„Errors are the greatest obstacles to the progress of science; to correct such errors is of more practical value than to achieve new knowledge,“ asserted Eugen Bleuler. Basic error of several prevailing classification schemes of pathological conditions, as for example ICD-10, lies in confusing and mixing symptoms with diseases, what makes them unscientific. Considering the need to bring order into the chaos and light into terminological obscureness, I introduce the Causal classification of diseases originating from the notion of bodily (...) wholeness and causality of its loss. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Philosophy, Psychiatry, & Psychology 10.1 (2003) 57-62 [Access article in PDF] Listening to People Or Listening to Prozac?Another Consideration of Causal Classifications Jennifer Hansen Keywords causal classification, descriptivism, melancholia, neurasthenia, depression, cultural relativism. The shape and detail of depression have gone through a thousand cartwheels, and the treatment of depression has alternated between the ridiculous and the sublime, but the excessive sleeping, inadequate eating, suicidiality, withdrawal (...) from social interaction, and relentless despair are all as old as the hill tribes, if not as old as the hills. In the years since man achieved the capacity for self-reference, shame has come and gone; treatments for bodily complaints have alternated and crossed with treatments for spiritual ones; pleas to external gods have echoed pleas to internal demons. To understand the history of depression is to understand the invention of human being as we now know and are him. Our Prozac-popping, cognitively focused, semi-alienated postmodernity is only a stage in the ongoing understanding and control of mood and character. (Solomon 2001, 286) ALTHOUGH ANDREW SOLOMON clearly believes that "the shape and detail of depression have gone through a thousand cartwheels," Jennifer Radden gives us pause before assuming that depression is just another name for Dame Melancholy. Solomon's claim depends on a deeper metaphysical claim about the nature of depression and its causes. The current method of psychiatric nosology, descriptivism, does not necessarily support equating melancholia and depression. Furthermore, it appears that adopting descriptivism as the sole method of classifying mental disorders commits us to cultural relativist psychiatry. Below I reconsider whether we want to rule out causal classifications and suggest that embracing both descriptivism and causal classifications offer us greater possibilities in understanding human illness and culture.Although the occasion for Jennifer Radden's essay is to investigate whether or not melancholia and depression refer to the same thing, her essay detours into a consideration of extra-descriptivist models of psychiatric illness versus the descriptivism of current psychiatric nosology. This detour turns out to be warranted; her purely academic question yields to a timelier question concerning the proper methodology for classifying mental disorders. Whereas debates about psychiatric nosology are perennial, the recent success of the new generation of antidepressants [End Page 57] is reviving biological psychiatry and its search for the neurochemical origins of depression. Hence, embedded in Radden's question concerning whether or not melancholia is the same thing as clinical depression, is another important question concerning the causes of mental illness, particularly depression.Currently, with its descriptivist approach, the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM) does not classify mental illness, such as clinical depression, based on underlying causes. The cluster of symptoms and behavioral signs that lead a clinician to diagnose one as depressed that are contained in either the DSM or the International Classification of Diseases (ICD) may be too fuzzy or elusive to give any clear distinction between major depression, mild depression, and the blues. For example, one group of epidemiologists points out that [t]he DSM-III, DSM-III-R, and DSM-IV acknowledge that depression, like many mental disorders, has no currently obvious natural classes... If natural classes of depression exist, then their nosology awaits the discovery of distinct and reliable genetic, biological, clinical, or other predictors of risk, severity, or clinical course. Clinicians have a tradition of separating depressions into subtypes; however, this subtyping has not yet led to clear-cut delineations of syndromes in populations. (Kaelber 1995, 4) The evidence is still insufficient to establish the biological or psychological origins of depression. Although many theories exist that explain why people become depressed, scientifically we are not yet in a position to determine which is the right theory. From a pragmatic perspective, however, whether or not we know what causes depression, we can nonetheless attempt to alleviate suffering from depression. And it is with this goal in mind that the DSM-IV and ICD-10 classify mental disorders.Now, given that our current methodology for psychiatric nosology does not establish causes, it is also insufficient for determining what... (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Symbolic Classification and The Emergence of a Metaphysics of CausalityOwen Goldinwhat is distinctive about metaphysics as a mode of thought that emerged in the fifth century before the Common Era? How did it emerge out of early ways of conceptualizing the world as a whole, and why? Many answers have been proposed. One common view is that earlier modes of thought personify natural agencies; once this is abandoned, the (...) way is open for discerning more complex regularities among natural events.1 Another view is that the process of "rationalization" introduced by the Greeks involves an implicit appeal to the individual's natural intelligence, in contrast to a dependence on an "inherited stock of wisdom."2 A third view is that the first Greek philosophers introduced inference as a way of navigating conceptual relationships, independent of the sorts of personal interactions among divinities related in mythical narrative.3 According to a fourth account, the mode of rationality that allowed for the development of ancient Greek metaphysics was a social [End Page 3] practice with the aim of persuasion, brought on by more democratic involvement in societal deliberations concerning law and policy.4To these I add a fifth way of answering the question. Crucial to the emergence of Greek metaphysics is explicit distinction of ontological/causal priority and posteriority. Ancient Greek scientific explanations developed out of older, archaic modes of conceptualization, which I maintain have deep parallels with modes of conceptualization shared by many nonliterate cultures. Such modes of thought rest on an implicit worldview which can be called a metaphysics, in a loose sense, and are still worthy of philosophical consideration.I begin with a red flag that will be raised for many as soon as we start talking about the metaphysical traditions of nonliterate cultures. What counts as a metaphysical tradition? I make some distinctions. In the loosest sense, an account or tradition is metaphysical if it reflects a coherent worldview concerning the kinds of beings that there are and how they are related to one another. According to a stricter sense of the term, a tradition is metaphysical if it involves working through this worldview in an explicit and systematic matter. In an even stricter sense, a tradition is metaphysical if, in addition to being explicit and systematic, it merits being classified as "philosophical," itself not an unproblematic term. I here stipulate that an account is philosophical if it does not rest on premises that are specific to certain cultural traditions and employs inferential arguments that are in principle subject to refutation.Generally speaking, there are two ways in which a tradition that is metaphysical in the strictest sense can listen to one that is metaphysical in a looser sense. First, a metaphysician might examine the latter tradition in order to explore how, historically, it served as the root for the former. An example is Aristotle's interest in Hesiod as expressing metaphysical intuitions that later philosophers unpacked.5 By studying [End Page 4] the ontological presuppositions of the sort of account from which our own metaphysics is derived, one learns more about our own ontological presuppositions and what we gain from them.6 This sort of dialogue carries with it the danger that the later thinker presupposes that—in the spirit of "you have to start somewhere"—the earlier thinkers were simply doing a bad job working through their own theories; Aristotle has often been accused of precisely this.7Another sort of dialogue is possible as well. An alternative metaphysical tradition can reveal the possibility of a radically different way of conceptualizing the causal and ontological structure of the world, one with its own advantages. In such a case there is shared set of problems at issue, shared points of reference within the philosophical literature, and a shared understanding of what philosophical argument is. But philosophical insight might also emerge from the kind of dialogue in which a developed metaphysics that conforms to certain standards of inferential argument confronts a way of thinking that is metaphysical in a looser sense. A substance-based ontologist can be led to reflect on whether the world has to be cut up as she does by studying Aztec... (shrink)

