@inbook{22fe09795f0b4160ba622b4f7acfeb56,
title = "Addiction and Its Ambiguities: Some comments from history",
abstract = "In their rich paper, Mary Jean Walker and Wendy Rogers state that addiction is a {\textquoteleft}paradigmatic borderline case{\textquoteright}, its disease status having been contested for at least several centuries. Is addiction a sin, an individual weakness, or a brain disease? Is it caused by the substance, by the individual{\textquoteright}s vulnerability and psychology, or by social factors? As historians have demonstrated, ideas about addiction have changed significantly over time (Acker 2002; Carstairs 2006; Courtwright 2001). Walker and Rogers{\textquoteright} conceptualization of the vague cluster approach of disease is very helpful in explaining addiction{\textquoteright}s contested status. First of all, addiction is a “vague” condition where the difference between health and disease is a matter of degree. Moreover, criteria that we might use to speak of a disease in spite of this vagueness, are not easily applied to addiction.",
author = "Gemma Blok",
year = "2024",
doi = "10.1007/978-3-031-62241-0",
language = "English",
isbn = "978-3-031-66240-3",
series = "Philosophy and Medicine",
publisher = "Springer Nature",
pages = "217--223",
editor = "Maartje Schermer and Nicholas Binney",
booktitle = "A Pragmatic Approach to Conceptualization of Health and Disease",
address = "United States",
}