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68Feyerabend’s Realism and Expansion of Pluralism in the 1970sIn Jonathan Y. Tsou, Shaw Jamie & Carla Fehr (eds.), Values, Pluralism, and Pragmatism: Themes from the Work of Matthew J. Brown, Boston Studies in the Philosophy and History of Science. Springer. forthcoming.My aim in this chapter is to clarify the nature of the shift in Feyerabend’s philosophical thinking in the 1970s, focusing on issues of realism, relativism, and pluralism. Contra-Preston, I argue that realism-relativism is a misleading variable for characterizing Feyerabend’s shift in the 1970s. Rather, I characterize this shift as Feyerabend’s expansion of pluralism and suggest that this shift appears in Feyerabend’s publications starting in the late-1960s (e.g., Feyerabend 1968b, 1969b, 1970a,…Read more
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55Values, Pluralism, and Pragmatism: Themes from the Work of Matthew J. Brown (edited book)Boston Studies in the Philosophy and History of Science. Springer. forthcoming.This book (edited by Jonathan Y. Tsou, Jamie Shaw, and Carla Fehr) offers eighteen original historical and philosophical essays focused on values in science, scientific pluralism, and pragmatism. These themes have been central in the work of Matthew J. Brown, and the book frames these topics through an engagement with Brown’s broadly ranging work on values in science. The themes of this book are integrated and unified in the pragmatic and value-laden ideal of science defended by Professor Brown …Read more
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205Philosophy of Psychology and PsychiatryIn Flavia Padovani & Adam Tamas Tuboly (eds.), Handbook of the History of Philosophy of Science, Routledge. forthcoming.This chapter examines the history of philosophy of psychology and philosophy of psychiatry as subfields of philosophy of science that emerged in the late twentieth and early twenty-first century. The chapter also surveys related literatures that developed in psychology and psychiatry. Philosophy of psychology (or philosophy of cognitive science) has been a well-established subfield of philosophy of mind since the 1990s and 2000s. This field of philosophy of psychology is narrowly focused on issu…Read more
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260The Contrast Class for Madness and Mental DisorderPhilosophy, Psychiatry, & Psychology 30 (4): 323-325. 2023.Commentary of Justin Garson, "Madness and idiocy: Reframing a basic problem of philosophy of psychiatry." Philosophy, Psychiatry, & Psychology
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508The Ambiguous Legacy of Kuhn's Structure for Normative Philosophy of ScienceIn K. Brad Wray (ed.), Kuhn's The Structure of Scientific Revolutions at 60, Cambridge University Press. pp. 217-234. 2024.This chapter examines the legacy of Kuhn’s Structure for normative philosophy of science. As an argument regarding the history of 20th century philosophy of science, I contend that the main legacy of Structure was destructive: Structure shifted philosophy of science away from addressing general normative philosophical issues (e.g., the demarcation problem, empirical testability) towards more deflationary and local approaches to normative issues. This is evident in the first generation of post-St…Read more
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3817Ethical Theory and TechnologyIn Gregory Robson & Jonathan Y. Tsou (eds.), Technology Ethics: A Philosophical Introduction and Readings, Routledge. pp. 62-72. 2023.
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445Technology Ethics: A Philosophical Introduction and Readings (edited book)Routledge. 2023.The first of its kind, this anthology in the burgeoning field of technology ethics offers students and other interested readers 32 chapters, each written in an accessible and lively manner specifically for this volume. The chapters are conveniently organized into five sections: I. Perspectives on Technology and its Value II. Technology and the Good Life III. Computer and Information Technology IV. Technology and Business V. Biotechnologies and Enhancement A hallmark of the volume is multidiscipl…Read more
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493Biological Essentialism, Projectable Human Kinds, and Psychiatric ClassificationPhilosophy of Science 89 (5): 1155-1165. 2022.A minimal essentialism (‘intrinsic biological essentialism’) about natural kinds is required to explain the projectability of human science terms. Human classifications that yield robust and ampliative projectable inferences refer to biological kinds. I articulate this argument with reference to an intrinsic essentialist account of HPC kinds. This account implies that human sciences (e.g., medicine, psychiatry) that aim to formulate predictive kind categories should classify biological kinds. Is…Read more
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883Philosophical Naturalism and Empirical Approaches to PhilosophyIn Marcus Rossberg (ed.), The Cambridge Handbook of Analytic Philosophy, Cambridge University Press. forthcoming.This chapter examines the influence of the empirical sciences (e.g., physics, biology, psychology) in contemporary analytic philosophy, with focus on philosophical theories that are guided by findings from the empirical sciences. Scientific approaches to philosophy follow a tradition of philosophical naturalism associated with Quine, which strives to ally philosophical methods and theories more closely with the empirical sciences and away from a priori theorizing and conceptual analysis.
