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23 - Descriptive Psychopathology: A Manifest Level of Analysis, or Not?

from Section 8

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 April 2020

By
Peter Zachar
Edited by
Kenneth S. Kendler ,
Josef Parnas  and
Peter Zachar
Kenneth S. Kendler
Affiliation:
Virginia Commonwealth University
Josef Parnas
Affiliation:
University of Copenhagen
Peter Zachar
Affiliation:
Auburn University, Montgomery
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Summary

To define descriptive psychopathology as classification of disorders with respect to manifest signs and symptoms as opposed to deeper causes is a somewhat superficial construal that does not take into account the various ways that something can be brought under a description.The philosopher’s notion of bringing something under a description can be illustrated by a non-behaviorist reading of Gilbert Ryle’s book The Concept of Mind. That things can be brought under more than one description highlights the importance of re-describing. An important example of re-describing psychopathology is the discovery of panic disorder from which five desiderata for useful descriptions and re-descriptions can be derived. With respect to causes, the elucidation of a causal model for a phenotype can often lead us to notice something descriptively that we had not noticed before, in which case the causal model becomes part of a thicker description of the phenotype.

Keywords

Gilbert Rylepanic disorderDSMcausalityphenotype,
Type
Chapter
Information
Levels of Analysis in Psychopathology
Cross-Disciplinary Perspectives
 , pp. 280 - 296
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2020

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