We contend that it is possible to argue reasonably for and against arguments from classifications and definitions, provided they are seen as defeasible (subject to exceptions and critical questioning). Arguments from classification of the most common sorts are shown to be based on defeasible reasoning of various kinds represented by patterns of logical reasoning called defeasible argumentation schemes. We show how such schemes can be identified with heuristics, or short-cut solutions to a problem. We examine a variety of arguments (...) of this sort, including argument from abductive classification, argument from causal classification, argument from analogy-based classification and arguments from classification based on generalizations. (shrink)

The article advances a new way of thinking about classifications in general and the classification of mental disorders in particular. By applying insights from measurement practice to the context of classification, I defend a notion of epistemic accuracy that allows one to evaluate and improve classifications by comparing different classifying methods to each other. Progress in classification arises from the mutual development of classification systems and classifying methods. Based on this notion of accuracy, the article illustrates with an (...) example how psychiatric classifications can be improved via circumscribed comparisons of different perspectives on mental disorders, without relying on complete models of their complex aetiology. When applying this strategy, the traditional opposition between symptom-based and causal approaches is of little consequence for making progress in the epistemic accuracy of psychiatric classification. (shrink)

The causal characters (spacelike, lightlike, timelike) of the coordinate lines, coordinate surfaces and coordinate hypersurfaces of a coordinate system in Relativity define what is called its causal class. It is known that, in any relativistic space-time, there exist one hundred and ninety nine such causal classes. But in Newtonian physics (where only spacelike and timelike characters exist) the corresponding causal classes have not been discussed until recently. Here it is shown that, in sharp contrast with the (...) relativistic case, in Newtonian space-time the different causal classes of coordinate systems are drastically reduced to four. These causal classes admit simple geometric descriptions and physical interpretations. For example, it is shown that one can generate coordinate systems of the four causal classes by means of the sole linear synchronization group, i.e. by coordinate transformations that only change the origin of time linearly. The relativistic analogs of these examples are also considered. (shrink)

In this article, I begin by giving a brief history of melanoma causation. I then discuss the current manner in which malignant melanoma is classified. In general, these systems of classification do not take account of the manner of tumour causation. Instead, they are based on phenomenological features of the tumour, such as size, spread, and morphology. I go on to suggest that misclassification of melanoma is a major problem in clinical practice. I therefore outline an alternative means of classifying (...) these tumours based on causal factors. By analogy with similar systems that have recently emerged for other cancers, I suggest that this causal classification is likely to be both workable and helpful, even in the absence of a full causal-mechanistic understanding of the aetiology of the tumour. (shrink)

In psychiatry some disorders of cognition are distinguished from instances of normal cognitive functioning and from other disorders in virtue of their surface features rather than in virtue of the underlying mechanisms responsible for their occurrence. Aetiological considerations often cannot play a significant classificatory and diagnostic role, because there is no sufficient knowledge or consensus about the causal history of many psychiatric disorders. Moreover, it is not always possible to uniquely identify a pathological behaviour as the symptom of a (...) certain disorder, as disorders that are likely to differ both in their causal histories and in their overall manifestations may give rise to very similar patterns of behaviour. -/- Consider delusions as an example. It wouldn’t be correct to define delusions as those beliefs people form as a result of a neurobiological deficit and a hypothesis-evaluation deficit (as some versions of the two-factor theory of delusions suggest), because for some delusions no neurobiological deficit may be found, and reasoning biases and motivational factors may be contributors to the formation of the delusion (e.g. McKay et al., 2005). Moreover, it would be a mistake to define delusions as symptoms of schizophrenia alone, because they occur also in other disorders, including dementia, amnesia, and delusional disorders. Thus, aetiological considerations may appear in the description and analysis of delusions, but do not feature prominently in their definition. -/- In this paper I argue that the surface features used as criteria for the classification and diagnosis of disorders of cognition are often epistemic in character. I shall offer two examples: confabulations and delusions are defined as beliefs or narratives that fail to meet standards of accuracy and justification. Although classifications and diagnoses based on features of people’s observable behaviour are necessary at these early stages of neuropsychiatric research, given the variety of conditions in which certain phenomena appear, I shall attempt to show that current epistemic accounts of confabulations and delusions have limitations. Epistemic criteria can guide both research and clinical practice, but fail to provide sufficient conditions for the identification of delusions and confabulations, and fail to demarcate pathological from non-pathological narratives or beliefs. -/- Another limitation of current epistemic accounts – which I shall not address here – is the excessive focus on epistemic faults of confabulations and delusions at the expense of their epistemically neutral or advantageous features (see Bortolotti and Cox, 2009). This may lead to a misconception of delusions and confabulations, and to an oversimplification in the assessment of the needs of people who require clinical treatment for their psychotic symptoms. (shrink)

