Overview
- Proposes various incentives to improve the pharmaceutical landscape
- Analyses and solves methodological problems by drawing on epistemological tools
- Refines and improves current approaches to evidence evaluation, drug decision making, and pharmaceutical/health policies
Part of the book series: Boston Studies in the Philosophy and History of Science (BSPS, volume 338)
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Table of contents(20 chapters)
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Epistemology
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Methods
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Decisions
About this book
This volume covers a wide range of topics concerning methodological, epistemological, and regulatory-ethical issues around pharmacology. The book focuses in particular on the diverse sources of uncertainty, the different kinds of uncertainty that there are, and the diverse ways in which these uncertainties are (or could be) addressed. Compared with the more basic sciences, such as chemistry or biology, pharmacology works across diverse observable levels of reality: although the first step in the causal chain leading to the therapeutic outcome takes place at the biochemical level, the end-effect is a clinically observable result—which is influenced not only by biological actions, but also psychological and social phenomena. Issues of causality and evidence must be treated with these specific aspects in mind. In covering these issues, the book opens up a common domain of investigation which intersects the deeply intertwined dimensions of pharmacological research, pharmaceutical regulation and the related economic environment. The book is a collective endeavour with in-depth contributions from experts in pharmacology, philosophy of medicine, statistics, scientific methodology, formal and social epistemology, working in constant dialogue across disciplinary boundaries.
Reviews
Editors and Affiliations
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School of Pharmacy, The University of Queensland, St Lucia, Australia
Adam LaCaze
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Department of Biomedical Sciences and Public Health, Polytechnic University of the Marche, Ancona, Italy, Munich Center for Mathematical Philosophy, Munchen, LMU, Munich, Germany
Barbara Osimani
About the editors
Prof. Barbara Osimani is Associate Professor of Logic and Philosophy of Science at the Polytechnic University of the Marche and is currently heading an ERC project, which also runs at the Munich Center for Mathematical Philosophy, LMU: "Philosophy of Pharmacology: Safety, Statistical Standards, and Evidence Amalgamation".
She is interested in scientific inference in research contexts characterised by strategic behaviour and she is developing a "Formal Epistemology of Medicine" in order to analyse issues arising in medical research, with a special focus on the complex interaction of methodological, social and regulatory as well as ethical dimensions in medicine. She worked on the precautionary principle, evidence hierarchies, causal assessment of pharmaceutical harm, and statistical inference. Her recent papers analyse issues around philosophy of evidence (reliability, bias, reproducibility, coherence) from a Bayesian perspective. Within her ERC project:"Philosophy of Pharmacology: Safety, Statistical Standards, and Evidence Amalgamation" she developed a Bayesian framework for the integration of heterogenous items of evidence for the purpose of causal assessment of drug-induced harm ("E-Synthesis")
Dr. La Caze is a lecturer at the School of Pharmacy, University of Queensland. He completed his PhD in the philosophy of science at The University of Sydney. His research focusses on philosophy of science, philosophy of medicine and ethics. He is particularly interested in exploring philosophical approaches to challenges that arise in interpreting and applying biomedical research.
Bibliographic Information
Book Title: Uncertainty in Pharmacology
Book Subtitle: Epistemology, Methods, and Decisions
Editors: Adam LaCaze, Barbara Osimani
Series Title: Boston Studies in the Philosophy and History of Science
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-29179-2
Publisher: Springer Cham
eBook Packages: Religion and Philosophy, Philosophy and Religion (R0)
Copyright Information: Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2020
Hardcover ISBN: 978-3-030-29178-5Published: 21 February 2020
Softcover ISBN: 978-3-030-29181-5Published: 26 August 2021
eBook ISBN: 978-3-030-29179-2Published: 20 February 2020
Series ISSN: 0068-0346
Series E-ISSN: 2214-7942
Edition Number: 1
Number of Pages: XIII, 470
Number of Illustrations: 48 b/w illustrations
Topics: Philosophy of Medicine, Theory of Medicine/Bioethics