Reframing Disease Contextually

Reframing Disease Contextually will be of particular interest to philosophers of medicine, bioethicists, and philosophers. It may also be of value to medical professionals, historians of western medicine, and health policy makers who take interest in the conceptual foundations of medicine.

This book:
- provides an overview of key debates in the history of modern western medicine on the nature, knowledge, and value of disease;
- illustrates how these debates relate;
- provides a "contextual" or "localized" way of understanding disease;
- includes case studies of e.g. AIDS, genetic disease, and gendered disease;
- conveys the importance of the intersection and interrelation between and among factors that make up disease;
- illustrates how bioethical discussions about disease naming, classification, diagnosis, prognosis, and treatment are part of a much greater discussion in philosophy of medicine.

• Western Medicine
• diagnosis
• health
• philosophy of medicine

From the reviews:

"Mary Ann Cutter’s ‘Reframing Disease Contextually’ draws together a number of themes in philosophy of medicine in order to make the case that disease should be understood contextually and locally. ... Overall, this book makes an important case for viewing disease as ‘contextual’ ... the examples of contextualism analyzed by Cutter are a useful and powerful way of making this point. ... All in All, this book is well worth reading." (Robyn Bluhm, Metapsychology Online Reviews, July, 2006)

• University of Colorado, Colorado Springs, USA

  Mary Ann G. Cutter

Policies and ethics