This section contains information for philosophy students and academics about opportunities to learn more and engage more closely with medicine and its philosophy.

Medicine in the Philosophy Curriculum

King’s College London offers a number of opportunities to study topics related to medicine in the Department of Philosophy as part of a philosophy degree.

MPhil/PhD in Philosophy

“King’s College London offers the possibility of completing a MPhil/PhD in Philosophy with a research specialism in Philosophy of Medicine. There are opportunities for collaboration with the Sowerby Philosophy and Medicine Project throughout, including teaching philosophy to medical students.”

Find out more here

MA Philosophy of Medicine and Psychiatry

“The course provides opportunities for students to develop and demonstrate knowledge, understanding and skills in the Philosophy of Medicine and Psychiatry as well as studying other fascinating areas of Philosophy, selected from a broad range of modules and covering all areas of the subject.

Geared to philosophy graduates, medical and other graduates, the course introduces them to key concepts, arguments, texts and techniques in the Philosophy of Medicine and Psychiatry.”

Find out more here

Elective Modules

The Concept of Mental Disorder MA

“This module will critically appraise several main approaches to the concept of mental disorder. First, the critiques of mainstream psychiatry, beginning in the 1960s and still current, mainly to the effect that normal distress or social deviance is being inappropriately pathologized; second, conceptualisations of mental disorder in the standard psychiatry diagnostic manuals of the World Health Organisation and the American Psychiatric Association; and third, ‘naturalist’ approaches to the definition of mental disorder that invoke population statistical or evolutionary theory based norms. Distinctive features include coverage of various approaches to this multi-faceted problem.”

Philosophy of Medicine MA

“This module aims to give students an understanding of central topics in contemporary philosophy of medicine, with a particular emphasis on methodological issues in clinical medical research. This module will cover topics that include: the nature of disease and illness, the nature of mental illness, randomised controlled trials, causal inference in epidemiology and issues surrounding informed consent in medicine.”

Philosophy of Biology MA/BA

“This course will aim to give students and understanding of a range of issues in the philosophy of biology. The course will cover topics such as natural selection, species and biological kinds, innateness and heritability, biological functions and functional explanation, the problem of altruism in biology, cultural evolution and the philosophy of gender, sex and race.”

By Philosophical Discipline

Medical theory and practice intersects with traditional philosophical disciplines in many interesting and surprising ways. Even wondered how issues in medicine may bear upon, or be enlighten by, your philosophical specialism? Check out the videos, articles and other resources we’ve collated below.

Metaphysics

Lectures:

‘The Metaphysics of Pregnancy’ by Elselijn Kingma

‘A Plurality During Pregnancy?’ by Jonathan Grose

Holding Pathology Hostage by Paul Griffiths

Video:

‘Is race real?'  by Edouard Machery, Sandra Mitchell and Haixin Dang

Podcast:

‘Are diseases real? by Jeremy Simon

Epistemology

Lectures:

‘Is It Possible to Communicate Cancer Risk Accurately?’ by Stephen John

‘What’s the Use of Pragmatic Trials?’ by Nancy Cartwright

‘Understanding the Replication Crisis as a Base Rate Fallacy’ by Alexander Bird

'What Kind of Knowledge can Illness Promote?' by Havi Carel

Article:

‘Models v Evidence: COVID-19 has revealed a contest between two competing philosophies of scientific knowledge. To manage the crisis, we must draw on both.’ by Jonathan Fuller in Boston Review

Ethics

Lectures:

'Surviving the Sirens: Self-binding Advance Directives in Bipolar Disorder' by Tania Gergel

‘Mitigating the risk of assumptions and biases in assessments of mental capacity’ by Lisa Bortolotti and Sophie Stammers

‘We Shouldn't Use Randomization to Allocate Scarce Life-Saving Resources’ by Roberto Fumagalli

Articles:

‘Can placebo surgery ever be ethical?’ by David Papineau in the New Statesman

‘Placebo surgery raises ethical concerns — but this was not placebo surgery’ by Andy Carr, David Beard and Julian Savulescu in the New Statesman

Philosophy of Science

Lectures:

‘Making Science Reproducible: Will this time be different?’ by Fiona Fidler, Dorothy Bishop, Chris Chambers

‘Cause or Corrleation: Causal Evidence in Medicine and Law’ by Brendan Clarke

Podcast:

Alex Broadbent on The Causes of Disease

Thomas Pradeu on Philosophy of Biology and Medicine

Sean Valles on Philosophy of Population Health and Covid-19

Social & Political Philosophy

Lectures:

‘A Culture of Humility for a Culture of Health' by Sean Valles

‘Epistemic Justice and the Medical Expert’ by Miranda Fricker

‘First Principles of Health Justice: a Human Right to be Healthy’ by Sridhar Venkatapuram

Panel:

‘Medical Stereotypes: Confronting Racism and Disparities in US Health Care: A Health Policy and Bioethics Consortium’ by Harvard Medical School Centre for Bioethics

Podcast:

Miriam Solomon on Expert Consensus in Medicine