Overview
- Draws together the interrelated fields of critical thinking, logic, rhetoric, argumentation theory and health communication
- Argues that there is a place for so-called 'informal fallacies' as cognitive strategies that can help to guide deliberations
- Examines the use of informal fallacies in a wide range of medical and health contexts, including public health, medical diagnosis, doctor-patient consultations, and debates in medical ethics
- Provides a new analytical framework within which to evaluate medical and health messages from a wide range of sources
- Employs a range of pedagogical features – including learning objectives, case studies, annotated suggestions for further reading, and end-of-chapter questions – to encourage students to apply what they've learned
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About this book
This textbook examines the ways in which arguments may be used and abused in medicine and health. The central claim is that a group of arguments known as the informal fallacies – including slippery slope arguments, fear appeal, and the argument from ignorance – undertake considerable work in medical and health contexts, and that they can in fact be rationally warranted ways of understanding complex topics, contrary to the views of many earlier philosophers and logicians. Modern medicine and healthcare require lay people to engage with increasingly complex decisions in areas such as immunization, lifestyle and dietary choices, and health screening. Many of the so-called fallacies of reasoning can also be viewed as cognitive heuristics or short-cuts which help individuals make decisions in these contexts. Using features such as learning objectives, case studies and end-of-unit questions, this textbook examines topical issues and debates in all areas of medicine and health, including antibiotic use and resistance, genetic engineering, euthanasia, addiction to prescription opioids, and the legalization of cannabis. It will be useful to students of critical thinking, reasoning, logic, argumentation, rhetoric, communication, health humanities, philosophy and linguistics.
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Keywords
Table of contents (7 chapters)
Reviews
“Louise Cummings’ Fallacies in Medicine and Health is essential reading for health-care practitioners and policy makers and for professional fallacy-theorists as well. Louise Cummings has played a pioneering role in finding useful work for fallacy theory to do in contexts in which faulty diagnoses, misjudged treatment protocols or unrealistic prognoses can be fatal. To achieve the book’s objectives, it has been necessary for its author to secure scientific standing on both sides of the disciplinary divide from which her project proceeds. Fallacies in Medicine and Health merits a large and welcoming reception in both places.” (John Woods, Director of The Abductive Systems Group, University of British Columbia, Canada)
Authors and Affiliations
About the author
Louise Cummings is Professor in the Department of English at The Hong Kong Polytechnic University, Hong Kong. She has published and edited 18 books in public health reasoning, communication disorders, pragmatics, and clinical linguistics. She is Visiting Professor at York St John University in the UK, and Honorary Research Associate at the University of Antwerp in Belgium.
Bibliographic Information
Book Title: Fallacies in Medicine and Health
Book Subtitle: Critical Thinking, Argumentation and Communication
Authors: Louise Cummings
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-28513-5
Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan Cham
eBook Packages: Social Sciences, Social Sciences (R0)
Copyright Information: The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s) 2020
Softcover ISBN: 978-3-030-28512-8Published: 01 March 2020
eBook ISBN: 978-3-030-28513-5Published: 29 February 2020
Edition Number: 1
Number of Pages: XVII, 289
Number of Illustrations: 2 b/w illustrations, 37 illustrations in colour
Topics: Applied Linguistics, Sociolinguistics, Health Policy, Philosophy of Medicine