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221The classification of emotion and scientific realismJournal of Theoretical and Philosophical Psychology 26 (1-2): 120-138. 2006.The scientific study of emotion has been characterized by classification schemes that propose to 'carve nature at the joints.' This article examines several of these classifications, drawn from both the categorical and dimensional perspectives. Each classification is given credit for what it contributes to our understanding, but the dream of a single, all purpose taxonomy of emotional phenomena is called into question. Such hopes are often associated with the carving at the joints metaphor, whic…Read more
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166Personality Disorders: Moral or Medical Kinds—Or Both?Philosophy, Psychiatry, and Psychology 17 (2): 101-117. 2010.This article critically examines Louis Charland’s claim that personality disorders are moral rather than medical kinds by exploring the relationship between personality disorders and virtue ethics. We propose that the conceptual resources of virtue theory can inform psychiatry’s thinking about personality disorders, but also that virtue theory as understood by Aristotle cannot be reduced to the narrow domain of ‘the moral’ in the modern sense of the term. Some overlap between the moral domain’s …Read more
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153The six most essential questions in psychiatric diagnosis: a pluralogue part 3: issues of utility and alternative approaches in psychiatric diagnosis (review)Philosophy, Ethics, and Humanities in Medicine 7 (1): 9-. 2012.In face of the multiple controversies surrounding the DSM process in general and the development of DSM-5 in particular, we have organized a discussion around what we consider six essential questions in further work on the DSM. The six questions involve: 1) the nature of a mental disorder; 2) the definition of mental disorder; 3) the issue of whether, in the current state of psychiatric science, DSM-5 should assume a cautious, conservative posture or an assertive, transformative posture; 4) the …Read more
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137The six most essential questions in psychiatric diagnosis: a pluralogue. Part 4: general conclusionPhilosophy, Ethics, and Humanities in Medicine 7 14-. 2012.In the conclusion to this multi-part article I first review the discussions carried out around the six essential questions in psychiatric diagnosis – the position taken by Allen Frances on each question, the commentaries on the respective question along with Frances’ responses to the commentaries, and my own view of the multiple discussions. In this review I emphasize that the core question is the first – what is the nature of psychiatric illness – and that in some manner all further questions f…Read more
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100Psychiatric Disorders Are Not Natural KindsPhilosophy, Psychiatry, and Psychology 7 (3): 167-182. 2000.
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97The Practical Kinds Model as a Pragmatist Theory of ClassificationPhilosophy, Psychiatry, and Psychology 9 (3): 219-227. 2002.In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Philosophy, Psychiatry, & Psychology 9.3 (2002) 219-227 [Access article in PDF] The Practical Kinds Model as a Pragmatist Theory of Classification Peter Zachar Pragmatist theories of scientific classification are intended to be pluralistic models that recognize different ways of cutting up the world as valuable, but do not require us to adopt whatever-goes relativism or metaphysical antirealism. How ironic that my application of prag…Read more
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97The removal of pluto from the class of planets and homosexuality from the class of psychiatric disorders: a comparisonPhilosophy, Ethics, and Humanities in Medicine 7 4. 2012.We compare astronomers' removal of Pluto from the listing of planets and psychiatrists' removal of homosexuality from the listing of mental disorders. Although the political maneuverings that emerged in both controversies are less than scientifically ideal, we argue that competition for "scientific authority" among competing groups is a normal part of scientific progress. In both cases, a complicated relationship between abstract constructs and evidence made the classification problem thorny
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86Valid Moral Appraisals and Valid Personality DisordersPhilosophy, Psychiatry, and Psychology 17 (2): 131-142. 2010.We are thankful for the opportunity to reflect more on the difficult problem of the relationship between moral evaluations and the construct of personality disorders in response to the commentaries by Mike Martin and Louis Charland. We begin by emphasizing to readers that this important problem is complicated by the different perspectives of the various disciplines involved, especially, philosophy, psychiatry, and psychology. Incredulity, anger, and dismay are among the reactions we encountered …Read more
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73Psychiatric Comorbidity: More Than a Kuhnian AnomalyPhilosophy, Psychiatry, and Psychology 16 (1): 13-22. 2009.In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Psychiatric Comorbidity:More Than a Kuhnian AnomalyPeter Zachar (bio)Keywordscomorbidity, classification, epidemiology, differential diagnosis, personality disorderDr. Aragona's article in this issue of Philosophy, Psychiatry, & Psychology makes some important points regarding the relationship between comorbidity rates and the classification system currently used in psychiatry. Particularly persuasive is his claim that observed patte…Read more
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63Robert D. Stolorow, George E. Atwood, and Donna M. Orange: Worlds of Experience: Interweaving Philosophical and Clinical Dimensions in Psychoanalysis (review)Consciousness and Emotion 4 (2): 333-340. 2003.
