In this paper I investigate whether "depression" is a vague concept in psychiatry and the consequence of this for philosophers who would like to contribute to the elaboration of an objective definition of it. Assuming that this concept aims at referring to a mental disorder, I show that the current definition of "depression" is controverted: we lack a unified scientific model of it, so a consensual objective definition of it. Actually there is its clinical definition in the nosology but this (...) definition consisting in a list of criteria is accused of being unsufficient to draw a sharp limit between normal and pathological cases. Hence vague boundaries of the extension of the concept as referring to a mental disorder. Moreover its clinical criteria, as descriptive and non distinctive, need to be interpreted by clinicians in a way that remains implicit and contextually variable, and they can apply to completely different clinical pictures. I interpret this as a variability of the descriptive definition of "depression", so that its conditions of use depend on the context: it may apply to two cases that have nothing in common except similarities. Applying the famous wittgensteinien characterization of the concept of "game" to "depression", I argue that this vagueness can be interpreted as showing that "depression" works as cluster of concepts whose instances only share "family resemblances". From this philosophical interpretation I draw the conclusion that the "vagueness problem" of depression at a theoretical level does not make the use of this concept problematic, since this in practice use is always related to a context conferring a specific meaning to the concept. I conclude that philosophers should not look in the clinical sciences for an objective definition of depression as a list of necessary and sufficient conditions pointing at its essence: they should rather either describe the family resemblances between the different versions of this concept, or try to stipulate a definition providing it sharp boundaries. A stipulative definition would be motivated by a pragmatic purpose while not delegitimizing other uses that could be made of the concept. Such a purpose could be to target only medically relevant conditions; actually such conditions do not necessarily have to be conceived of as conditions where there is a disease understood as pathological process that we could objectively define, but they can be seen as conditions that we have medical means to take care of with more benefits than disadvantages. (shrink)

L’objectif de ce numéro spécial est d’ouvrir la réflexion sur la notion de vague à partir du prisme de la philosophie des sciences, afin d’interroger le sens de cette notion dans différents domaines de la recherche scientifique.

Dans cet article je propose la double-thèse : du caractère « vague » (tel que défini dans la littérature logico-sémantique contemporaine) de la notion de hasard (chance) par opposition au caractère « non-vague » de celle d’aléatoire (randomness) ; du lien entre la vagueness et le pouvoir explicatif du hasard et la non-vagueness et la capacité descriptive de l’aléatoire, lequel plaide en faveur d’usages distincts de ces deux notions. Pour défendre la première thèse, j’ai recours aux définitions des notions de (...) hasard et d’aléatoire et à un exemple de l’histoire des sciences (la théorie du chaos). Pour appuyer la seconde, je fais appel à des exemples scientifiques : la variation dans la théorie darwinienne de l’évolution, la mutation génétique dans la synthèse moderne et la dérive génétique dans la théorie neutraliste de l’évolution. (shrink)

Compte-rendu de Death: Perspectives from the philosophy of biology, de Philippe Huneman, publié chez Palgrave Macmillan en 2023.

Is it sometimes indeterminate whether two events or variables are causally related? Can causal statements be vague? The analysis of three potential types of cases of causal indeterminacy and causal vagueness yields an affirmative answer. The claim that some cases of omission, and some cases of prevention, give rise to indeterminate causal relations depends on the premise that omissions and preventions can be causal. A second type of indeterminate causation corresponds to causal statements whose truth value is indeterminate because they (...) contain vague predicates. Such vagueness can have two sources. Only one yields indeterminate causation. Finally, there is indeterministic probabilistic causation. If “indeterministic overdetermination” is interpreted as metaphysical rather than epistemic, it is inappropriate to speak of indeterminacy. Rather, there is no fact of the matter about which of the two sources of probability raising really is the cause. It is more appropriate to say that both are contributing causes. “Indeterministic trumping” gives rise to a form of indeterminacy that belongs to the category of the open future. Once the effect has occurred, no indeterminacy remains. (shrink)

À l'occassion de ce numéro spécial sur le vague dans les sciences, nous avons traduis l'article fondamental de Bertrand Russell dont le titre est éponyme : Vagueness. Initialement publié dans The Australasian Journal of Psychology and Philosophy en 1923, et faisant suite à une lecture du philosophe devant la Jowett Society à Oxford, ce texte demeurait inaccessible aux lecteur.ices non anglophones.

‘Biodiversity’ is widely recognized as an extremely ambiguous concept in conservation science and ecology. It is defined in a number of different and incompatible ways in the scientific literature, and is also “exported” beyond the scientific community, where it may take on a host of other meanings for governments, policy-makers, non-governmental organizations, and the general public at large. One might respond to this ambiguity by either pushing for its clarification, and by extension the adoption of a single, univocal biodiversity concept, (...) or by rejecting the term entirely, replacing it with a relevant, more precise concept in each context. In this paper, I argue for a third approach. Drawing on literature describing change in large organizations, I explore ways in which ambiguity might be seen as productive – as a manner, at the very least, in which we can enable action by a mixed coalition of actors with different and, at times, contradictory interests and value commitments. I explore how this literature – in particular, a taxonomy of rhetorical uses of ambiguous concepts – could enable us to put the ambiguity of biodiversity to work for us, offering us a way to intervene in conflicts about the concept by helping to develop both clearer descriptive analyses and normative “rules for engagement” in debates surrounding biodiversity. (shrink)