The last decade has seen an explosion of research on the gut microbiota—the trillions of microorganisms that colonize the human gut. It is now clear that interindividual diversity in microbiota composition plays an important role in determining susceptibility to a wide variety of diseases. However, identifying the precise changes in microbiota composition that play causal roles has remained a largely unrealized goal. Here, we propose that functional classifications of microbes based on their interactions with and effects on the (...) host—particularly the host immune system—will illuminate the role of the microbiota in shaping human physiology. We outline the benefits of “functional” classification compared to phylogenetic classifications, and review current efforts at functional classification of the microbiota. Finally, we outline a theoretical framework for classifying host-microbiota interactions. Future advances enabling broader functional classifications of the microbiota promise to revolutionize our understanding of the role of gut microbes in health and disease. Functional classifications of the human microbiota reveal previously hidden patterns and will be key to cracking the microbiota composition code. This figure shows a theoretical comparison between phylogenetic classification and functional classification of a host-associated microbial community. (shrink)

Newcomb-like problems are classified by the payoff table of their act-state pairs, and the causal structure that gives rise to the act-state correlation. Decision theories are classified by the one or more points of intervention whose causal role is taken to be relevant to rationality in various problems. Some decision theories suggest an inherent conflict between different notions of rationality that are all relevant. Some issues with causal modeling raise problems for decision theories in the contexts where (...) Newcomb problems arise. (shrink)

The ethnic or “racial” classification of Maori and non-Maori is a pivotal feature of New Zealand’s health system and affects government policy and professional practice within the context of Treaty of Waitangi “partnership” politics. Although intended to empower Maori, ethnic categorization can have unintended and negative consequences by ignoring the causality of material forces in social phenomena. The authors begin by showing how the use of ethnic categories in health policy is justified by the Treaty of Waitangi partnership policies. This (...) provides the context for the argument made in the manuscript that an understanding of the social experience of ethnicity within the complex interaction of sociocultural factors such as socioeconomic location and lifestyle is more useful than using the political construct of ethnic categories in explaining the persistence of low health status for a section of the Maori population. (shrink)

This anthology of essays presents a sample of studies from recent philosophy of medicine addressing issues which attempt to answer very general (interdependent) questions: (a) what is a disease and what is health? (b) How do we (causally) explain diseases? (c) And how do we distinguish diseases, i.e. define classes of diseases and recognize that an instance X of disease belongs to a given class B? (d) How do we assess and choose cure/ therapy?

Though causality seems to have a natural place in chemical thought, the analysis of the underlying causal concepts requires attention to two different research styles. In Part One I attempt a classification and critical analysis of several philosophical accounts of causal concepts which appear to be very diverse. I summarize this diversity which ranges from causality as displayed in regular concomitances of types of events to causality as the activity of agents. Part Two is concerned with the analysis (...) of contrasting chemical discourses, comparing the classical atomist style of Boyle, and Lavoisier and von Liebig with the later energeticist style of van’t Hoff and Hinshelwood. In detail different clusters of causal concepts can be abstracted from these discursive styles, yet they all approximate the Realist format for causal discourse. By way of summary I make an attempt to map the vernacular distinctions of Part Two onto the philosophical territory of Part One. The argument is rounded off with a brief analysis of a chemical publication of 2008. (shrink)

The present essay is primarily concerned with. By analyzing the usefulness of the idea of efficient causation I shall expose its primarily classificatory function and the intrinsic limits which this function of the idea prescribes for it. The plan of these remarks is as follows: to exhibit the classificatory function of the causal analysis, to show how this function operates in the relation between categorical and hypothetical assertions, to show briefly how it operates in counterfactual and dispositional assertions, and (...) to show the role of this function in the identification of events. Then I shall relate the limits of causal classification to those of predicative classification and show briefly the significance of this functional view of causal determinism for Freudian psychology. Each of the topics must be treated only in so far as it bears on the rest, and important questions in each area will therefore be by-passed. In one sense the applications to Freudian psychology constitute the primary target of the study, since it is in that field that classical determinism has enjoyed a notorious renaissance. It is there also that the great practical significance of the question about determinism lies. (shrink)

Millikan's account of how we acquire our most basic concepts might be clarified by a better ontological taxonomy, especially one that distinguishes between natural kinds on the one hand and wholes composed of parts on the other. The two have a different causal basis, which is important because once classification goes beyond the stage of naive induction, it becomes fundamentally etiological.

This chapter examines philosophical issues surrounding the classification of mental disorders by the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM). In particular, the chapter focuses on issues concerning the relative merits of descriptive versus theoretical approaches to psychiatric classification and whether the DSM should classify natural kinds. These issues are presented with reference to the history of the DSM, which has been published regularly by the American Psychiatric Association since 1952 and is currently in its fifth edition. While the (...) first two editions of the DSM adopted a theoretical (psychoanalytic) and etiological approach to classification, subsequent editions of the DSM have adopted an atheoretical and purely descriptive (“neo-Kraepelinian”) approach. It is argued that largest problem with the DSM at present—viz., its failure to provide valid diagnostic categories—is directly related to the purely descriptive methodology championed by the DSM since the third edition of the DSM. In light of this problem, the chapter discusses the prospects of a theoretical and causal approach to psychiatric classification and critically examines the assumption that the DSM should classify natural kinds. (shrink)

Aristotle, in the Historia Animalium, follows the explanation‐involving approach to classification that he developed in the pattern of the Posterior Analytics. Thus, he draws in his theory of animal classification on his explanatory account of soul functions developed in De Anima. However, his project encounters a severe problem: he failed to uncover in his study of biological phenomena the unified, causally basic essences that his theory of definition required. I consider whether Aristotle can resolve this crisis while remaining true to (...) the basic features of his Analytics paradigm. (shrink)

