledge at UJ (a new institute – no website yet – but watch this space!), and being part of this enterprise will, I think, be very exciting for potential students/post-docs. I would be delighted to receive inquiries in any of the following areas:

  • Philosophy of medicine
  • Philosophy of epidemiology
  • Causation
  • Counterfactuals
  • Causal inference
  • Prediction
  • Explanation (not just causal)
  • Machine learning (in relation to any of the above)
  • Cognitive science
  • Other things potentially relevant to the Institute, my interests, your interests… please suggest!

If you’re interested please get in touch: abbroadbent@uj.ac.za

The call is here, along with instructions for applicants:

2020 Call for URC Scholarships for Master’s_Doctoral_Postdoctoral Fellowships_Senior Postdoctoral fellowships

Korean translation of ‘Philosophy of Medicine’

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I’m delighted to learn that there will be a Korean translation of my 2019 book Philosophy of Medicine. My 2013 book Philosophy of Epidemiology was also translated into Korean.

I would be interested to connect with other audiences in the eastern parts of the world; if anyone has potential connections that I could explore, please let me know.