Various scientists and philosophers have heavily criticized what they see as problematic forms of ‘nutritional reductionism’ or ‘nutritionism’ whereby studying food–health interactions at the level of isolated food components produces largely misguided science and misleading interpretations. However, the exact target of these diverse criticisms remains elusive, and its implications are overstated, which may hinder scientific understanding. To better identify the types of flaws supposedly hindering reductionist research, we disentangle three types of reductionist claims to better determine what the debate is (...) about and to propose ways to move it forward. We then present a qualified defence of the reductionist programme that hinges on the ability to identify nutritional causes that make a difference, which we illustrate through central examples in the history of nutrition. This defence is taken further by using insights from the philosophy of mechanisms to analyse how the field of nutritional ecology offers a synthetic framework to explain, generate, and test predictions about nutrient–organism interactions, which is premised on the biological mechanisms of nutrient-specific appetite regulation. The result, which we call ‘synthetic reductionism’, avoids many, though perhaps not all, of the challenges raised by anti-reductionists, and also highlights the potential of reductionism to identify nutritional difference makers. (shrink)

Philosophers of medicine have long debated the possibility of a/the definition of health, but they have yet to fully reflect on the intriguing observation that there is still no theory of health within the medical sciences similar to general theories in other sciences. In this chapter, I provide some reasons for why this lack persists and why philosophers have not been particularly helpful or even interested in filling it. After clarifying why such a theory could be useful, I discuss five (...) general features of medical theories and how one could evaluate the utility of a given proposal. With these features in mind, I suggest that philosophers and scientists work together on analyzing actual medical research (experimental analysis), and the ways in which a theoretical construct of ‘health’ is being progressively identified and measured therein. I conclude by suggesting that research fields studying stress and aging might be particularly helpful in developing candidates for theory construction due to their broad scope, specificity, and potentially integrative explanations. (shrink)

In this concluding chapter, we gather the various contributions of this volume and attempt to extract some of the many key insights and challenges raised when it comes to the project of explaining health across the sciences. These insights were distilled down into a selection of the central concepts and issues defended or discussed by the authors, and were organized into a table to see, at a glance, where the attention was given. Reflecting on these insights will go some way (...) towards addressing the question of whether these explanations can be brought together into a coherent or unifying framework or whether we are simply stuck with mutually exclusive views about the multifaceted phenomenon of ‘health’. (shrink)

While aging research and policy aim to promote ‘health’ at all ages, there remains no convincing explanation of what this ‘health’ is. In this paper, I investigate whether we can find, implicit within the sciences of aging, a way to know what health is and how to measure it, i.e. a theory of health. To answer this, I start from scientific descriptions of aging and its modulators and then try to develop some generalizations about ‘health’ implicit within this research. After (...) discussing some of the core aspects of aging and the ways in which certain models describe spatial and temporal features specific to both aging and healthy phenotypes, I then extract, explicate, and evaluate one potential construct of health in these models. This suggests a theory of health based on the landscape of optimized phenotypic trajectories. I conclude by considering why it matters for more candidate theories to be proposed and evaluated by philosophers and scientists alike. (shrink)

Understanding the phenomenon of health is crucial for ageing research since there is often an implicit view on what constitutes health and how to measure it. We provide some reflections on how we might better understand and measure health, discuss the basic biological principles of survival, ageing, age-related diseases and eventual death, and end by tying these ideas together to rethink the nature of and implications for healthy ageing. We defend a more positive view on health understood in terms of (...) various phenotypic parameters, such as robustness and resilience, and show how it relates to the aim to support these parameters over time to achieve healthy ageing. Together, these ideas suggest that the most effective strategies for healthy ageing may come from the outside-in by altering those aspects of the environment that prevent robust and resilient phenotypic responses and by supporting those aspects which ensure such responses. (shrink)

