ABSTRACT
Contemporary science often relegates philosophical reflection to an ancillary role. To borrow an expression from Liu, Love, and Travisano’s chapter, in a world where technological innovation, experimental results, and practical implications are rapidly becoming a necessity, conceptual reflection is widely deemed an expensive “luxury” that few of us can afford. While a general diagnosis of how this anti-intellectualist-and, in the long term, self-defeatingattitude became established lies beyond our present concerns, we agree with Liu and colleagues that discounting the significance of conceptual reflection is myopic. Philosophy has an important role to play in scientific research and practice, especially at new and exciting frontiers such as molecular medicine. The development of the health sciences requires both a strong analytic stance and empirically informed theoretical reflection to provide solid foundations for the ongoing research. Conceptual analysis is not a mere luxury but can lead to more deliberate and well-informed diagnosis, prognosis, and therapy for present and future patients. The path for philosophers of molecular medicine is by no means easy or straightforward. Conceptual clarity and rigorous methodological analysis requires one to achieve a high standard of scientific literacy, blended with an informed historical background and knowledge of
contemporary philosophy. This is the ambitious aim that we should strive to achieve.
