Call for abstracts:

 
Context

Cancer is one of the main causes of death globally according to the World Health Organization. The biological complexity and heterogeneity of this disease (or group of diseases) make it very difficult to apprehend, control, and cure. Most of the work in the humanities and the social sciences has focused on the social, anthropological, psychological, and ethical dimensions of cancer. Yet cancer is now becoming increasingly an object of study for philosophers of biology and philosophers of medicine. In particular, the scientific explanation, definition, classification and prediction of cancer as a biological and medical phenomenon face many epistemological challenges. The main goal of this workshop is to provide a forum where philosophers of biology and philosophers of medicine meet to discuss the biological and medical science of cancer.


Call for abstracts
 
The organizing committee welcomes abstracts for 20 minutes’ oral presentations on subjects that explore a problem with a conceptual, theoretical, methodological and/or philosophical approach and directly address questions relevant to cancer research.

Examples of questions that this workshop will raise include:

  •     How is the complexity of cancer addressed in scientific and medical practices?
  •     What are the epistemic implications of different approaches to cancer?
  •     How are questions about the ontology of cancer related to methodological issues?
  •     To what extent are questions concerning the nature of cancer intertwined with issues concerning diagnostics and/or treatments?
  •     How are new approaches, such as cancer genomics, organoids, and organ-on-chip technologies, influencing cancer research?

The call is open to philosophers, scientists and any person interested in the analysis of conceptual problems of cancer biology.

The deadline for the call is October 7th, 2019.

For more information on the call and the workshop go to: https://www.philinbiomed.org/event/2nd-philosophy-of-cancer-biology-workshop/