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2 results

  • 29 - Psychiatric Classification: An A-reductionist Perspective

  • from Section 10
  • Edited by Kenneth S. Kendler, Virginia Commonwealth University, Josef Parnas, University of Copenhagen, Peter Zachar, Auburn University, Montgomery
  • Book:
    Levels of Analysis in Psychopathology
    Published online:
    02 April 2020
    Print publication:
    02 April 2020, pp 349-370

  • Summary

    This paper develops the idea that nosological reform is ultimately a matter of finding homogeneous groups of patients that are maximally distinct from each other. The focus lies on the statistical properties of patients, so that the problem of classification coincides with the problem of the reference class from the philosophy of science. It is argued that specific statistical methods – model selection and causal modeling – can assist in finding good classifications. An important advantage of these statistical methods is that they do not favor any particular explanatory level or vocabulary. Whether or not we should include some patient characteristic in our classification scheme is an empirical issue, to be settled entirely by its contribution to the performance of the scheme in predictions and intervention decisions. For this reason the paper adopts a so-called a-reductionist perspective: we do not need a principled discussion on reductionism.