Many of the current debates about validity in psychiatry and psychology are predicated on the unexpected failure to validate commonly used diagnostic categories. The recognition of this failure has resulted in, what Thomas Kuhn calls, a period of extraordinary science in which validation problems are given increased weight, alternatives are proposed, methodologies are debated, and philosophical and historical analyses are seen as more relevant than usual. In this important new book in the IPPP series, a group of leading thinkers in psychiatry, psychology, and philosophy offer alternative...

Toward a Philosophical Approach to Psychiatry presents a collection of philosophical and historical papers authored by the psychiatrist Kenneth S. Kendler. Written primarily for psychiatrists, psychologists, and other scholars in the mental health professions, as a body of work, the papers offer an accessible distillation of many of the best current ideas from the philosophy of mind and the philosophy of science as applied to problems in psychiatric research and practice. The continuous thread running through these papers is a looking behind the common assumptions that nourish unrealistic...