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958Function, Dysfunction, and the Concept of Mental DisorderPhilosophy, Psychiatry, and Psychology 28 (4): 371-375. 2021.Naturalistic accounts of mental disorder aim to identify an objective basis for attributions of mental disorder. This goal is important for demarcating genuine mental disorders from artificial or socially constructed disorders. The articulation of a demarcation criterion provides a means for assuring that attributions of 'mental disorder' are not merely pathologizing different forms of social deviance. The most influential naturalistic and hybrid definitions of mental disorder identify biologica…Read more
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1089Philosophy of PsychiatryCambridge University Press. 2021.Jonathan Y. Tsou examines and defends positions on central issues in philosophy of psychiatry. The positions defended assume a naturalistic and realist perspective and are framed against skeptical perspectives on biological psychiatry. Issues addressed include the reality of mental disorders; mechanistic and disease explanations of abnormal behavior; definitions of mental disorder; natural and artificial kinds in psychiatry; biological essentialism and the projectability of psychiatric categorie…Read more
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469Social Construction, HPC Kinds, and the Projectability of Human CategoriesPhilosophy of the Social Sciences 50 (2): 115-137. 2020.This paper addresses the question of how human science categories yield projectable inferences by critically examining Ron Mallon’s ‘social role’ account of human kinds. Mallon contends that human categories are projectable when a social role produces a homeostatic property cluster (HPC) kind. On this account, human categories are projectable when various social mechanisms stabilize and entrench those categories. Mallon’s analysis obscures a distinction between transitory and robust projectable …Read more
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46Reviews (review)Philosophical Psychology 21 (1). 2008.Seeing, Doing, and Knowing: A Philosophical Theory of Sense Perception MOHAN MATTHEN New York, Oxford University Press, 2007384 pages, ISBN: 0199204284 (pbk); $35.00Mohan Matthen's Seeing, Doing an...
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140A Role for Reason in ScienceDialogue 42 (3): 573-598. 2003.Michael Friedman’s Dynamics of Reason is a welcome contribution to the ongoing articulation of philosophical perspectives for understanding the sciences in the context of post-positivist philosophy of science. Two perspectives that have gained advocacy since the demise of the “received view” are Quinean naturalism and Kuhnian relativism. In his 1999 Stanford lectures, Friedman articulates and defends a neo-Kantian perspective for philosophy of science that opposes both of these perspectives. His…Read more
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796Philosophy of Science, Psychiatric Classification, and the DSMIn Bluhm Robyn & Tekin Serife (eds.), The Bloomsbury Companion to Philosophy of Psychiatry, Bloomsbury. pp. 177-196. 2019.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 Asso…Read more
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269The social construction of real human kinds: Ron Mallon: The construction of human kinds. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2016, 250 pp, $50.00 HB (review)Metascience 26 (3): 467-470. 2017.
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18Gary L. Hardcastle and Alan W. Richardson , Logical Empiricism in North America. Minnesota Studies in the Philosophy of Science, vol. 18. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press , 293 pp., $49.95 (review)Philosophy of Science 72 (4): 634-637. 2005.
