Erratum to: The causal explanatory functions of medical diagnoses

Erratum to: Theor Med Bioeth DOI 10.1007/s11017-016-9377-5

In my article [1], I cite a passage from Kazem Sadegh-Zadeh’s Handbook of Analytic Philosophy of Medicine [2]. The third page of the article contains a reference to and a brief quotation from Sadegh-Zadeh’s book, stating that it is “usually required that the diagnosis causally explain that patient data” [2, p. 329]. It has been brought to my attention that this could be construed as misrepresenting Sadegh-Zadeh’s thesis in his book. I wish here to remedy this oversight with sincere apologies to the author. The above passage comes from only a single place in Sadegh-Zadeh’s book and comprises a description of the customary view, not his endorsement of it. In several places in the same book, Sadegh-Zadeh argues that the customary view is wrong and that causal explanation of patient data by the diagnosis is not possible because the laws which such explanations require are absent in medicine. Any such misrepresentation in my brief reference to Sadegh-Zadeh’s work was entirely unintended. This oversight does not affect the arguments and conclusions of my article, for I agree that causal explanatory functions of diagnoses cannot be in virtue of general covering laws.