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49Molecular Genetics, Reductionism, and Disease Concepts in PsychiatryJournal of Medicine and Philosophy 17 (2): 127-153. 1992.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 r…Read more
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23The meta‐language of psychiatry as cross‐disciplinary effort: In response to Zachar (2012)Journal of Evaluation in Clinical Practice 18 (3): 710-720. 2012.
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2Etiological models in psychiatry : reductive and nonreductive approachesIn Kenneth S. Kendler & Josef Parnas (eds.), Philosophical Issues in Psychiatry: Explanation, Phenomenology, and Nosology, Johns Hopkins University Press. 2008.
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45The peripherality of reductionism in the development of molecular biologyJournal of the History of Biology 7 (1): 111-139. 1974.I have not attempted to provide here an analysis of the methodology of molecular biology or molecular genetics which would demonstrate at what specific points a more reductionist aim would make sense as a research strategy. This, I believe, would require a much deeper analysis of scientific growth than philosophy of science has been able to provide thus far. What I have tried to show is that a straightforward reductionist strategy cannot be said to be follwed in important cases of theory develop…Read more
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14Theories and explanations in biologyJournal of the History of Biology 2 (1): 19-33. 1969.It seems that the above account of explanation-strategy in the area of temperature adaptation underscores many of the points made earlier. First, it discloses the fruitful interaction of classical, evolutionary, and molecular approaches. Secondly, it indicates that biological characterizations are not rival accounts to chemical ones. Thirdly, it stresses the importance of the DNA sequence order in chemical explanations of biological organisms.One feature which this area does not seem to reveal, …Read more
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21Computerized Implementation of Biomedical Theory Structures: An Artificial Intelligence ApproachPSA: Proceedings of the Biennial Meeting of the Philosophy of Science Association 1986. 1986.In this paper I discuss the nature of a broad class of biomedical theories which I have termed "middle-range theories." I define them and relate the nature of biomedical theorizing to other investigations, such as a recent inquiry by the National Academy of Sciences. I also suggest that some of the knowledge representation tools from artificial intelligence may give us a purchase on this type of biological theorizing, and try to show in a rather preliminary and exploratory manner by using the la…Read more
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Neuroethics: reductionism, emergence, and decision-making capacitiesNeuroethics: Mapping the Field. forthcoming.
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421Approaches to reductionPhilosophy of Science 34 (2): 137-147. 1967.Four current accounts of theory reduction are presented, first informally and then formally: (1) an account of direct theory reduction that is based on the contributions of Nagel, Woodger, and Quine, (2) an indirect reduction paradigm due to Kemeny and Oppenheim, (3) an "isomorphic model" schema traceable to Suppes, and (4) a theory of reduction that is based on the work of Popper, Feyerabend, and Kuhn. Reference is made, in an attempt to choose between these schemas, to the explanation of physi…Read more
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42Einstein Versus Lorentz: Research Programmes and the Logic of Comparative Theory EvaluationBritish Journal for the Philosophy of Science 25 (1): 45-78. 1974.
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22A Fallacious Forced Choice: Cloninger and Stoyanov, Machamer, and Schaffner Are CompatiblePhilosophy, Psychiatry, and Psychology 20 (3): 281-284. 2013.
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Discovery and Explanation in Biology and MedicineJournal of the History of Biology 28 (1): 172-174. 1995.
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14The Historiography of Special Relativity: Comments on the Papers by John Earman, Clark Glymour, and Robert Rynasiewicz and by Arthur MillerPSA: Proceedings of the Biennial Meeting of the Philosophy of Science Association 1982. 1982.Two problems in the paper by EGR are considered. One is the lack of any direct confirmatory evidence for the elegant rational reconstruction. The second is a significant gap in the historical account, just at the critical point in Einstein's discovery process -- namely, the reanalysis of simultaneity. In addition, the EGR account appears in danger of being overly focused on the electrodynamical aspect of special relativity to the exclusion of optical null experiments, and in particular to the ex…Read more
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29Reduction in Biology and MedicineIn Fred Gifford (ed.), Philosophy of Medicine, Elsevier. pp. 16--137. 2011.