In this paper I sketch William Whewell’s attempts to impose order on classificatory mineralogy, which was in Whewell’s day (1794e1866) a confused science of uncertain prospects. Whewell argued that progress was impeded by the crude reductionist assumption that all macroproperties of crystals could be straightforwardly explained by reference to the crystals’ chemical constituents. By comparison with biological classification, Whewell proposed methodological reforms that he claimed would lead to a natural classification of minerals, which in turn would support advances in (...) class='Hi'>causal understanding of the properties of minerals. Whewell’s comparison to successful biological classification is particularly striking given that classificatory biologists did not share an understanding of the causal structure underlying the natural classification of life (the common descent with modification of all organisms). Whewell’s key proposed methodological reform is consideration of multiple, distinct principles of classification. The most powerful evidence in support of a natural classificatory claim is the consilience of claims arrived at through distinct lines of reasoning, rooted in distinct conceptual approaches to the target objects. Mineralogists must consider not only elemental composition and chemical affinities, but also symmetry and polarity. Geometrical properties are central to what makes an individual mineral the type of mineral that it is. In Whewell’s view, function and organization jointly define life, and so are the keys to understanding what makes an organism the type of organism that it is. I explain the relationship between Whewell’s teleological account of life and his natural theology. I conclude with brief comments about the importance of Whewell’s classificatory theory for the further development of his philosophy of science and in particular his account of consilience. (shrink)

This article examines how specific realist and projectivist versions of manipulability theories of causation deal with the problem of objectivity. Does an agent-dependent concept of manipulability imply that conflicting causal claims made by agents with different capacities can come out as true? In defence of the projectivist stance taken by the agency view, I argue that if the agent’s perspective is shown to be uniform across different agents, then the truth-values of causal claims do not vary arbitrarily and, (...) thus, reach a satisfactory level of objectivity. My argument connects Price’s considerations on the situation of deliberation, whose structure, common to all agents, is the same with respect to both decision making and causal claims on a concept inspired by Douglas’s classification of objectivity of thought processes: the perspective of the detached agent. I further argue that, despite his agent-independent concept of intervention, Woodward’s claim of a stronger objectivity standard cannot be achieved, as the relativity of causal concepts to a variable set brings about the issue of the agent’s choice of variables. Consequently, a more permissive objectivity standard applies to both views. (shrink)

On several occasions I have pointed out that the lesson taught us by recent developments in physics regarding the necessity of a constant extension of the frame of concepts appropriate for the classification of new experiences leads us to a general epistemological attitude which might help us to avoid apparent conceptual difficulties in other fields of science as well. Since, however, the opinion has been expressed from various sides that this attitude would appear to involve a mysticism incompatible with the (...) true spirit of science, I am very glad to use the present opportunity of addressing this assembly of scientists working in quite different fields but united in their striving to find a common ground for our knowledge, to come back to this question, and above all to try to clear up the misunderstandings which have arisen. (shrink)

This paper addresses philosophical issues concerning whether mental disorders are natural kinds and how the DSM should classify mental disorders. I argue that some mental disorders (e.g., schizophrenia, depression) are natural kinds in the sense that they are natural classes constituted by a set of stable biological mechanisms. I subsequently argue that a theoretical and causal approach to classification would provide a superior method for classifying natural kinds than the purely descriptive approach adopted by the DSM since DSM-III. My (...) argument suggests that the DSM should classify natural kinds in order to provide predictively useful (i.e., projectable) diagnostic categories and that a causal approach to classification would provide a more promising method for formulating valid diagnostic categories. (shrink)

This dissertation examines psychiatry from a philosophy of science perspective, focusing on issues of realism and classification. Questions addressed in the dissertation include: What evidence is there for the reality of mental disorders? Are any mental disorders natural kinds? When are disease explanations of abnormality warranted? How should mental disorders be classified? -/- In addressing issues concerning the reality of mental disorders, I draw on the accounts of realism defended by Ian Hacking and William Wimsatt, arguing that biological research on (...) mental disorders supports the inference that some mental disorders (e.g., schizophrenia, mood disorders, and anxiety disorders) are real theoretical entities, and that the evidence supporting this inference is causal and abductive. In explicating the nature of such entities, I argue that real mental disorders are natural kinds insofar as they are natural classes of abnormal behavior whose members share the same causal structure. I present this position in terms of Richard Boyd’s homeostatic cluster property theory of natural kinds, and argue that this perspective reveals limitations of Hacking’s account on the looping effects of human kinds, which suggests that the objects classified by psychiatrists are unstable entities. I subsequently argue that a subset of mental disorders (e.g., schizophrenia and Down syndrome) are mental illnesses insofar as they are disorders caused by a dysfunctional biological process that leads to harmful consequences for individuals. I present this analysis against Thomas Szasz’s argument that mental illness is a myth. -/- In addressing issues of psychiatric classification, my analysis focuses on the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM), which has been published regularly by the American Psychiatric Association since 1952, and is currently in its fourth edition. After examining the history of DSM in the twentieth century, and in particular, DSM’s shift to an atheoretical and purely descriptive system in the 1980s, I consider the relative merits of descriptive versus causal systems of classification. Drawing on Carl Hempel’s analysis of taxonomic systems in psychiatry, I argue that a causal classification system would provide a superior approach to psychiatric classification than the descriptive system currently favored by DSM. (shrink)

This chapter sketches a taxonomy of artificial dispositions where humans play a part in the triggering mechanisms for those dispositions’ manifestations, and those dispositions that require humans for certain kinds of manifestations to be sustained. Thus the way and extent to which a disposition will count as artificial will be a matter of degree. The chapter argues for adopting an approach from the literature on natural kinds, sometimes called an “epistemic” or “pragmatic” turn, and takes aim at a traditional criterion (...) for something’s being real, i.e. mind-independence, while the proposed alternative criterion is a causal criterion. The chapter goes on to address complications for this taxonomy with potential difficulties from mimics, and a variety of dispositions sometimes purported to exist which I’ll call “apocryphal dispositions”. (shrink)

