This book engages several philosophical questions about cancer: What is cancer? Is it one or many? How do cell and molecular biologists, epidemiologists and evolutionary biologists think about and explain cancer?

Anya Plutynski received her Ph.D. in Philosophy, and her M.A. in Biology, both from the University of Pennsylvania. She currently teaches philosophy at Washington University in St. Louis.

• Introduction


• Chapter 1: Cancer: Natural, Social and Medical Kind


• Chapter 2: From Disease to Risk


• Chapter 3: Causation, Causal Selection and Causal Parity


• Chapter 4: Evidence and Environmental Epidemiology: A Pragmatic Approach


• Chapter 5: Explaining Cancer from an Evolutionary Perspective


• Chapter 6: Explanation


• Conclusion


• Bibliography


• Index