Online research in philosophy

In this response to Wiggins and Schwartz, Ratcliffe, and Stanghellini, we first wish to express our gratitude to Philosophy, Psychiatry, and Psychology for providing us the space to clarify our views and to overcome certain misunderstandings. Ratcliffe notes that our critique is "harsh," whereas Wiggins and Schwartz lament the fact that the debate "has taken the form of sometimes acid formulations and rejoinders . . . that lack the tone of mutual appreciation" (2011, 31). We deplore the fact that this (...) exchange was at all necessary, and we share Wiggins and Schwartz's concerns. However, we need to recall here and emphasize that our article originated as a response. It originated as a response to an article that was .. (shrink)

The phenomenological approach to schizophrenia has undergone something of a renaissance in Anglophone psychiatry in recent years. There has been a proliferation of works that focus on the nature of subjectivity in schizophrenia and related disorders, and that take inspiration from the work of such German and French philosophers as Husserl, Heidegger, and Merleau-Ponty, and such classical psychiatrists as Minkowski, Blankenburg, and Binswanger (Rulf 2003; Sass 2001a, 2001b). This trend includes predominantly theoretical articles, which typically incorporate clinical material as well (...) as reviews of empirical and experimental findings in psychopathology. Some very recent examples (since 2000) are studies of .. (shrink)

This multidisciplinary collection explores three key concepts underpinning psychiatry -- explanation, phenomenology, and nosology -- and their continuing relevance in an age of neuroimaging and genetic analysis. An introduction by Kenneth S. Kendler lays out the philosophical grounding of psychiatric practice. The first section addresses the concept of explanation, from the difficulties in describing complex behavior to the categorization of psychological and biological causality. In the second section, contributors discuss experience, including the complex and vexing issue of how self-agency and (...) free will affect mental health. The third and final section examines the organizational difficulties in psychiatric nosology and the instability of the existing diagnostic system. Each chapter has both an introduction by the editors and a concluding comment by another of the book's contributors. Contributors: John Campbell, Ph.D.; Thomas Fuchs, M.D., Ph.D.; Shaun Gallagher, Ph.D.; Kenneth S. Kendler, M.D.; Sandra D. Mitchell, Ph.D.; Dominic P. Murphy, Ph.D.; Josef Parnas, M.D., Dr.Med.Sci.; Louis A. Sass, Ph.D.; Kenneth F. Schaffner, M.D., Ph.D.; James F. Woodward, Ph.D.; Peter Zachar, Ph.D. (shrink)

This volume presents essays on self-consciousness by prominent psychologists, cognitive neurologists, and philosophers.