In a piece "Alzheimers Steals More than Memory" in today's New York Times, Lon Schneider, a doctor who studies the disease, says, "Whenever you see a long list of drugs of different classes, you know there's no good treatment. You get a high degree of uncertainty, and companies hyping their antipsychotics." This is a very interesting thing to say. For lots of things that go wrong, those responsible respond with "drugs of different classes" -- and also, for lots of things that go wrong, the belief is widespread that a shotgun response is a sign of not knowing what's going on really, a sign that we have "no good treatment." Behind this statement is a model of how things are supposed to work -- the stuff of metaphysics. And a responsible philosophic practice would look at that model very carefully, asking why it seems obviously right sometimes and less obviously right other times.
Posted by shea0017 at November 2, 2004 10:05 AM