Philosophy and Medicine86- Classifying Madness

Rachel Cooper

• 22 april 2005
• 9781402033445

Samenvatting:

This book is about the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, more commonly known as the D.S.M. Within its pages can be found diagnostic criteria for types of depression, types of schizophrenia, eating disorders, anxiety disorders, phobias, sleeping disorders, and so on.

Classifying Madness examines the conceptual foundations of the D.S.M., the main classification of mental disorders used by psychiatrists world-wide. It will be of interest to both mental health professionals and to philosophers interested in classification in science. The D.S.M. has become extremely controversial, and the possibility that there may be philosophical difficulties with it has become a commonplace in the mental health literature. Classifying Madness offers mental health professionals an opportunity to explore suspicions that there might be conceptual problems with the D.S.M. For philosophers, this book aims to contribute to debates in the philosophy of science concerning natural kinds, the theory-ladenness of classification, and the effect of sociological factors in science. These issues are normally approached via a consideration of the natural sciences and, as will be seen, approaching them via a consideration of psychiatry helps shed new light on old problems.