Auker-Howlett Daniel, Wilde Michael
Department of Philosophy, School of European Culture and Languages, University of Kent, Canterbury, UK.
J Eval Clin Pract. 2020 Apr;26(2):458-464. doi: 10.1111/jep.13269. Epub 2019 Aug 21.
Some philosophers have argued that evidence of underlying mechanisms does not provide evidence for the effectiveness of a medical intervention. One such argument appeals to the unreliability of mechanistic reasoning. However, mechanistic reasoning is not the only way that evidence of mechanisms might provide evidence of effectiveness. A more reliable type of reasoning may be distinguished by appealing to recent work on evidential pluralism in the epistemology of medicine. A case study from virology provides an example of this so-called reinforced reasoning in medicine. It is argued that in this case study, the available evidence of underlying mechanisms did in fact play a role in providing evidence in favour of a medical intervention. This paper therefore adds a novel and recent case study to the literature in support of evidential pluralism in medicine.
一些哲学家认为，潜在机制的证据并不能为医学干预的有效性提供证据。其中一个论点诉诸于机制性推理的不可靠性。然而，机制性推理并不是机制证据可能提供有效性证据的唯一方式。通过诉诸医学认识论中关于证据多元论的最新研究，可以区分出一种更可靠的推理类型。病毒学的一个案例研究提供了医学中这种所谓强化推理的一个例子。有人认为，在这个案例研究中，潜在机制的现有证据实际上在为支持一种医学干预提供证据方面发挥了作用。因此，本文为支持医学证据多元论的文献增添了一个新颖的近期案例研究。