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63The Clinical Nature of Personality Disorders: Answering the Neo-Szaszian CritiquePhilosophy, Psychiatry, and Psychology 18 (3): 191-202. 2011.When i was in graduate school, I inadvertently walked in on a fellow student taking his comprehensive exams. He was extremely frustrated because two of the questions asked about conceptual issues in personality and personality disorders. This student was not expecting such questions and considered them to be unfair. I knew other students in that same program who would have considered it a gift to get such “interesting” questions. Those clinical and counseling psychologists with theoretical–philo…Read more
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58Evidence-Based Medicine and Modernism: Still Better Than the AlternativesPhilosophy, Psychiatry, and Psychology 19 (4): 313-316. 2012.Thomas, Bracken, and Timimi (2012) make an important contribution in critiquing the extent to which the profession of psychiatry can be so bureaucratic that patients are treated as problems to be solved in an ‘efficient’ assembly line fashion rather than as individual persons. The trouble with bureaucracies is that they promote a cold and impersonal accounting approach in which critical reflection on purposes is circumvented by decision-making algorithms (Zachar and Bartlett 2009). Psychotherapy…Read more
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50Review of “the feeling of what happens: Body and emotion in the making of consciousness” by Antonio Damasio and of “the evolution of the emotion-processing mind: With an introduction to mental darwinism” by Robert langs (review)Consciousness and Emotion 1 (1): 181-187. 2000.
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44Has there been Conceptual Progress in The Science of Emotion?Emotion Review 2 (4): 381-382. 2010.Izard’s claim that the term emotion works well as an adjective is closer to B. F. Skinner’s position than is acknowledged. Based on Izard’s survey of scientists, I argue that the lack of consensus on emotion as a unitary construct could be considered to represent the dissolution of emotions. Given that something similar has happened in biology with the dissolution of the unitary gene construct, this development in psychology may not be as problematic as it initially sounds
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41Is incremental validity too incremental in the long run? A commentary on Stoyanov D., Machamer P.K. & Schaffner, K.F. (2012) (review)Journal of Evaluation in Clinical Practice 18 (1): 157-158. 2012.
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40Basic emotions and their biological substrates: A nominalistic interpretationConsciousness and Emotion 2 (2): 189-221. 2002.The thesis of this article is that an attitude akin to pragmatism is internal to the scientific enterprise itself, and as a result many scientists will make the same types of non-essentialistic interpretations of their subject matter that are made by pragmatists. This is demonstrably true with respect to those scientists who study the biological basis of emotion such as Panksepp, LeDoux, and Damasio. Even though these scientists are also influenced by what cognitive psychologists call the essent…Read more
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32Vice, Mental Disorder, and the Role of Underlying Pathological ProcessesPhilosophy, Psychiatry, and Psychology 15 (1): 27-29. 2008.In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Vice, Mental Disorder, and the Role of Underlying Pathological ProcessesNancy Nyquist Potter (bio) and Peter Zachar (bio)Keywordsresponsibility, virtue theory, cultural norms, psychopathologyThe issues discussed by John Sadler are among the most complicated in the philosophy of psychiatry, if for no other reason than that they highlight an area where disciplinary fault lines between clinical psychiatry/ psychology and philosophy seem…Read more
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32The Psychological Construction of Emotion – A Non-Essentialist Philosophy of ScienceEmotion Review 14 (1): 3-14. 2021.Emotion Review, Volume 14, Issue 1, Page 3-14, January 2022. Advocates for the psychological construction of emotion view themselves as articulating a non-essentialist alternative to basic emotion theory's essentialist notion of affect programs. Psychological constructionists have also argued that holding essentialist assumptions about emotions engenders misconceptions about the psychological constructionist viewpoint. If so, it is important to understand what psychological constructionists mean…Read more
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30Defending the Validity of Pragmatism in the Classification of EmotionEmotion Review 2 (2): 113-116. 2010.I critically analyze Kagan’s claim that in order to advance the science of emotion we should abandon the practice of referring to emotions with common folk psychological names, such as fear and anger. Kagan recommends discovering more homogenous constructs that are segregated by the type of evidence used to infer those constructs. He also argues that variable origins, biological implementations, and psychological and sociocultural contexts may combine to create distinct kinds of emotional states…Read more
