[SydPhil] Monday: Current Projects: "On the tendency of mental illnesses to form varieties"

[Kristie Miller]

 Next Monday's current projects will be Dominic Murphy who will present:

On the tendency of mental illnesses to form varieties


 Many theorists have argued that mental disorders should be seen as natural kinds, typically along Boydian lines.  This approach fits many research programs currently aimed at validating DSM diagnoses. These assume that enduring features of the human mind/brain make it likely that  characteristic patterns of signs and symptoms will occur across all subjects.  However, problems emerge with the underpinnings of this view if we take a longitudinal and cross cultural view. Disorders appear and disappear over time within Western cultures, and distinctive disorders endure in non-western cultures. These phenomena suggest that we need a wider view of the mechanisms which account for the co-occurrence of symptoms, and a clearer story of the emergence and extinction of kinds within a social setting.


As usual, the seminar is 1.00-2.30 in the common room, USyd.



Dr. Kristie Miller
University of Sydney 
Senior Research Fellow
School of Philosophical and Historical Inquiry and
The Centre for Time
The University of Sydney
Sydney Australia
Room 407, A 14

kmiller at usyd.edu.au
kristie_miller at yahoo.com
Ph: +612 9036 9663
http://www.kristiemiller.net/KristieMiller2/Home_Page.html









-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://mailman.sydney.edu.au/pipermail/sydphil/attachments/20121023/c222511c/attachment-0002.html>