Year: 2020
Type: article
Abstract: What meaning does epidemiological evidence have for the individual? In evidence-based medicine, epidemiological evidence measures the patient’s risk of the outcome or the change in risk due to an intervention. The patient’s risk is commonly understood as an individual probability. The problem of understanding epidemiological evidence and risk thus becomes the challenge of interpreting individual patient probabilities. I argue that the patient’s risk is interpreted ontically, as a propensity. After exploring formidable problems with this interpretation in the medical context, I propose an epistemic reinterpretation of individual patient probabilities as credences. On this view, epidemiological evidence informs medical uncertainty.
Source: Philosophy of Science
DOI: 10.1086/710540
Author: Jonathan Fuller
Language: English
Subfield: History and Philosophy of Science
Field: Arts and Humanities
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: green
OpenAlex ID: W3014451664