The notion of 'natural kinds' has been central to contemporary discussions of metaphysics and philosophy of science. Although explicitly articulated by nineteenth-century philosophers like Mill, Whewell and Venn, it has a much older history dating back to Plato and Aristotle. In recent years, essentialism has been the dominant account of natural kinds among philosophers, but the essentialist view has encountered resistance, especially among naturalist metaphysicians and philosophers of science. Informed by detailed examination of classification in the natural and social sciences, (...) this book argues against essentialism and for a naturalist account of natural kinds. By looking at case studies drawn from diverse scientific disciplines, from fluid mechanics to virology and polymer science to psychiatry, the author argues that natural kinds are nodes in causal networks. On the basis of this account, he maintains that there can be natural kinds in the social sciences as well as the natural sciences. (shrink)

The aim of this paper is to show that biological kinds can be causally homogeneous, although all biological causes are identical with configurations of physical causes. The paper considers two different strategies to establish that result: the first one relies on two different manners of classification (according to function and according to composition); the other one exploits the idea of biological classifications being rather coarse-grained, whereas physical classifications are fine-grained.

In A.J.P. XXXIII., pp. 426–435, Mr. A. C. Pearson attempted to prove that ὅТαѵ ‘not infrequently bears a causal signification … and that in such cases the temporal meaning is more or less evanescent, and sometimes entirely disappears.’ The use of ὅТαѵ where the verb refers to future time is not discussed, the purpose being ‘to establish that the classification which sums up the other occurrences of the construction as necessarily expressing “indefinite frequency” is incomplete; and that a rigorous (...) insistence on its universal applicability has vitiated the interpretation of numerous passages.’ In the question of ‘causal implication’ I am not particularly interested. It is useless to attempt to deny that our English since is a satisfactory translation of ὅТαѵ in many instances, though it is not, perhaps, an easy matter to state what is the exact force of since in such cases. As to ‘causal implication’ I shall merely point out that a cause, strictly speaking, precedes in time that of which it is the cause, whereas a ὅТε-clause properly defines a situation that is of the same time as the principal clause. The question I wish to raise is whether the implication of ‘indefinite frequency’ has disappeared so completely in certain passages as Mr. Pearson thinks it has. Some of his examples are very interesting. It is not easy to see repeated action in them, and we may admit that critics have not ‘seriously pondered the results which flow from their adherence to established convention.’ But has Mr. Pearson seriously pondered the results which flow from his own conclusions?' So far as I can see, he makes no distinction at all between cases of ὅТαѵ with the subjunctive, ‘where no other relation than that of causality appears to exist between the subordinate and principal clauses’ and cases of ‘causal’ ὅТε with the indicative. (shrink)

Two experiments examined the impact of causal relations between features on categorization in 5‐ to 6‐year‐old children and adults. Participants learned artificial categories containing instances with causally related features and noncausal features. They then selected the most likely category member from a series of novel test pairs. Classification patterns and logistic regression were used to diagnose the presence of independent effects of causal coherence, causal status, and relational centrality. Adult classification was driven primarily by coherence when (...) class='Hi'>causal links were deterministic (Experiment 1) but showed additional influences of causal status when links were probabilistic (Experiment 2). Children’s classification was based primarily on causal coherence in both cases. There was no effect of relational centrality in either age group. These results suggest that the generative model (Rehder, 2003a) provides a good account of causal categorization in children as well as adults. (shrink)

Two experiments examined the impact of causal relations between features on categorization in 5- to 6-year-old children and adults. Participants learned artificial categories containing instances with causally related features and noncausal features. They then selected the most likely category member from a series of novel test pairs. Classification patterns and logistic regression were used to diagnose the presence of independent effects of causal coherence, causal status, and relational centrality. Adult classification was driven primarily by coherence when (...) class='Hi'>causal links were deterministic (Experiment 1) but showed additional influences of causal status when links were probabilistic (Experiment 2). Children’s classification was based primarily on causal coherence in both cases. There was no effect of relational centrality in either age group. These results suggest that the generative model (Rehder, 2003a) provides a good account of causal categorization in children as well as adults. (shrink)

Identifying the necessary and sufficient conditions for individuating and classifying diseases is a matter of great importance in the fields of law, ethics, epidemiology, and of course, medicine. In this paper, I first propose a means of achieving this goal, ensuring that no two distinct disease-types could correctly be ascribed to the same disease-token. I then posit a metaphysical ontology of diseases—that is, I give an account of what a disease is. This is essential to providing the most effective means (...) of interfering with disease processes. Following existing work in the philosophy of medicine and epidemiology (primarily Christopher Boorse; Caroline Whitbeck; Alexander Broadbent), philosophy of biology (Joseph LaPorte; D.L. Hull), conditional analyses of causation (J.L. Mackie; David Lewis), and recent literature on dispositional essentialism (Stephen Mumford and Rani Anjum; Alexander Bird), I endorse a dispositional conception of disease. Following discussion of various conceptions of disease-identity, their relations to the clinical and pathological effects of the diseases in question, and how diseases are treated, I conclude (i) that diseases should be individuated by their causes, and (ii) that diseases are causal processes best seen as simultaneously acting sequences of mutually manifesting dispositions. (shrink)

Technological change is widely studied in economic discourse, dominated by an “industrial perspective” in which scientific and engineering advances are categorized by, and analyzed in the context of, industrial classifications. The present study compares this perspective with the alternative approach of studying the effects of scientific advances onproducts (goods and services) in the context of the functions those products serve. Using a function-based classification scheme, data on the economic effects of scientific advances are developed from articles appearing in business (...) journals. These data present a different picture of evolutionary economic change, which may shed additional light on its causality. (shrink)

The differences between classes and individuals are profound and the fact that biological species are individuals rather than classes provides the basis for organizing knowledge on a causal basis. The class of species is a natural kind and there are laws of nature for this and other classes of natural kinds such as the organism and the molecule. Particular species, like other individuals, function in historical narratives by virtue of laws of nature applying to them. The notion that species (...) can evolve by changing their members is a category mistake. Darwin believed that there is no “essential” difference between species and subspecies in the sense that there is only a quantitative difference between them. The concept of biological species is defined on the basis of a qualitative difference. The rank of taxa can be used to distinguish between important natural kinds. Without such kinds language would become purely referential, and have no “sense” as Frege had put it. (shrink)

