•  488
    Why the extended mind is nothing special but is central
    with Doug Hardman and Ivan Deschenaux
    Phenomenology and the Cognitive Sciences 23 (4): 841-863. 2024.
    The extended mind thesis states that the mind is not brain-bound but extends into the physical world. The philosophical debate around the thesis has mostly focused on extension towards epistemic artefacts, treating the phenomenon as a special capacity of the human organism to recruit external physical resources to solve individual tasks. This paper argues that if the mind extends to artefacts in the pursuit of individual tasks, it extends to other humans in the pursuit of collective tasks. Mind …Read more
  •  72
    An enactive account of placebo effects
    with Dave Ward
    Biology and Philosophy 32 (4): 507-533. 2017.
    Placebos are commonly defined as ineffective treatments. They are treatments that lack a known mechanism linking their properties to the properties of the condition on which treatment aims to intervene. Given this, the fact that placebos can have substantial therapeutic effects looks puzzling. The puzzle, we argue, arises from the relationship placebos present between culturally meaningful entities, our intentional relationship to the environment and bodily effects. How can a mere attitude towar…Read more
  •  55
    Outline for an Externalist Psychiatry (1): Or, How to Fully Realize the Biopsychosocial Model
    Philosophy Psychiatry and Psychology 31 (3): 269-284. 2024.
    The biopsychosocial (BPS) model in psychiatry has come under fire for being too vague to be of any practical use in the clinic. For many, its central flaw consists in lack of scientific validity and philosophical coherence: the model never specified how biological, psychological and social factors causally integrate with one another. Recently, advances in the cognitive sciences have made great strides towards meeting this very ‘integration challenge.’ The paper begins by illustrating how enactiv…Read more
  •  44
    Social Psychiatry Inside-OUT
    Philosophy Psychiatry and Psychology 31 (3): 341-346. 2024.
    Response to commentaries on the three-paper set 'Outline for an externalist psychiatry'
  •  35
    Any progress in shaping up an externalist psychiatry, so previous discussion suggested, must begin from questions about the ontology of social causation. So far, research and theory have adhered to a naturalistic approach to the social causes of illness, concentrating mostly on the ‘social determinants of mental health’ (inequality, discrimination, housing insecurity, etc.). The paper starts with an assessment of ‘social determinants’ through the lens of epidemiology and critical psychiatry. It …Read more
  •  35
    Outline for an Externalist Psychiatry (2): An Anthropological Detour
    Philosophy Psychiatry and Psychology 31 (3): 285-300. 2024.
    Philosophical speculation about how psychiatric externalism might function in practice has yet to fully consider the multitude of externalist psychiatric systems that exist beyond the bounds of modern psychiatry. Believing that anthropology can inform philosophical debate on the matter, the paper illustrates one such case. The discussion is based on 19 months of first-hand ethnographic fieldwork among Akha, a group of swidden farmers living in highland Laos and neighboring borderlands. First, th…Read more
  •  32
  •  5
    Social Psychiatry Inside-OUT
    Philosophy, Psychiatry, and Psychology 31 (3): 341-346. 2024.
    In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Social Psychiatry Inside-OUTGiulio Ongaro, PhDA heartfelt thanks to all commentators on this trio of papers. The idea that animates these papers is that placing modern psychiatry in a comparative perspective lays bare its weaknesses, for it shows that some of the problems that dominate our contemporary discussions in journals such as Philosophy, Psychiatry & Psychology (e.g., the problem of diagnostic validity, the demarcation challe…Read more
  •  1
    Outline for an Externalist Psychiatry (1): Or, How to Fully Realize the Biopsychosocial Model
    Philosophy, Psychiatry, and Psychology 31 (3): 269-284. 2024.
    The biopsychosocial (BPS) model in psychiatry has come under fire for being too vague to be of any practical use in the clinic. For many, its central flaw consists in lack of scientific validity and philosophical coherence: the model never specified how biological, psychological and social factors causally integrate with one another. Recently, advances in the cognitive sciences have made great strides towards meeting this very ‘integration challenge.’ The paper begins by illustrating how enactiv…Read more
  • Outline for an Externalist Psychiatry (2): An Anthropological Detour
    Philosophy, Psychiatry, and Psychology 31 (3): 285-300. 2024.
    Philosophical speculation about how psychiatric externalism might function in practice has yet to fully consider the multitude of externalist psychiatric systems that exist beyond the bounds of modern psychiatry. Believing that anthropology can inform philosophical debate on the matter, the paper illustrates one such case. The discussion is based on 19 months of first-hand ethnographic fieldwork among Akha, a group of swidden farmers living in highland Laos and neighboring borderlands. First, th…Read more
  • Any progress in shaping up an externalist psychiatry, so previous discussion suggested, must begin from questions about the ontology of social causation. So far, research and theory have adhered to a naturalistic approach to the social causes of illness, concentrating mostly on the ‘social determinants of mental health’ (inequality, discrimination, housing insecurity, etc.). The paper starts with an assessment of ‘social determinants’ through the lens of epidemiology and critical psychiatry. It …Read more