ICBO_2018_13: The Identity and Mereology of Pathological Dispositions

Diseases, risks of pathological processes and predispositions have been formalized as dispositions. The relations between those pathological dispositions, however, remain unclear. We apply here a recently developed theory of mereology and identity among dispositions to analyze such relations. In particular, we show how a framework for the identity of disposition leads to a disease being not only a disposition to a disease course, but also to each pathological process; how it avoids risk multiplicativism; and how a predisposition can be identified with a risk whose estimated probability is higher than for the risk of a reference class. We discuss how this makes predisposition always relative to a reference class, to a time-frame and to sources of risk estimates; and we clarify the nature of risk factors.