Several philosophers have recently argued that phenomenology is well-suited to help understand the concepts of health, disease, and illness. The general claim is that by better analysing how illness appears to or is experienced by ill individuals—incorporating the first-person perspective—some limitations of what is seen as the currently dominant third-person or ‘naturalistic’ approaches to understand health and disease can be overcome. In this article, after discussing some of the main insights and benefits of the phenomenological approach, I develop three general (...) critiques of it. First, I show that what is often referred to as naturalism tends to be misunderstood and/or misrepresented, resulting in straw-man arguments. Second, the concept of normality is often problematically employed such that some aspects of naturalism are actually presupposed by many phenomenologists of medicine. Third, several of the key phenomenological insights and concepts, e.g. having vs. being a body, the alienation of illness, the epistemic role of the first-person perspective, and the idea of health within illness, each bring with them new problems that limit their utility. While acknowledging the possible contributions of phenomenology, these criticisms point to some severe limitations of bringing phenomenological insights to bear on the problems facing philosophy of medicine that should be addressed if phenomenology is to add anything substantially new to its debates. (shrink)

We situate the well-trodden debate about defining health and disease within the project of a metaphysics of science and its aim to work with and contribute to science. We make use of Guay and Pradeu’s ‘metaphysical box’ to reframe this debate, showing what is at stake in recent attempts to move beyond it, revealing unforeseen points of agreement and disagreement among new and old positions, and producing new questions that may lead to progress. We then discuss the implications of the (...) two-way benefits between medicine and philosophy when the latter is driven and constrained by medical science. (shrink)

The unexpected roles of the microbiota in cancer challenge explanations of carcinogenesis that focus on tumor-intrinsic properties. Most tumors contain bacteria and viruses, and the host’s proximal and distal microbiota influence both cancer incidence and therapeutic responsiveness. Continuing the history of cancer–microbe research, these findings raise a key question: to what extent is the microbiota relevant for clinical oncology? We approach this by critically evaluating three issues: how the microbiota provides a predictive biomarker of cancer growth and therapeutic responsiveness, the (...) microbiota’s causal role(s) in cancer development, and how therapeutic manipulations of the microbiota improve patient outcomes in cancer. Clarifying the conceptual and empirical aspects of the cancer-associated microbiota can orient future research and guide its implementation in clinical oncology. (shrink)

This edited volume aims to better understand the multifaceted phenomenon we call health. -/- Going beyond simple views of health as the absence of disease or as complete well-being, this book unites scientists and philosophers. The contributions clarify the links between health and adaptation, robustness, resilience, or dynamic homeostasis, and discuss how to achieve health and healthy aging through practices such as hormesis. -/- The book is divided into three parts and a conclusion: the first part explains health from within (...) specific disciplines, the second part explores health from the perspective of a bodily part, system, function, or even the environment in which organisms live, and the final part looks at more clinical or practical perspectives. It thereby gathers, across 30 chapters, diverse perspectives from the broad fields of evolutionary and systems biology, immunology, and biogerontology, more specific areas such as odontology, cardiology, neurology, and public health, as well as philosophical reflections on mental health, sexuality, authenticity and medical theories. -/- The overarching aim is to inform, inspire and encourage intellectuals from various disciplines to assess whether explanations in these disparate fields and across biological levels can be sufficiently systematized and unified to clarify the complexity of health. It will be particularly useful for medical graduates, philosophy graduates and research professionals in the life sciences and general medicine, as well as for upper-level graduate philosophy of science students. (shrink)

While philosophers of science have marginally discussed concepts such as ‘nutrient’, ‘naturalness’, ‘food’, or the ‘molecularization’ of nutrition, they have yet to seriously engage with the nutrition sciences. In this paper, I offer one way to begin this engagement by investigating conceptual challenges facing the burgeoning field of nutritional ecology and the question of how organisms construct a ‘balanced’ diet. To provide clarity, I propose the distinction between nutrient balance as a property of foods or dietary patterns and nutrient balancing (...) as an evolved capacity to regulate nutrient intake. This distinction raises conceptual and empirical issues, such as what properties constitute this capacity and whether they are the same in all organisms. Additionally, while scientists use the term ‘balancing’, its intension and extension need further clarification. Based on the literature, the properties of external nutrient detection, internal sensing of nutrient levels, and organismal regulation could provide a basic recipe for nutrient balancing. Next, using an evolutionary lens, I examine nutrient acquisition in some prokaryotes, slime molds, simple multicellular eukaryotes, and in the quirks of multicellular metabolism to raise questions about the origins and universality of balancing. Finally, I build on this explication of balance and balancing by considering how obesity and cancer might respectively elucidate problems of organismal nutrient imbalances versus disrupted cellular nutrient balancing. (shrink)

