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Table of Contents
Acknowledgements
List of Tables and Figures
Chapter 1: Evidence in Times of Crisis
1.1. The Status of Evidence in Evidence-based Medicine (EBM)
1.2. Organization of Chapters
Chapter 2: Narrative Rationality and the Logic of Good Reasons
2.1. The Narrative Paradigm: Basic Tenets
2.2. Narrative Paradigm vs. Rational World Paradigm
2.3. Narrative Probability, Narrative Fidelity and the Logic of Good Reasons
2.3.1. Narrative Probability (Coherence)
2.3.2. Narrative Fidelity
Chapter 3: Whose Evidence? What Rationality? The Face Mask Controversy
3.1. Structural and Material (In)coherence in Expert Narratives
3.2. Transcendental Values, Narrative Accrual and Narrative Identification
3.2.1. The Logic of Good Reasons, Narrative Accrual and Identification: Public Safety and Structural Racism
3.2.2. Good Reasons, Precarious Manhood and Homophobia
3.3. Transcendental Values beyond Precariousness: Personal Freedom vs Social Responsibility
Chapter 4: Whose Lives? What Values? Herd Immunity, Lockdowns, and Social/Physical Distancing
4.1 Structural/Material (In)coherence or Science vs Values in The Great Barrington and John Snow Declarations
4.2. Health, the Economy, and the State: Resonance and Lived Experience
4.3. Transcendental Values and Conceptions of Freedom
4.4. Public Health Recommendations and the Values and Principles of Evidence-based Policy Making
Chapter 5: The Rational World Paradigm, the Narrative Paradigm and the Politics of Pharmaceutical Interventions
5.1. Structural and Material (In)coherence: Science and public policy under pressure
5.2. Characterolgical Coherence and Public Confidence in Vaccines
5.3 Transcendental Values and Conceptions of Freedom
5.4. Pure Bodies, Microchips & Genetically Modified Organisms
5.5. Resonance, Lived Experience and Trust
Chapter 6: Objectivist vs Praxial Knowledge: Towards a Model of Situated Epistemologies and Narrative Identification
6.1. Limitations of Fisher’s Narrative Paradigm
6.2. Revisiting and Extending the Narrative Paradigm
6.3. Narrative Identification in the Age of Fragmented Narratives
Bibliography
Index
Acknowledgements
This book was initiated in the context of The Body in Translation: Historicising and Reinventing Medical Humanities and Knowledge Translation, an international research project led by Eivind Engebretsen and John Ødemark and based at the Centre for Advanced Study, the Norwegian Academy of Science and Letters in Oslo during the academic year 2019/2020. We are grateful to the Centre for its hospitality and support, which were invaluable during the early phase of developing the plan of the book, and for providing the funding for open access publication of the final manuscript. A special thanks to Professor John Ødemark, co-PI of the The Body in Translation, for his continued support.
We would also like to acknowledge the support of the Centre for Sustainable Healthcare Education (SHE) at the Faculty of Medicine, University of Oslo, with which we are both affiliated. We thank SHE for co-funding the project and members of the research group Knowledge in Translation (KNOWIT) for their input to and feedback on the general arguments outlined in this publication.
Finally, we would like to express our gratitude to our editors at Cambridge University Press, Anna Whiting and Camille Lee-Own, for their professionalism and unfailing support during the writing of this manuscript.
List of Tables and Figures
Table 2.1. Rational World Paradigm vs Narrative Paradigm
Figure 2.1. A birthday message for Moore was displayed on advertising boards in a deserted Piccadilly Circus in London on April 30 last year. CNN, 3 February 2021
Figure 3.1. WHO Fact Check tweeted 29 March 2020
Figure 3.2. Title and lead of item published in The Telegraph on 26 August 2020
Figure 3.3. Franklin County Public Health Board Apology
Figure 4.1. Malawi Sex Workers Protest Restrictions on Opening Times of Bars during Covid-19 Crisis, 28 January 2021
Figure 5.1. Worldwide Rally for Freedom, London, 21 November 2021
Figure 5.2. Figure 5.2. A protester in London asserts her right to making decisions concerning her body, May 2021.
Figure 5.3. New Zealand Public Party leader Billy Te Kahika Jr speaks at a Human Rights Violations protest at Parliament on 6 August 2020. Copyright Getty Images
Figure 5.4. Tweet by @mireltsje dated 11 November 2021
Figure 5.5. Anti-lockdown and Anti-Vaccine Protest in London July 2021