A Cognitive Approach to Medicine and Pharmacology

In this thesis, I advance a cognitive science approach to some central issues in medicine and pharmacology. The research presented here is an analysis of trends, issues, and open prob- lems in those two disciplines. The research is conducted under the umbrella of interdisciplinary premises and methodologies, and focuses on the cognitive, epistemological, and method- ological aspects of reasoning and decision-making in medical and pharmaceutical contexts. This dissertation opens with an extended historical analysis of the study of decision-making, from antiquity to present days, to canvass the complexity of such a field. After a detailed explanation of what is intended by “cognitive science of medicine and pharmacology”, the dis- sertation considers specific cases and phenomena. Two chap- ters are dedicated to the topic of vaccine hesitancy: one for an extended analysis of the phenomenon, and one for a spe- cific example of the interdisciplinary empirical research that can be conducted in this field. Following that, we pass to consider some conceptual complexities surrounding the medi- cal approach dubbed precision/personalized medicine, and we finish with the analysis of the recent reframing of obesity as a disease, and its relationship with contemporary pharmacolog- ical developments.