Debates in fields studying the biological aspects of aging and longevity, such as biogerontology, are often split between ‘anti-aging’ approaches aimed largely at treating diseases and those focusing more on maintaining, promoting, and even enhancing health. However, it is far from clear what this ‘health’ is that would be maintained, promoted, or enhanced. Interestingly, what few have yet to fully reflect on is that there is still no theory of health within the health or aging sciences that would provide an (...) integrative explanatory framework akin to other scientific theories. After clarifying why such a theory could be useful, I discuss five general features of medical theories that could be used to evaluate the utility of a given proposal. With these features in hand, I suggest that philosophers and scientists work together on analyzing actual medical research (experimental analysis), and the ways in which a theoretical construct of ‘health’ is being progressively identified and measured therein. I conclude by suggesting that research fields studying stress and aging might be particularly helpful in developing candidates for theory construction due to their broad scope, increasing specificity, and potential for providing integrative explanations. (shrink)

One of the key criticisms of understanding health in terms of adaptation to one’s environment is that medical judgments should be able to apply across environments. If we say that a condition is pathological ‘for person X in environment E’, then we quickly run into problems of desirability and social values. However, many key concepts in biology entail an inability to separate the organism from its environment. In other words, it is precisely by referring to ‘organism X in environment E’ (...) that we can determine what is ‘normal and natural’. In this chapter, I will argue that the role of this inseparability of organism and environment for understanding medical norms has been misunderstood and the implications of it for naturalistic theories of health and disease have gone largely unappreciated. To better understand this contextualist approach, I will discuss the ideas of John Ryle and Georges Canguilhem, focusing primarily on the latter. In Canguilhem’s work we find some key arguments for why organismic norms need to be understood relative to environments and how this can help to clarify the concepts of health and disease. I will explore his peculiar form of naturalism that was based on the dynamism and variability of organisms, show how it can be clarified through more recent biological research, and mention some of its limitations. (shrink)

Medicalization appears to be an issue that is both ubiquitous and unquestionably problematic as it seems to signal at once a social and existential threat. This perception of medicalization, however, is nothing new. Since the first main writings in the 1960s and 1970s, it has consistently been used to describe inappropriate or abusive instances of medical authority. Yet, while this standard approach claims that medicalization is a growing problem, it assumes that there is simply one “medical model” and that the (...) expanding realm of “the medical” can be more or less clearly delineated. Moreover, while intended to establish the reality of this growing threat, this research often requires making arbitrary or unjustified distinctions between different practices. To better clarify the concept of medicalization, I will focus more on capturing the variety of medical practices than on the sociological aspects of medical discourse. In doing so, I will explore the distinction between medicalization and pathologization, a distinction that is often overlooked and that brings with it many conceptual and practical implications. After defining these terms, I will use some examples to show that while pathologizing is closely tied to medicalizing, both can occur independently. I will then further develop this distinction in terms of the different individual and social effects of these practices. (shrink)

This essay discusses four key criticisms recently leveled against the main attempts to use conceptual analysis to understand health and disease. First, it examines the weaknesses of these attempts and suggests a better way to proceed. Next, it briefly discusses another disease debate concerning pathological mechanisms and suggests that this approach could be more fruitful than that of conceptual analysis. The final section demonstrates how Georges Canguilhem's biological philosophy of disease avoids some of the problems associated with conceptual analysis, and (...) how he can contribute to both debates. Canguilhem's appeal to biological normativity is understood as contributing to a theoretical explanation, and a possible naturalization, of what is specific to healthy and pathological phenomena. (shrink)

