Abstract
‘The proper place of subjectivity, meaning, and folk psychology in psychiatry’ argues that Steven Hyman’s vision for psychiatry is excessively bioreductive. Hyman wrongly assumes that conceptual mental content is reducible to brain state descriptions and mistakes the neural vehicle of content for the content itself. Once we see that conceptual content, including the referents of folk psychology, shape brain activity, it becomes clear that content itself (or a lack of it) can be pathological. Therefore, treatment will sometimes be effective, even curative, by addressing that content through discursive interaction with the patient qua person. Diagnosis and effective treatment of mental disorders cannot just focus on neurobiology, as Hyman claims, both processes must also consider conceptual content and the complex interactions between content and the neurobiology instantiating it.
Original language | English |
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Title of host publication | Psychiatry reborn |
Subtitle of host publication | biopsychosocial psychiatry in modern medicine |
Editors | Julian Savulescu, Rebecca Roache, Will Davies, J. Pierre Loebel |
Place of Publication | Oxford, UK |
Publisher | Oxford University Press |
Chapter | 18 |
Pages | 290-303 |
Number of pages | 14 |
ISBN (Electronic) | 9780198789697 |
DOIs | |
Publication status | Published - 2020 |
Externally published | Yes |