The philosophy of psychiatry and biologism / / topic editor, Markus Rüther, Bettina Schoene-Seifert, Marco Stier and Sebastian Muders.

• Superior document: Frontiers Research Topics
• TeilnehmendeR: Muders, Sebastian,; Rüther, Markus,; Schöne-Seifert, Bettina,; Stier, Marco,
• Year of Publication: 2014
• Language: English
• Series: Frontiers Research Topics
• Physical Description: 1 electronic resource (99 p.)

There has been an ongoing debate about the capabilities and limits of the bio-natural sciences as sources and the methodological measure in the philosophy of psychiatry for quite some time now. Still, many problems remain unsolved, at least partly for the following reasons: The opposing parties do not tend to speak with each other, exchange their arguments and try to increase mutual understanding. Rather, one gets the impression that they often remain in their “trenches”, busy with confirming each others' opinions and developing their positions in isolation. This leads to several shortcomings: (1) Good arguments and insights from both sides of the debate get less attention they deserve. (2) The further improvement of each position becomes harder without criticism, genuinely motivated by the opposing standpoint. (3) The debate is not going to stop, at least not in the way it would finish after a suggested solution finds broad support; (4) Related to this, insisting on the ultimate aptnessof one side is just plainly wrong in almost every case. Since undeniably, most philosophical positions usually have a grain of truth hidden in them. In sum, many controversies persist with regard to the appropriate methodological, epistemological, and even ontological level for psychiatric explanation and therapies. In a conference which took place in December last year, we tried to contribute to a better understanding about what really is at issue in the philosophy of psychiatry. We asked for a common basis for several sides, for points of divergence and for the practical impact of different solutions on everyday work in psychiatry. Since psychiatry as a whole is a subject that is to wide to be covered in a single meeting, we focused on the following four core topics: 1. Competing accounts of psychiatric biologism, reductionism, and physicalism. 2. Mental disease and brain disease in the light of current neuroscientific and epigenetic findings. 3. Normative suppositions for different accounts of mental disease. 4. Normative implications of different accounts of mental disease. These topics, which have been vigorously as well as fruitfully discussed at our conference, will (ideally) be, too, in the center of our contribution to Frontiers. More precisely, we think of arranging a “research topic” which assembles the issues of the conference. At this point, it seems promising to us to group three or four Target Articles (TA) and let them get criticized by a couple of commentaries from different angles to give the issue a much broader and detailed perspective.

Table of Contents

The Philosophy of Psychiatry and Biologism / Marco Stier, Bettina Schoene-Seifert, Markus Rüther and Sebastian Muders -- The Third Wave of Biological Psychiatry / Henrik Walter -- Commentary on Henrik Walter's "The Third Wave of Biological Psychiatry" / Markus R. Pawelzik -- Of Waves and Troughs / Michael Noll-Hussong -- On the Use and Misuse of Externalist Approaches in Psychiatry / Gerhard C. Bukow -- Normative Preconditions for the Assessment of Mental Disorder Marco Stier -- What is Wrong with Reductionism? On the Normative Nature of Mental Disorder / Markus Rüther --On the Concept of the Normative in the Assessment of Mental Disorder / Sebastian Muders -- Mental Disorders, Brain Disorders and Values / Anneli Jefferson -- Antireductionisms with Regard to Mental Disorders: Some Caveats. A Commentary on Marco Stier / Bettina Schoene-Seifert -- Medical Criteria of Pathologicity and their Role in Scientific Psychiatry: Comments on the Articles of Henrik Walter and Marco Stier / Peter Hucklenbroich -- On the Autonomy of the Concept of Disease in Psychiatry Thomas Schramme -- Mental Disorders are Somatic Disorders, a Comment on M. Stier and T. Schramme / Marcella Rietschel -- On the Relation of Psychiatric Disorder and Neural Defect / Jan-Hendrik Heinrichs -- Mental Realities: The Concept of Mental Disorder and the Mind-Body Problem / Michael Jungert -- Commentary to the Articles of M. Stier (Normative Preconditions for the Assessment of Mental Disorder) and T. Schramme (On the Autonomy of the Concept of Disease in Psychiatry) / Gerald Ulrich -- The Depressive Situation / Kerrin A. Jacobs -- Narrative or Self-Feeling? A Historical Note on the Biological Foundation of the "Depressive Situation" / Lara Rzesnitzek -- Different Conceptions of Mental Illness: Consequences for the Association with Patients / Hanfried Helmchen -- The Biopsychosocial Model Between Biologism and Arbitrariness. A Commentary to H. Helmchen / Marco Stier -- "Early Psychosis" as a Mirror of Biologist Controversies in Post-War German, Anglo-Saxon, and Soviet Psychiatry / Lara Rzesnitzek -- Comment on Lara Rzesnitzek (2013) "Early Psychosis" as a mirror of biologist controversies in post-war German, Anglo-Saxon, and Soviet Psychiatry / Hanfried Helmchen -- Clinical Knowledge, Health Policies and Social Identities. Commentary on Lara Rzesnitzek (2013) "Early Psychosis as a Mirror of Biologist Controversies in Post War German, Anglo-Saxon and Soviet Psychiatry" / Nicolas Henckes.