A large part of the controversy surrounding the publication of DSM-5 stems from the possibility of replacing the purely descriptive approach to classification favored by the DSM since 1980. This paper examines the question of how mental disorders should be classified, focusing on the issue of whether the DSM should adopt a purely descriptive or theoretical approach. I argue that the DSM should replace its purely descriptive approach with a theoretical approach that integrates causal information into the DSM’s descriptive (...) diagnostic categories. The paper proceeds in three sections. In the first section, I examine the goals (viz., guiding treatment, facilitating research, and improving communication) associated with the DSM’s purely descriptive approach. In the second section, I suggest that the DSM’s purely descriptive approach is best suited for improving communication among mental health professionals; however, theoretical approaches would be superior for purposes of treatment and research. In the third section, I outline steps required to move the DSM towards a hybrid system of classification that can accommodate the benefits of descriptive and theoretical approaches, and I discuss how the DSM’s descriptive categories could be revised to incorporate theoretical information regarding the causes of disorders. I argue that the DSM should reconceive of its goals more narrowly such that it functions primarily as an epistemic hub that mediates among various contexts of use in which definitions of mental disorders appear. My analysis emphasizes the importance of pluralism as a methodological means for avoiding theoretical dogmatism and ensuring that the DSM is a reflexive and self-correcting manual. (shrink)

Medical expert systems (MES) are knowledge-based computer programs that are designed for advising physicians on diagnostical and therapeutical decision-making. They use heuristic methods developed by Artificial Intelligence researchers in order to retrieve from large knowledge-bases information needed in the situation. Constructing the knowledge-base of a MES embraces the problem of explicating and fixing the conceptual, causal and epistemic relations between a lot of medical objects. There is a number of preconditions which any adequate representation of such knowledge must fulfil, (...) among them the conditions of consistency, of completeness, of unequivocality, etc. Existing systems for classification and coding, like ICD and SNOMED, are not designed for the needs of constructing expert systems or, more generally, of knowledge processing and knowledge engineering. Their syntax is not sufficiently rich for expressing the more complex structures of (medical) knowledge. What is needed, is a language that can be used for expressing logical and descriptive relations between medical objects and facts, approximately at the level of the language of second order predicate logic. Simultaneously, it must be possible to process this language at the machine level. This can be achieved by using some dialects of the programming language LISP or, particularly, by using the programming language PROLOG. Thus, in order to achieve a suitable classification system, it is necessary to develop a system of medical data structures and predicates expressed in LISP or PROLOG. (shrink)

Both lay people and scientists organize the world around them by categorizing particular things as belonging to kinds. Scientists speak and theorize about various kinds of things, like hydrogen, gold, and water; electron and neutron; Canis lupus and Felis catus; igneous rock, sedimentary rock, and metamorphic rock; schizophrenia, psychopathy, and autism; Caucasian, African, and Amerindian. Given this variety of scientific kind categories, one fundamental question for philosophers of science is whether any of these kinds really are natural kinds, and if (...) so, what it is that constitutes their naturalness.nbsp;is to say, when we classify particular things as belonging to the same kind, is it ever the case that they really or naturally belong to the same kind? Do we ever carve the world at its joints, so to speak? Or, are there rather just many different ways in which we, humans, decide to classify particulars into kinds, each possible classification as conventional as any other? In this dissertation, a realist account of natural kinds is defended, according to which some kind classifications are more natural than others. It is argued that the naturalness of scientific kinds can be accounted for by the Causal Unification Theory. According to this view, the naturalness of a kind category lies in the contribution this category makes to our epistemic practices, as a result of accommodating these practices to a causally unified group of properties. Because the properties of natural kind-members are causally unified, they ground multiple causally sustained generalizations. Thus, natural kinds are the metaphysical grounds of systematic scientific research by allowing for multiple inductive generalizations and predictions, and for unified explanations. This view is developed in response to the historically most important theories about natural kinds and several more recent ones. The Causal Unification Theory of natural kinds is then put to work to elucidate the naturalness of two controversial humannbsp;classifications, namely the biological classification of human races and the social psychological classification of homophobes. The current metaphysical race debate is criticized for being too dependent on broad philosophical issues, and it is shown that asking about the naturalness of races, rather than about their existence, allows for a more nuanced debate that is to a larger extent dependent on empirical results. The example of homophobia is discussed in relation to the worry that the normative dimension of many human kinds diminishes the extent to which they can be considered natural kinds. It is argued that we should not be too pessimistic, but that there is indeed reason for concern. To illustrate this, a case is made that the measurement of homophobia is inflated as a result of the normative dimension of this kind. (shrink)

Rom Harré's generative account of causality has been drawn on heavily by advocates of critical realism. Yet Harré argues that critical realists often exaggerate the extent to which powerful causal explanations of social phenomena can be developed. Certain proponents of critical realism have responded to Harré's criticisms by suggesting that it is useful to consider the relevant issues in relation to the familiar Aristotelian classification of four causes. In this paper I contribute to this debate and pursue a similar (...) strategy. The paper adds to existing contributions in two ways. Firstly, I outline how Harré sees his generative account of causality as linking up with Aristotelian themes. It emerges that Harré at times conceives of his generative theory as part of an alternative to the Aristotelian system while at other times he draws connections between it and a reformulated account of formal causality. Secondly, I argue that when we consider the positions of Harré and proponents of critical realism on the scope of causal explanation in the social realm in relation to the interpretation of final causes offered by another philosopher profoundly influenced by the Aristotelian tradition, namely Charles Peirce, we can see both as limited in certain respects. (shrink)