There is a broad consensus in nutritional-microbiota research that high-fat (HF) diets are harmful to human health, at least in part through their modulation of the gut microbiota. However, various studies also support the inherent flexibility of the human gut and our microbiota’s ability to adapt to a variety of food sources, suggesting a more nuanced picture. In this article, we first discuss some problems facing basic translational research and provide a different framework for thinking about diet and gut health (...) in terms of metabolic flexibility. We then offer evidence that well-formulated HF diets, such as ketogenic diets, may provide healthful alternative fuel sources for the human gut. We place this in the context of cancer research, where this concern over HF diets is also expressed, and consider various potential objections concerning the effects of lipopolysaccharides, trimethylamine-N-oxide, and secondary bile acids on human gut health. We end by providing some general suggestions for how to improve research and clinical practice with respect to the gut microbiota when considering the framework of metabolic flexibility. (shrink)

Defining the concepts of health and disease has proved rather difficult and many philosophers of medicine have simply concluded that we would be better off giving up on such endeavors. I feel that this view is misguided mainly because it seems to rest on a rather inadequate understanding of how philosophers use biology to clarify medical concepts. While some philosophers appeal to biology so as to clarify what we mean by the concepts of health and disease, others attempt to use (...) biology to develop a theory thathelps to explain what health and disease are. In this dissertation, I examine the work of an often overlooked philosopher of medicine, Georges Canguilhem, who sought to understand medical concepts by starting from the biological properties of variation and variability. In other words, in order to define health and disease, Canguilhem first tried to establish how what is normal can vary between organisms and even within the same organism due to the dynamic relation between the organism and its environment. Simply put: what is normal for one organism could be pathological for another and what is normal in one environment could become pathological in another. Consequently, variation and variability need to be included in our understanding of health and disease. Throughout this dissertation, I explore how Canguilhem goes about developing the implications of these biological properties for medical concepts and this allows me to distinguish his approach from some popular ones in philosophy of medicine, e.g. those trying to develop an objective biological approach (naturalism) and those appealingto evolutionary principles. I establish the plausibility of definingmedical concepts relative to individual organisms and their environments, while showing some of its potential limitations, especially when it comes to human social environments. Ultimately, a more nuanced understanding of how the inseparability of organisms and environments canhelp to clarify health and disease provides an interesting way to get past the apparent stalemate in philosophy of medicine and firmly establishes the relevance of Canguilhem’s philosophy. (shrink)

This essay explores the relation between repetition and thought in Bergson and Deleuze. In Bergson, this relation is seen in the method of intuition by which thought is made to think in time and in the ‘rhythms’ at work in how intuition is a contact with time or life, urging conceptual precision. This framework is used to clarify Deleuze's thought without image as that contingent encounter with the persistent forces of life that demand the perseverance of thought. Far from stressing (...) difference alone, both link the repetition in life to the unsettling persistence required to develop a truly new thought. (shrink)

A large slice of contemporary phenomenology of medicine has been devoted to developing an account of health and illness that proceeds from the first-person perspective when attempting to understand the ill person in contrast and connection to the third-person perspective on his/her diseased body. A proof that this phenomenological account of health and illness, represented by philosophers, such as Drew Leder, Kay Toombs, Havi Carel, Hans-Georg Gadamer, Kevin Aho, and Fredrik Svenaeus, is becoming increasingly influential in philosophy of medicine and (...) medical ethics is the criticism of it that has been voiced in some recent studies. In this article, two such critical contributions, proceeding from radically different premises and backgrounds, are discussed: Jonathan Sholl’s naturalistic critique and Talia Welsh’s Nietzschean critique. The aim is to defend the phenomenological account and clear up misunderstandings about what it amounts to and what we should be able to expect from it. (shrink)

The Problem of Perception offers two arguments against direct realism--one concerning illusion, and one concerning hallucination--that no current theory of ...

