de Canson, Chloé (2026) Diseases as Homeostatic Property Clusters. [Preprint]

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Abstract

Several philosophers have recently drawn on property cluster accounts of natural kinds to argue that individual diseases form natural kinds. According to them, diseases have a super-explanatory property (their pathophysiology) in virtue of which their other properties (their symptomatology, biological signature, response to treatments, and prognosis) tend to co-occur. I argue that we can say more: disease pathophysiologies are mechanisms, such that the property clusters diseases form are homeostatic. I examine the two objections that natural kind theorists have raised against the homeostatic property cluster account, and I argue that they should not deter us from applying it to disease.

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Item Type:	Preprint
Creators:	Creators Email ORCID de Canson, Chloé chloe.decanson@gmail.com 0009-0006-1552-4933
Keywords:	disease kinds, natural kinds, homeostatic property clusters, nature of disease, metaphysics of disease
Subjects:	Specific Sciences > Medicine > Health and Disease
Depositing User:	Chloé de Canson
Date Deposited:	08 Mar 2026 01:32
Last Modified:	08 Mar 2026 01:32
Item ID:	28478
Subjects:	Specific Sciences > Medicine > Health and Disease
Date:	2026
URI:	https://philsci-archive.pitt.edu/id/eprint/28478

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