A great number of constructive suggestions for the analysis of the concepts and models treated are presented in this book, which mirrors a current debate within the theory of medicine by covering three central topics: the concepts of health and disease; definition and classification in medicine; and causal explanation in medicine. Among the issues dealt with are: How should the concepts of health and disease be characterized in order to be of relevance to clinical practice? Should we try to (...) define particular diseases in explicit terms? What should be the criteria for selecting causes when explaining disease or death? These problems are treated from various points of view, the contributors being drawn from the fields of clinical medicine, epidemiology, psychiatry, social medicine, philosophy, and history of medicine. (shrink)

Scepticism concerning the idea of causation being linked to contingent chance-raising is articulated in Beebee’s challenging chapter. She suggests that none of these approaches will avoid the consequence that spraying defoliant on a weed is a cause of the weed’s subsequent health. We will always be able to abstract away enough of the healthy plant processes so all that’s left is the causal chain involving defoliation and health. In those circumstances, there will be contingent chance-raising. Beebee’s conclusion is that (...) we should reject the idea of contingent chance-raising and just accept that all causation involves chance-raising. This involves the reclassification of some intuitive cases of causation as causal processes without causation but rather hindering (a distinctive kind of process). It seems clear from this discussion and from the brief earlier remarks about the status of prevention that the classification of types of causal processes and the characterization of their link to causation are matters of some importance. (shrink)

A Kuhnian reformulation of the recent debate in psychiatric nosography suggested that the current psychiatric classification system (the DSM) is in crisis and that a sort of paradigm shift is awaited (Aragona, 2009). Among possible revolutionary alternatives, the proposed fi ve-axes etiopathogenetic taxonomy (Charney et al., 2002) emphasizes the primacy of the genotype over the phenomenological level as the relevant basis for psychiatric nosography. Such a position is along the lines of the micro-reductionist perspective of E. Kandel (1998, 1999), which (...) sees mental disorders reducible to explanations at a fundamental epistemic level of genes and neurotransmitters. This form of micro-reductionism has been criticized as a form of genetic-molecular fundamentalism (e.g. Murphy, 2006) and a multi-level approach, in the form of the burgeoning Cognitive Neuropsychiatry, was proposed. This article focuses on multi-level mechanistic explanations, coming from Cognitive Science, as a possible alternative etiopathogenetic basis for psychiatric classification. The idea of a mechanistic approach to psychiatric taxonomy is here defended on the basis of a better conception of levels and causality. Nevertheless some critical remarks of Mechanism as a psychiatric general view are also offered. (shrink)

The aim of this paper is to analyze, from a philosophical perspective, the scientific robustness of the construct of psychopathy as measured by the Psychopathy Checklist Revised that was developed by Robert Hare (1991; 2003). The scientific robustness and validity of classifications are topics of many debates in philosophy of science and philosophy of psychiatry more specifically. The main problem consists in establishing whether scientific classifications reflect natural kinds where the concept of a natural kind refers to the (...) existence of some objective divisions in nature that do not depend exclusively on subjective judgments of the classifier. The construct of psychopathy is especially interesting since the diagnosis of psychopathy has substantial social consequences. In the light of the recent debates regarding the problem of natural kinds in philosophy of psychiatry, we advocate the following distinction between two types of scientific classifications: natural and practical kinds. Natural kinds refer to those categories that are united by common causal mechanisms or properties. Practical kinds refer to categories that fulfill some practical classificatory goals such as prediction. We argue that the construct of psychopathy can fulfill the role of a practical kind. In addition, we contend that our current scientific knowledge about psychopathy does not allow us to conclude that this category is a natural kind. (shrink)

John Wilkins and Malte Ebach respond to the dismissal of classification as something we need not concern ourselves with because it is, as Ernest Rutherford suggested, mere ‘‘stamp collecting.’’ They contend that classification is neither derivative of explanation or of hypothesis-making but is necessarily prior and prerequisite to it. Classification comes first and causal explanations are dependent upon it. As such it is an important (but neglected) area of philosophical study. Wilkins and Ebach reject Norwood Russell Hanson’s thesis that (...) classification relies on observation that is theory-laden and deny the need for aetiological assumptions and historical reconstruction to justify its arrangement. What they offer instead is a significant (albeit controversial) contribution to the philosophical literature on classification, a pre-theoretic natural classification based on the observation of patterns in data of ready-made phenomena. Their notion of ready-made phenomena rests on a conception of tacit knowledge or know-how. This is evident in their distinction between strong Theory-dependence and na ̈ıve theory-dependence. Their small t-theory-dependence permits patterns of observation that facilitate know-how but does not rely on a domain-specific explanatory theory of their aetiology. Wilkins and Ebach suggest classification differs from theory building in that it is passive (whereas theory building is active). Classification is possible just because it does not require the sieve of theory to capture classes that are ‘‘handed to you by your cognitive dispositions and the data that you observe’’ (p. 18). Finding regularities sans-theory is just something we do and can do without any prior theory about the underlying causes or origins of the resultant regularities. Luke Howard’s classification of clouds serves as an exemplar of a passive, theory-free classification system and the periodic table and the DSM help to illustrate this type of non-aetiological patterning. A recurrent theme is the nature of naturalness. For Wilkins and Ebach, the conception of naturalness is not one that is based on the generation or discovery of natural kind categories popular in both the traditional metaphysics of Mill and Wittgenstein as well as updated notions within philosophy of biology such as Boyd’s Homeostatic Property Cluster kinds. Instead, Wilkins and Ebach define the naturalness of classification as the falling into hierarchical patterns, aligning the search for natural arrangement with the aim of systematics, and as something that is grounded in a cognitive task or activity. However, they leave the question of realism v. antirealism open. ‘‘In natural classification...we must have real relations no matter how we might interpret ‘real’’’ (p. 70). There is tension with regard to their ontological commitments as they vacillate between constructive, operationalist, and realist approaches. Wilkins and Ebach initially define real as that which is causal and important (pp. 70–71), and later as that which ‘‘depends in no way upon a mind or observer’’ (p. 122). This makes their claim that there was ‘‘no real theory involved [in the pre-Darwinian classifications of Jussieu and Adanson]’’ (p. 64) difficult to interpret. Cont’d……. (shrink)