Here is a discussion that deals with storytelling by the teacher for the children, considering their contributions to the development of languages in the early years of lementary school. We assumed as the fact that a recovery of the first contact of children with the texts, which are normally through the oral narratives, potentiates the development of oral, reading and writing in an integrated manner. Therefore, we work with oral language and its importance is often overlooked by most schools. Understand, (...) according to Barthes, Echeverría, Sholles and Kellog, that the narratives are grown in different social groups, especially through the spoken, and is what makes the narrative form is the way to fundamentally discursive for humans formation. Furthermore, we believe, as Andaló, that work with oral narratives allow children, even before being literate, playing the stories and understand them, telling yourself with them and with the world. Most of the experiences we have in working with this approach in the public schools who teach in the towns of Candelaria and Vera Cruz , or in theoretical discussions with students in the Courses of Pedagogy -UNISC, shows that the creation of adequate space in school to playing oral stories is like a trigger mechanism for integrated learning – under the gaze of the multidimensional complexity – of speaking, reading and writing capabilities to understand how action and reflection in the world . That is, supported by authors such as Kaufman and Rodríguez, Gil Neto, Bettelheim, Busatto, Abramovich, Amarilha and Saraiva, we defended the thesis that storytelling enhances the development of oral, to training children as readers and texts producers, inserting them into living a socially desirable.Apresentamos aqui uma discussão que trata da contação de histórias pela professora e pelas crianças, considerando suas contribuições para o desenvolvimento das linguagens nas séries iniciais do Ensino Fundamental. Adotamos como pressuposto o fato de que uma valorização do primeiro contato das crianças com os textos, que normalmente se dá por meio de narrativas orais, potencializa o desenvolvimento da oralidade, leitura e escrita de forma integrada. Por isso, debatemos o trabalho com a linguagem oral e sua importância, muitas vezes negligenciada pela maioria das escolas. Compreendemos, de acordo com Barthes, Echeverría, Sholles e Kellog, que as narrativas são cultivadas nos diversos grupos sociais, specialmente através da oralidade, e é isso que faz com que a narração se constitua em uma forma discursiva básica para a formação dos seres humanos. Além disso, pensamos, conforme Andaló, que o trabalho com narrativas orais permite que as crianças, ainda antes de estarem alfabetizadas, contem e compreendam as histórias e a si mesmas, narrando-se com elas e com o mundo. A maioria das vivências que temos no trabalho com essa abordagem, seja nas escolas públicas em que lecionamos, nos municípios de Candelária e Vera Cruz , seja nos debates teóricos com alunas nos cursos de Pedagogia da Unisc, dão conta de que a criação de espaços adequados na escola para a contação de histórias constitui-se em um mecanismo desencadeador das aprendizagens integradas – sob o olhar multidimensional da complexidade – da expressão oral, da leitura e da escrita, que compreendemos como capacidades de ação e reflexão no mundo . Ou seja, respaldados em autores como Kaufman e Rodríguez, Gil Neto, Bettelheim, Busatto, Abramovich, Amarilha e Saraiva, defendemos a tese de que contar histórias potencializa tanto o desenvolvimento da oralidade quanto a formação das crianças como leitoras e produtoras de textos, inserindo-as em uma convivência social desejável. (shrink)

In this paper I examine Grace A. de Laguna’s theory of universals in its historical context and in relation to contemporary debates in analytic metaphysics. I explain the central features of her theory, arguing that her theory should be classified as a form of immanent realism and as a powers ontology. I then show in what ways her theory affords a theory of modality in terms of potentialities and discuss some of its consequences along the way.