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26Behaving: What's Genetic, What's Not, and Why Should We Care?Oxford University Press USA. 2016.Behaving presents an overview of the recent history and methodology of behavioral genetics and psychiatric genetics, informed by a philosophical perspective. Kenneth F. Schaffner addresses a wide range of issues, including genetic reductionism and determinism, "free will," and quantitative and molecular genetics. The latter covers newer genome-wide association studies that have produced a paradigm shift in the subject, and generated the problem of "missing heritability." Schaffner also presents …Read more
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50Modeling medical diagnosis: Logical and computer approachesSynthese 47 (1). 1981.In the present article I have surveyed several approaches to modeling the clinical diagnostic process. I have argued that at this point of the field's development, logics which simulate the reasoning patterns and knowledge base of expert clinicians represent research programs that are most likely to succeed. No logic of diagnosis has yet attained the status of being definitive; in spite of striking progress much more research and testing is required. On the basis of various existing logics, I ha…Read more
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183The Dopamine Hypothesis of Schizophrenia: An Historical and Philosophical AnalysisPhilosophy, Psychiatry, and Psychology 18 (1): 41-63. 2011.This essay selectively reviews, from an historical and philosophical perspective, the dopamine (DA) hypothesis of schizophrenia (DHS; Table 1 lists the abbreviations used in this essay). Our goal is not to adjudicate the validity of the theory—although we arrive at a generally skeptical conclusion—but to focus on the process whereby the DHS has evolved over time and been evaluated. Since its inception, the DHS has been the most prominent etiologic theory in psychiatry and is still referred to wi…Read more
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51Rendering clinical psychology an evidence‐based scientific discipline: a case studyJournal of Evaluation in Clinical Practice 18 (1): 149-154. 2012.
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42Theory structure in the biomedical sciencesJournal of Medicine and Philosophy 5 (1): 57-97. 1980.
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37Theory change in immunology part I: Extended theories and scientific progressTheoretical Medicine and Bioethics 13 (2). 1992.This two-part article examines the competition between the clonal selection theory and the instructive theory of the immune response from 1957–1967. In Part I the concept of a temporally extended theory is introduced, which requires attention to the hitherto largely ignored issue of theory individuation. Factors which influence the acceptability of such an extended theory at different temporal points are also embedded in a Bayesian framework, which is shown to provide a rational account of belie…Read more
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115Correspondence rulesPhilosophy of Science 36 (3): 280-290. 1969.The traditional role which correspondence rules, coordinating definitions, or semantical rules, have in a logical analysis of a scientific theory is questioned by providing an alternative analysis. The alternative account suggests that scientific theories are "meaningful" prior to the establishment of correspondence rules, and that correspondence rules are introduced to permit explanation and testing in the "observational" sector. The role of models is briefly assessed in connection with this pr…Read more
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9Of MedicineIn Merrilee H. Salmon, John Earman, Clark Glymour & James G. Lennox (eds.), Introduction to the Philosophy of Science, Hackett Publishing Company. pp. 310. 1992.
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6Biology and Epistemology: Emerging ThemesIn Richard Creath & Jane Maienschein (eds.), Biology and epistemology, Cambridge University Press. pp. 287. 1999.
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38Logic of discovery and justification in regulatory geneticsStudies in History and Philosophy of Science Part A 4 (4): 349-385. 1974.In the above pages I have sketched a history of the genesis and comparative evaluation of the repressor model of genetic regulation of enzyme induction. I have not attempted in this article to carry out an analysis of the more scientifically interesting fully developed Jacob-Monod operon theory of genetic regulations but such an analysis of the operon theory would not, I believe, involve any additional logical or epistemological features than have been discussed above. I have argued that the abo…Read more
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42Alzheimer Testing at Silver YearsCambridge Quarterly of Healthcare Ethics 7 (3): 294-307. 1998.Early last year, the GenEthics Consortium (GEC) of the Washington Metropolitan Area convened at George Washington University to consider a complex case about genetic testing for Alzheimer disease (AD). The GEC consists of scientists, bioethicists, lawyers, genetic counselors, and consumers from a variety of institutions and affiliations. Four of the 8 co-authors of this paper delivered presentations on the case. Supplemented by additional ethical and legal observations, these presentations form …Read more
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96Genes, behavior, and developmental emergentism: One process, indivisible?Philosophy of Science 65 (2): 209-252. 1998.The question of the influence of genes on behavior raises difficult philosophical and social issues. In this paper I delineate what I call the Developmentalist Challenge (DC) to assertions of genetic influence on behavior, and then examine the DC through an indepth analysis of the behavioral genetics of the nematode, C. elegans, with some briefer references to work on Drosophila. I argue that eight "rules" relating genes and behavior through environmentally-influenced and tangled neural nets cap…Read more
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134In Quest for Scientific Psychiatry: Toward Bridging the Explanatory GapPhilosophy, Psychiatry, and Psychology 20 (3): 261-273. 2013.The contemporary epistemic status of mental health disciplines does not allow the cross validation of mental disorders among various genetic markers, biochemical pathway or mechanisms, and clinical assessments in neuroscience explanations. We attempt to provide a meta-empirical analysis of the contemporary status of the cross-disciplinary issues existing between neuro-biology and psychopathology. Our case studies take as an established medical mode an example cross validation between biological …Read more
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