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368Pharmacological Interventions and the Neurobiological Basis of Mental DisordersIn Ioan Opris & Manuel F. Casanova (eds.), The Physics of the Mind and Brain Disorders: Integrated Neural Circuits Supporting the Emergence of Mind, Springer. pp. 613-628. 2017.In psychiatry, pharmacological research has played a crucial role in the formulation, revision, and refinement of neurobiological theories of psychopathology. Besides being utilized as potential treatments for various mental disorders, pharmacological drugs play an important epistemic role as experimental instruments that help scientists uncover the neurobiological underpinnings of mental disorders (Tsou, 2012). Interventions with psychiatric patients using pharmacological drugs provide research…Read more
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1552DSM-5 and Psychiatry's Second Revolution: Descriptive vs. Theoretical Approaches to Psychiatric ClassificationIn Steeves Demazeux & Patrick Singy (eds.), The DSM-5 in Perspective: Philosophical Reflections on the Psychiatric Babel, Springer. pp. 43-62. 2015.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 …Read more
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299The Reality and Classification of Mental DisordersDissertation, University of Chicago. 2008.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 Hackin…Read more
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223Review of Gary L. Hardcastle & Alan W. Richardson (Eds.), Logical Empiricism in North America. (review)Philosophy of Science 72 (4): 153-155. 2005.An essential overview of this important intellectual movement. This latest volume in the longest-standing and most influential series in the field of the philosophy of science extends and expands on the discipline's recent historical turn. These essays take up the historical, sociological, and philosophical questions surrounding the particular intellectual movement of logical empiricism--both its emigration from Europe to North America in the 1930s and 1940s and its development in North America …Read more
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1421Intervention, Causal Reasoning, and the Neurobiology of Mental Disorders: Pharmacological Drugs as Experimental InstrumentsStudies in History and Philosophy of Science Part C: Studies in History and Philosophy of Biological and Biomedical Sciences 43 (2): 542-551. 2012.In psychiatry, pharmacological drugs play an important experimental role in attempts to identify the neurobiological causes of mental disorders. Besides being developed in applied contexts as potential treatments for patients with mental disorders, pharmacological drugs play a crucial role in research contexts as experimental instruments that facilitate the formulation and revision of neurobiological theories of psychopathology. This paper examines the various epistemic functions that pharmacolo…Read more
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50Introduction: Objectivity in ScienceIn Flavia Padovani, Alan Richardson & Jonathan Y. Tsou (eds.), Objectivity in Science: New Perspectives From Science and Technology Studies, Boston Studies in the Philosophy and History of Science, Vol. 310. Springer. pp. 1-15. 2015.
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221Reconsidering Feyerabend’s “Anarchism‘Perspectives on Science 11 (2): 208-235. 2003.This paper explores Paul Feyerabend's (1924-1994) skeptical arguments for "anarchism" in his early writings between 1960 to 1975. Feyerabend's position is encapsulated by his well-known suggestion that the only principle for scientific method that can be defended under all circumstances is: "anything goes." I present Feyerabend's anarchism as a recommendation for pluralism that assumes a realist view of scientific theories. The aims of this paper are threefold: (1) to present a defensible view o…Read more
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104Distinguishing Non-Conceptual Content from Non-Syntactic Propositions: Comment on FullerSouthwest Philosophy Review 28 (2): 53-57. 2012.In this paper I argue that a principal argument in favor of the existence of non-conceptual content (henceforth NCC) fails. That is, I do not accept that considerations regarding the richness of our perceptual experiences support the existence of NCC. I argue instead that the existence of NCC is empirically motivated. Here is an outline of the paper. First, I set out the distinction between conceptual content and NCC as we understand it. Second, I consider the richness argument (RA), and argue t…Read more
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38Rationality and compulsion: Applying action theory to psychiatry – by Lennart Nordenfelt (review)Journal of Applied Philosophy 26 (4): 415-418. 2009.No Abstract
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964Natural Kinds, Psychiatric Classification and the History of the DSMHistory of Psychiatry 27 (4): 406-424. 2016.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 …Read more
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