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Finding Normality in Abnormality: On the Ascription of Normal Functions to Cancer

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  16 February 2023

Seth Goldwasser Open the ORCID record for Seth Goldwasser [Opens in a new window]
Seth Goldwasser*
Affiliation:
University of Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh, PA, USA Center for the Neural Basis of Cognition, University of Pittsburgh and Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh, PA, USA
*
Email: SEG111@pitt.edu
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Abstract

Cancer biologists ascribe normal functions to parts of cancer. Normal functions are activities that parts of systems are in some minimal sense supposed to perform. Cancer biologists’ finding normality within the abnormality of cancer poses difficulties for two main approaches to normal function. One approach claims that normal functions are activities for which parts are selected. However, some parts of cancers that have normal functions aren’t selected to perform them. The other approach claims that normal functions are part-activities that (typically) contribute to the survival or reproduction of the relevant system. However, cancers are too heterogeneous to establish what (typically) contributes to their progression across a type.

Type
Contributed Paper
Information
Philosophy of Science , Volume 90 , Issue 5 , December 2023 , pp. 1214 - 1223
Copyright
© The Author(s), 2023. Published by Cambridge University Press on behalf of the Philosophy of Science Association

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