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28Why the One and the Many Will Not Go AwayPhilosophy, Psychiatry, and Psychology 20 (2): 131-136. 2013.The Contrast Between the nomothetic versus the idiographic was popularized in psychology by Gordon Allport (1937). In the early 1930s, Allport made his name by advocating for a quantitative, trait-based approach to the study of personality in contrast with the prevailing case study approach. In doing so, he was following the trend toward greater reliance on measurement in psychology as a whole. Allport, however, had grave doubts about the sufficiency of quantitative measurement for developing an…Read more
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28The abandonment of latent variables: Philosophical considerationsBehavioral and Brain Sciences 33 (2-3): 177-178. 2010.Cramer et al.'s critique of latent variables implicitly advocates a type of scientific anti-realism which can be extended to many dispositional constructs in scientific psychology. However, generalizing Cramer et al.'s network model in this way raises concerns about its applicability to psychopathology. The model could be improved by articulating why a given cluster of symptoms should be considered disordered
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28Pragmatism and Evidence-Based Medicine: A Role for “Objectivity” and “Reality” in Our VocabularyPhilosophy, Psychiatry, and Psychology 22 (1): 67-70. 2015.
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25Progress and the calibration of scientific constructs: the role of comparative validityIn Kenneth S. Kendler & Josef Parnas (eds.), Philosophical Issues in Psychiatry Ii: Nosology, Oxford University Press. pp. 21. 2012.
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25Folk taxonomies should not have essences, either: a response to the commentaryPhilosophy, Psychiatry, and Psychology 7 (3): 191-194. 2000.
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24Psychopathology Beyond Psychiatric SymptomatologyPhilosophy, Psychiatry, and Psychology 27 (2): 141-143. 2020.It is important for a field to occasionally take stock of where it is, which Annemarie Köhne has done with her exploration of different frames of thought on psychopathology currently in play. As an advocate for thinking of psychiatric constructs as practical kinds that are often calibrated to serve different, even competing purposes, I am in agreement with her concerns about relying on a one-size-fits-all model. Between her and I there are slight differences of emphasis with respect to essential…Read more
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24Review of “the subtlety of emotions (MIT press)” by Aaron Ben-zé ev (2000) (review)Consciousness and Emotion 2 (1): 180-188. 2001.
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23Pathological Narcissism and Its Relationship to Empathy and TranscendenceThe Pluralist 1 (3). 2006.
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22Levels of Analysis in Psychopathology: Cross-Disciplinary Perspectives (edited book)Cambridge University Press. 2020.Levels of Analysis in Psychopathology draws research from psychiatry, philosophy, and psychology to explore the variety of explanatory approaches for understanding the nature of psychiatric disorders both in practice and research. The fields of psychiatry and clinical psychology incorporates many useful explanatory approaches and this book integrates this range of perspectives and makes suggestions about how to advance etiologic theories, classification, and treatment. The editors have brought t…Read more
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22Child development and the regulation of affect and cognition in consciousness: A view from object relations theoryIn Ralph D. Ellis & Natika Newton (eds.), The Caldron of Consciousness: Motivation, Affect and Self-Organization, John Benjamins. pp. 205-222. 2000.
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22Fact and Value in Emotion (edited book)John Benjamins. 2008.There is a large amount of scientific work on emotion in psychology, neuroscience, biology, physiology, and psychiatry, which assumes that it is possible to study emotions and other affective states, objectively. Emotion science of this sort is concerned primarily with 'facts' and not 'values', with 'description' not 'prescription'. The assumption behind this vision of emotion science is that it is possible to distinguish factual from evaluative aspects of affectivity and emotion, and study one …Read more
Peter Zachar
Auburn University Montgomery
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Auburn University MontgomeryProfessor