Abstract

The question “What is breast cancer?” raises a host of descriptive issues in philosophy, including ones about the nature, make-up, and reducibility of reality. What we find is that, initially, breast cancer appears to fit the description of a clinical entity that is real, composed of physical matter, and reducible to its parts. But things are not as simple as one would initially think. Upon reflection, breast cancer is a physical condition framed within prevailing contexts of reference. It is an idea through which clinical facts are seen and interpreted. It is a systematic condition not simply reducible to the sum of its parts. Breast cancer is “real,” but perhaps not real in the way we might initially think.