Molecular genetics, reductionism, and disease concepts in psychiatry
Journal of Medicine and Philosophy 17 (2) (1992)
| Abstract | The study of mental illness by the methods of molecular genetics is still in its infancy, but the use of genetic markers in psychiatry may potentially lead to a Virchowian revolution in the conception of mental illness. Genetic markers may define novel clusters of patients having diverse clinical presentations but sharing a common genetic and mechanistic basis. Such clusters may differ radically from the conventional classification schemes of psychiatric illness. However, the reduction of even relatively simple Mendelian phenomena to molecular genetics has been shown to be a surprisingly complex and problematic enterprise. Mental illnesses exist at many levels of including social, environmental, and developmental interactions. Reductionistic shifts in the classification of such a disease entity will have to address the interlevel dynamics that take place within the structure of theories of mental illness. The question of how molecular analysis of psychiatric disease will impact on the structure of existing theories and classification systems is the central topic of this paper. Keywords: disease, philosophy of biology, psychiatry, reductionism CiteULike Connotea Del.icio.us What's this? | |||||||||
| Keywords | No keywords specified (fix it) | |||||||||
| Categories | ||||||||||
| Options |
|
|||||||||
Download options| PhilPapers Archive |
Upload a copy of this paper Check publisher's policy on self-archival Papers currently archived: 5,701 |
| External links |
 |
| Through your library | Configure |
Similar books and articlesJohn Z. Sadler (2005). Values and Psychiatric Diagnosis. Oxford University Press.
Joseph D. McInerney (2002). Education in a Genomic World. Journal of Medicine and Philosophy 27 (3):369 – 390.
Karen Ritchie (1989). The Little Woman Meets Son of Dsm-III. Journal of Medicine and Philosophy 14 (6):695-708.
Marianne Boenink (2009). Tensions and Opportunities in Convergence: Shifting Concepts of Disease in Emerging Molecular Medicine. Nanoethics 3 (3):243-255.
Dominic Murphy (2010). Explanation in Psychiatry. Philosophy Compass 5 (7):602-610.
Arthur Zucker (1981). Holism and Reductionism: A View From Genetics. Journal of Medicine and Philosophy 6 (2):145-164.
John Beatty (1982). The Insights and Oversights of Molecular Genetics: The Place of the Evolutionary Perspective. PSA: Proceedings of the Biennial Meeting of the Philosophy of Science Association 1982:341 - 355.
Tudor Baetu (forthcoming). Mechanism Schemas and the Relationship Between Biological Theories. In J. Williamson P. McKay (ed.), Causality in the Sciences.
Vanessa Lux (2008). The Concept of the Gene in Psychiatric Genetics and its Consequences for the Concept of Mental Illness. Poiesis and Praxis 6 (1-2):65-77.
Analytics
Monthly downloads |
Added to index2010-08-22Total downloads13 ( #87,971 of 549,117 )Recent downloads (6 months)1 ( #63,361 of 549,117 )How can I increase my downloads? |
My notes
Discussion
