Blease Charlotte
Perspect Biol Med. 2018;61(3):412-429. doi: 10.1353/pbm.2018.0053.
In the relatively nascent field of placebo studies, empirical studies have burgeoned. Yet debate about how to define the terms placebo and "placebo effect" has not abated. A number of prominent scholars (drawn from medical practice, as well as philosophy, psychology, and anthropology) continue to propose and defend different conceptual models for these terms, and the perception that conceptual debate persists is often given as one justification for new definitions. Paradoxically-in spite of this lively debate-this article finds considerable underlying agreement about definitional matters within placebo studies. Drawing on key insights from philosophy of science, and by exploring the nature of scientific consensus and normal scientific research, this paper argues that well-developed placebo concepts form the basis for a placebo paradigm and that conceptual disagreement is overstated.
在相对新兴的安慰剂研究领域，实证研究迅速发展。然而，关于如何定义“安慰剂”和“安慰剂效应”这两个术语的争论并未平息。许多杰出学者（来自医学实践、哲学、心理学和人类学）继续为这些术语提出并捍卫不同的概念模型，而概念性争论持续存在这一观点常常被用作新定义的一个理由。矛盾的是，尽管存在这场激烈的争论，但本文发现安慰剂研究在定义问题上存在相当多的潜在共识。借鉴科学哲学的关键见解，并通过探索科学共识和常规科学研究的本质，本文认为完善的安慰剂概念构成了安慰剂范式的基础，而且概念上的分歧被夸大了。
