Enheden beskæftiger sig med centrale videnskabsteoretiske, etiske og politisk- filosofiske problemstillinger i relation til medicin, sundhedsvæsen og sundhedspraksis. Forskningen omhandler bl.a. udviklingen i sygdomsbegreber og diagnostisk praksis, krav til evidens i medicinsk forskning og klinisk praksis(herunder forholdet mellem kvantitativ og kvalitativ tilvejebragt evidens), den ændrede forståelse af den menneskelige krop i lyset af den bioteknologiske udvikling, herunder udviklingen i neuroscience, etiske spørgsmål bl.a. i relation til sundhedsfremme aktiviteter, ’health enhancement’ mv., forståelsen af autonomi og retfærdighed i lyset af ændrede relationer mellem professionelle, patienter og stat.

Enheden viderefører et  nationalt og internationalt forskningssamarbejde udviklet gennem de seneste 40 år, herunder et omfattende samarbejde med det sundhedsvidenskabelige fakultet, AU (nu Health). Enheden tilvejebringer i samarbejde med Sundhed, Menneske og Kultur, center for humanistisk sundhedsforskning (SMK) det forskningsmæssige grundlag for undervisning i videnskabsteori og filosofi på  en række uddannelser på Health. Enheden viderefører et omfattende nationalt forskningssamarbejde med bl.a. institutioner inden for sundhedsvæsenet og et international forskningssamarbejde med beslægtede centre og enheder i en række lande (bl.a. England og USA). Enheden arrangerer i samarbejde med SMK nationale og internationale konferencer, workshops og seminarer.

1. October, 15.15 – 17.00 

Jacob Stegenga (University of Cambridge) & Tarum Menon (National Institute of Advanced Studies, Bengaluru): “Sisyphean Science: Why Value Freedom Is Worth Pursuing”

The value-free ideal in science has been criticised as both unattainable and undesirable. We argue that it can be defended as a practical principle guiding scientific research even if the unattainability and undesirability of a value-free end-state are granted. If a goal is unattainable, then one can separate the desirability of accomplishing the goal from the desirability of pursuing it. The state with the ideal degree of value involvement cannot be given an independent characterisation, and cannot serve as an action-guiding target, so it can only reliably be attained if scientists treat value-freedom as their goal. The challenges to the value-free ideal have been most prominent in applied scientific domains such as medicine, and we illustrate some of our arguments with examples from medicine.

22. October, 15.15 – 17.00 

Miriam Solomon (Temple University): “On Pluralism in Psychiatry”

I have argued that pluralism about methods and/or theories is good for science, because it can increase empirical success, but bad for scientific authority, because it hinders consensus. Psychiatry has been dominated by a single conceptual framework for the last forty years (the DSM framework) and enjoyed considerable professional authority. Because of the “crisis of validity,” this dominance has recently given way to a pluralist situation in which several different approaches to disease nosology are being developed. In addition to the DSM framework, there is the RDoC program, the HiTOP framework, the network approach, the mechanistic property cluster approach, and others. My talk will explore the challenges and difficulties of working with pluralism in psychiatry, making constructive suggestions for future research.