Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-fscjk Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-28T03:24:54.520Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Reasons and causes: the nature of explanations in Psychology and Psychiatry

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  09 July 2009

Jonathan Hill
Jonathan Hill*
Affiliation:
Maudsley Hospital, London
*
1Address for correspondence: Dr Jonathan Hill, The Maudsley Hospital, Denmark Hill, London SE5 8AZ.
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Synopsis

The relationship between psychological and biological processes is examined. Criteria for the distinction between reasons and causes are described. These provide a basis for a separation of those mental states and behaviour that can be explained in a reductionist fashion, and those that are not reducible. The proposed conceptual framework has clinical and research implications.

Type
Research Article
Information
Psychological Medicine , Volume 12 , Issue 3 , August 1982 , pp. 501 - 514
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1982

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

REFERENCES

Bem, D. & Allen, A. (1974). On predicting some of the people some of the time. Psychological Review 81, 506–520.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bem, D. & Funder, D. (1978). Predicting more of the people more of the time. Psychological Review 85, 485–501.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bowlby, J. (1969). Attachment and Loss. vol. 1: Attachment. Hogarth: London.Google Scholar
Brentano, F. (1924). Psychologie vom empirischen Standpunkte, Vol. 1, p. 124. Leipzig.Google Scholar
Condon, W. S. & Sander, L. W. (1974). Neonate movement is synchronized with adult speech. Interactional participation and language acquisition. Science 183, 99–101.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Crick, F., Barnett, L., Brenner, S. & Watts-Tobin, R. (1961). General nature of the genetic code for proteins. Nature 192, 1227–1232.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Cullen, J. M. (1972). Some principles of animal communication. In Non-Verbal Communication (ed. Hinde, R. A.), pp. 101–125. Cambridge University Press: Cambridge.Google Scholar
Dennett, D. C. (1969). Content and Consciousness. Routledge and Kegan Paul: London.Google Scholar
Dische, Z. (1941). Bulletin de la Société chimie biologique 23, 1140.Google Scholar
Fisher, S. C. (1916). The process of generalising abstraction: and its product, the general concept. Psychological Monographs 21, no. 2 (whole no. 90).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Fox, S. W. & Dose, K. (1972). Molecular Evolution and the Origin of life. Freeman & Co: San Francisco.Google Scholar
Gerard, R. (1952). The organization of science (prefatory chapter). Annual Review of Physiology 14.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hübel, B. H. & Wiesel, P. N. (1962). Receptive fields, binocular interaction and functional architecture in the cat's visual cortex. Journal of Physiology (London) 160, 106–154.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Hull, C. L. (1920). Quantitative aspects of the evolution of concepts. Psychological Monographs 28, no.1 (whole no. 123).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Huxley, J. (1927). Wilhelm Roux Archiv für Entwicklungs Mechanik der Organismen 112, 480.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Irani, K. (1980). Conceptual changes in the mind–body problem. In Body and Mind. Past, Present and Future (ed. Rieber, R.), pp.57–77. Academic Press: London.Google Scholar
Jaspers, K. (1913). Kausale und verständliche Zusammenhänge zwischen Schicksal über Psychose bei der Dementia praecox (Schizophrenie). Zeitschrift für Neurologie 14, 158–263.Google Scholar
Mischel, W. (1973). Toward a cognitive social learning reconceptualisation of personality. Psychological Review 80, 252–283.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Nagel, E. (1961). The Structure of Science. Routledge and Kegan Paul: London.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Newson, J. & Newson, E. (1975). Intersubjectivity and the transmission of culture: on the social origins of symbolic functioning. Bulletin of the British Psychological Society 28, 437–446.Google Scholar
Oatley, K.(1978).Perceptions and Representations.Methuen: London.Google Scholar
Oppenheim, P. & Putman, H. (1958). Unity of science as a working hypothesis. Minnesota Studies in the Philosophy of Science 2, 3–37.Google Scholar
Polanyi, M. (1958). Personal Knowledge. Towards a Post-Critical Philosophy. Routledge and Kegan Paul: London.Google Scholar
Popper, K. & Eccles, J. (1977). The Self and Its Brain. Springer International: New York.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Rose, S. (1980). Can the neurosciences explain the mind? Trends in Neurosciences 3 (5), 1–4.Google Scholar
Ryle, G. (1949). The Concept of Mind. Barnes & Noble: New York.Google Scholar
Seligman, M. (1975). Helplessness: On Depression, Development and Death.W. H. Freeman: San Francisco.Google Scholar
Shepherd, M. (1961). Morbid jealousy: some clinical and social aspects of a psychiatric symptom. Journal of Mental Science 107, 687–704.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Sherwood, M. (1969). The Logic of Explanation in Psychoanalysis. Academic Press: London.Google Scholar
Smoke, K. L. (1932). An objective study of concept formation. Psychological Monographs 42, no. 4 (whole no. 191).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Sperry, R. W. (1964). The great cerebral commissure. Scientific American 210, 42–52.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Taylor, C. (1964). The Explanation of Behaviour. Routledge and Kegan Paul: London.Google Scholar
Trevarthen, C. (1977). Descriptive analyses of infant communicative behaviour. In Studies in Mother-Infant Interaction (ed. Schaffer, H. R.), pp. 227–270.Google Scholar
Weiner, H. (1957). Aetiology of duodenal ulcer. Psychosomatic Medicine 19, 1–10.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Wilkes, K. V. (1978). Physicalism. Routledge and Kegan Paul: London.Google Scholar