Jonathan Fuller

  • Assistant Professor • Lecture Series Coordinator

My main research focus is the philosophy of medicine. My research currently has two strands: disease and biomedicine, and epidemiology and evidence-based medicine. I have recently studied the metaphysics and classification of contemporary diseases as well as modelling of diseases and medical interventions. I have also worked on causal inference, external validity, meta-research, and the relationship between population data and individuals in clinical research and epidemiology. I am currently working on the problem of what general attitude we should take towards the results of biomedical and clinical research, as well as the historical-philosophical question of what makes scientific medicine today fundamentally the same compared to scientific medicine a hundred years ago – and what makes it fundamentally different. My other interests include the philosophy of psychiatry: I am curious about what psychiatry and neurology can teach us about mind and self. I also have training in medicine and medical education and am interested in how philosophy can enhance medical education and practice.

Selected Courses

  • Philosophy of Medicine
  • Philosophy of Psychiatry
  • Morality and Medicine

Education & Training

  • MD, University of Toronto, 2019
  • PhD, University of Toronto, 2016

Representative Publications

  • Fuller, J. (2019). “The confounding question of confounding causes in randomized trials.” British Journal for the Philosophy of Science, 70, 901–926.
  • Fuller, J. (2018). “Meta-research evidence for evaluating therapies.” Philosophy of Science, 85, 767-780.
  • Fuller, J. (2018). “Universal etiology, multifactorial diseases, and the constitutive model of disease classification.” Studies in History and Philosophy of Biological and Biomedical Sciences, 67, 8-15.
  • Fuller, J. (2018). “What are chronic diseases?” Synthese, 195, 3197–3220.
  • Fuller, J. (2017). “The new medical model: a renewed challenge for biomedicine.” Canadian Medical Association Journal, 189, E640-E641.
  • Fuller, J. and L.J. Flores. (2015). The Risk GP Model: the standard model of prediction in medicine. Studies in History and Philosophy of Biological and Biomedical Sciences, 54, 49-61