At Metaphysics A 5 986a22-b2, Aristotle refers to a Pythagorean table, with two columns of paired opposites. I argue that 1) although Burkert and Zhmud have argued otherwise, there is sufficient textual evidence to indicate that the table, or one much like it, is indeed of Pythagorean origin; 2) research in structural anthropology indicates that the tables are a formalization of arrays of “symbolic classification” which express a pre-scientific world view with social and ethical implications, according to which the presence (...) of a principle on one column of the table will carry with it another principle within the same column; 3) a close analysis of Aristotle's arguments shows that he thought that the table expresses real causal relationships; and 4) Aristotle faults the table of opposites with positing its principles as having universal application and with not distinguishing between those principles that are causally prior and those that are posterior. Aristotle's account of scientific explanation and his own explanations that he developed in accordance with this account are in part the result of his critical encounter with this prescientific Pythagorean table. (shrink)

Many animal species use tools, but human technical engagement is more complex. We argue that there is coevolution between technical engagement and advanced forms of causal cognition in the human lineage. As an analytic tool, we present a classification of different forms of causal thinking. Human causal thinking has become detached from space and time, so that instead of just reacting to perceptual input, our minds can simulate actions and forces and their causal consequences. Our main (...) thesis is that, unlike the situation for other primate species, an increasing emphasis on technical engagement made some hominins capable of reasoning about the forces involved in causal processes. This thesis is supported in three ways: We compare the casual thinking about forces of hominins with that of other primates. We analyze the causal thinking required for Stone Age hunting technologies such as throwing spears, bow hunting and the use of poisoned arrows, arguing that they may serve as examples of the expansion of casual cognition about forces. We present neurophysiological results that indicate the facilitation of advanced causal thinking. (shrink)

[EN]Most theories of causation assume that it must involve some kind of necessity, or that the cause must be entirely sufficient for the effect. Others have already suggested that it should be possible to get a theory of causation from a theory of powers or dispositions. Such a project is far from complete but even here we find that the key point in a dispositional theory of causation has been lacking. This paper attempts to establish some of the most important (...) principles of such a theory and in so doing turn the existing discussion in a new direction. [ES]La mayoría de las teorías de causación asumen que debe envolverse algún tipo de necesidad, o que la causa debe ser enteramente suficiente para el efecto. Otros ya han sugerido que debería de ser posible obtener una teoría de causación a partir de una teoría de poderes o disposiciones. Un proyecto tal está muy lejos de estar completo, pero incluso aquí encontramos que ha faltado el punto clave en una teoría dispositiva de causación. Este escrito intenta establecer algunos de los principios más importantes de una teoría tal, y al hacerlo inclina la discusión existente en una nueva dirección. (shrink)

This paper has three goals. The first goal is to work out the difference between literal ceteris paribus laws in the sense of “all others being equal” and ceteris rectis “laws” in the sense of “all others being right”. While cp laws involve a universal quantification, cr generalizations involve an existential quantification over the values of the remainder variables Z. As a result, the two differ crucially in their confirmability and lawlikeness. The second goal is to provide a classification of (...) different kinds of cr generalizations, including certain transition cases between cr generalizations and cp laws. The third goal is to work out what cp laws and all kinds of cr assertions have in common: they figure as an information source for assertions of causal influence between variables. (shrink)

In psychiatry, many scientists desire to move from a classification system based on symptoms toward a system based on biological causes. The idea is that psychiatric diseases should be redefined such that each disease would be associated with specific biological causes. This desire is intelligible because causal disease models often facilitate understanding and identification of new ways to intervene in disease processes. In its attempt to move from syndromal to specific etiological definitions, psychiatry follows the trend of general medicine.Current (...) psychiatric... (shrink)

This thesis investigates the nature of psychiatric disorders, and to what extent they can form a basis for classification, explanation, and treatment interventions. These questions are important in the light of the “crisis of validity” in psychiatry, according to which current diagnostic categories do not pick out real disorders. I address the questions by defending an account of psychiatric disorders that can better accommodate social aspects and non-epistemic values than the symptom-based model of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental (...) Disorders (DSM) and the brain disease model of the biomedical approach, including the Research Domain Criteria (RDoC). I concentrate on three ways that psychiatric disorders can differ from prototypical natural kinds, such as biological species and chemical elements. First, the concept of psychiatric disorder or mental disorder is partly value-laden and cannot be defined based only on scientific facts. Second, the objects of psychiatric classifications are interactive human kinds because people with disorders respond to their classifications through looping effects. Third, sociocultural factors can shape disorders in complex ways, which is indicated by their cross-cultural variation. I argue that these challenges can be overcome with a pluralistic explanatory account that grants an explicit role to value-sensitive considerations and social scientific research. Based on this, I argue that particular disorders can in principle support inductive inferences. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ My key argument is that although whether a condition is considered pathological is partly a value-laden question, this does not rule out a realist account of particular psychiatric disorders as homeostatic property cluster kinds (HPC). I assert that causal mechanisms responsible for psychiatric kinds can be understood non-metaphysically based on the contrastive-counterfactual and interventionist theories of explanation. An advantage of this account is that it can address the concern that psychiatric explanations require one to relate heterogeneous causal factors on different levels, such as genetic, neurological, psychological, and social. My novel argument is that mechanistic explanations of scientific kinds have applicability domains over which they account for specific aspects of kinds and warrant inductive inferences. That is, identifying the applicability domain of an explanation spells out the conditions under which the explanation is expected to be reliable and when it can break down. This helps to understand how different discipline approaches, including social and cultural ones, can be complementary and make an explanation of a psychiatric kind more reliable. On the other hand, the account also shows how the complex nature of psychiatric kinds can license re-classifications for different epistemic and non-epistemic purposes. Finally, in the light of the social implications of psychiatric classifications, I suggest a value-sensitive or ameliorative approach to engineering the concept of psychiatric disorder. In conclusion, my account shows that research on the social and cultural factors that shape psychiatric disorders, and weighing the non-epistemic values that influence classificatory practices, can and should inform classificatory choices as well as policy and treatment interventions. (shrink)