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68Molecular 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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9Commentary on Stotz and Griffiths, Burian, and Waters: Genes, Concepts, DST Implications, and the Possibility of PrototypesHistory and Philosophy of the Life Sciences 26 (1). 2004.
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8Logic of Discovery and Diagnosis in Medicine (edited book)Univ of California Press. 1985.This title is part of UC Press's Voices Revived program, which commemorates University of California Press's mission to seek out and cultivate the brightest minds and give them voice, reach, and impact. Drawing on a backlist dating to 1893, Voices Revived makes high-quality, peer-reviewed scholarship accessible once again using print-on-demand technology. This title was originally published in 1985.
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29The challenge of psychiatric nosology and diagnosisJournal of Evaluation in Clinical Practice 18 (3): 704-709. 2012.
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45Extrapolation from Animal ModelsIn Peter McLaughlin, Peter Machamer & Rick Grush (eds.), Theory and Method in the Neurosciences, Pittsburgh University Press. pp. 200. 2001.
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36Theories, models, and equations in systems biologyIn Fred C. Boogerd, Frank J. Bruggeman, Jan-Hendrik S. Hofmeyr & Hans V. Westerhoff (eds.), Systems Biology: Philosophical Foundations, Elsevier. pp. 145--162. 2007.
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25Coming home to Hume: A sociobiological foundation for a concept of 'health' and moralityJournal of Medicine and Philosophy 24 (4). 1999.Assessing the normative status of concepts of health and disease involves one in questions regarding the relationship between fact and value. Some have argued that Christopher Boorse's conception of health and disease lacks such a valuational element because it cannot account for types of harms which, while disvalued, do not have evolutionarily dysfunctional consequences. I take Boorse's account and incorporate some Humean-like sociobiological assumptions in order to respond to this challenge. T…Read more
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28A philosophical overview of the problems of validity for psychiatric disordersIn Kenneth S. Kendler & Josef Parnas (eds.), Philosophical Issues in Psychiatry Ii: Nosology, Oxford University Press. pp. 169. 2012.
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1Medicine, philosophy ofIn Edward Craig (ed.), The Routledge Encyclopedia of Philosophy, Routledge. pp. 264-269. 1998.
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1Interpretive practices in medicineIn Peter K. Machamer & Gereon Wolters (eds.), Interpretation: Ways of Thinking About the Sciences and the Arts, University of Pittsburgh Press. 2010.
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79Exemplar reasoning about biological models and diseases: A relation between the philosophy of medicine and philosophy of scienceJournal of Medicine and Philosophy 11 (1): 63-80. 1986.the structure of medical science with a special focus on the role of generalizations and universals in medicine, and (2) philosophy of medicine's relation with the philosophy of science. I argue that a usually overlooked aspect of Kuhnian paradigms, namely, their characteristic of being "exemplars", is of considerable significance in the biomedical sciences. This significance rests on certain important differences from the physical sciences in the nature of theories in the basic and the clinical…Read more
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169The Watson-Crick model and reductionismBritish Journal for the Philosophy of Science 20 (4): 325-348. 1969.
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31Biopsychosocial foundationsAmerican Journal of Bioethics 1 (2). 2001.This Article does not have an abstract
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48Reductionism in Biology: Prospects and ProblemsPSA: Proceedings of the Biennial Meeting of the Philosophy of Science Association 1974. 1974.
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48Further Thoughts on the Dopamine Hypothesis of SchizophreniaPhilosophy, Psychiatry, and Psychology 18 (1): 73-75. 2011.We are gratified at the largely positive comments on our essay on the dopamine hypothesis of schizophrenia (DHS) by these two distinguished commentators from the fields of biological psychiatry (Dr. Tamminga) and the philosophy of psychiatry (Dr. Murphy). There is little that they have said with which we disagree. Rather, we want to expand briefly on their commentaries.We found Dr. Tamminga's reactions to be particularly fascinating because she has been an "insider" to the story of the DHS as it…Read more
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67Medical informatics and the concept of diseaseTheoretical Medicine and Bioethics 21 (1): 85-100. 2000.This paper attempts to address the general questionwhether information technologies, as applied in thearea of medicine and health care, have or are likelyto change fundamental concepts regarding disease andhealth. After a short excursion into the domain ofmedical informatics I provide a brief overview of someof the current theories of what a disease is from amore philosophical perspective, i.e. the ``valuefree'' and ``value laden'' view of disease. Next, Iconsider at some length, whether health …Read more
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17The 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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56The 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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18Computerized 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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20Theories 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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395Approaches 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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Neuroethics: reductionism, emergence, and decision-making capacitiesNeuroethics: Mapping the Field. forthcoming.
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130Einstein 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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