A. H. Louie's More Than Life Itself is an exploratory journey in relational biology, a study of life in terms of the organization of entailment relations in living systems. This book represents a synergy of the mathematical theories of categories, lattices, and modelling, and the result is a synthetic biology that provides a characterization of life. Biology extends physics. Life is not a specialization of mechanism, but an expansive generalization of it. Organisms and machines share some common features, but organisms (...) are not machines. Life is defined by a relational closure that places it beyond the reach of physicochemical and mechanistic dogma, outside the reductionistic universe, and into the realm of impredicativity. Function dictates structure. Complexity brings forth living beings. (shrink)

This book argues for the use of nonideal theory in social ontology. The central claim is that a paradigm shift is underway in contemporary social ontology, from ideal to nonideal, and that this shift should be fully followed through. To develop and defend this central claim, the first step is to show that the key questions and central dividing lines within contemporary social ontology can be fruitfully reconstructed as a clash between two worlds, referred to as ideal and nonideal social (...) ontology. Ideal social ontology is characterized by consensus and cooperation, while nonideal social ontology is characterized by conflict and contestation. The second step is to show that, when taken together, objections to the standard model of ideal social ontology (the dominant version of ideal social ontology) imply that this model needs to be given up in favor of nonideal social ontology. In other words, we should look to nonideal rather than ideal social ontology for core concepts. The third step is to offer a positive account, called the power view, of nonideal social ontology. This account places the concept of social power at the core of a general theory of the social world and replaces the flat and narrow conception of power in ideal social ontology with a richer and more extensive conception. In addition, it rectifies a shortcoming in nonideal social ontology by attending to class, which has been notably and oddly overlooked in the literature. (shrink)

This companion is a cutting-edge primer to critical forms of the posthumanities and the feminist posthumanities, aimed at students and researchers who want to catch up with the recent theoretical developments in various fields in the humanities, such as new media studies, gender studies, cultural studies, science and technology studies, human animal studies, postcolonial critique, philosophy and environmental humanities. It contains a collection of nineteen new and original short chapters introducing influential concepts, ideas and approaches that have shaped and developed (...) new materialism, inhuman theory, critical posthumanism, feminist materialism, and posthuman philosophy. A resource for students and teachers, this comprehensive volume brings together established international scholars and emerging theorists, for timely and astute definitions of a moving target – posthuman humanities and feminist posthumanities. (shrink)

I. Ókor -- II. A középkor és a reneszánsz -- III. Az újkor.

On fundamentals of Vedanta and science; a study.

La admirable riqueza cultural y artística del Renacimiento esconde una desoladora miseria y aquella "edad de la abundancia" contrasta con una inmensa pobreza. Lejos de ser una broma o una pesadilla, la celebrada Utopía de Tomás Moro fue antes que nada un desafío insoslayable, pues proponía que ninguna sociedad merece tal nombre si tolera la miseria de un solo pobre. Rico y pobre explora la cuestión en ese libro de 1516 y en otros del escritor londinense para concluir con un (...) esbozo de su vida a la luz de la pobreza como virtud indispensable y libertadora. He aquí un hombre afortunado que no fue indiferente ante el infortunio de tantos y que vio en la humanitas la virtud por excelencia que lleva a una constante atención y cuidado del prójimo. Inspirado por un cambio de actitud en su época, así como por su fe cristiana y la mejor tradición estoica, mostró una robusta preocupación sobre el tema subrayando el valor social que debe tener toda riqueza, tanto a nivel estatal como individual, destacando la grave obligación cívica de los ricos y la necesidad que tienen todos, ricos y pobres, de empeñarse en la práctica de cierto desprendimiento y generosidad si no quieren mermar su propia humanidad y fallecer en su avaricia. La percepción de la miseria había cambiado de tal manera que su remedio ya no podía estar en una u otra limosna en plazas e iglesias, sino en la acción bien pensada y perentoria de todo gobierno que se tenga por justo. Sir Tomás Moro, privilegiado desde la cuna y seguro en su trabajo profesional, vio la pobreza de tantos como un desastre social, pero uno que, al mismo tiempo, debería llevar a todo ser humano a ver en el desprendimiento y generosidad una excelencia o virtud que alumbra la "otra" libertad, y tan íntima y valiosa que en su caso brilló aun en la prisión y ante el horror de una muerte injusta y atroz." -- Page 4 of cover. (shrink)