CLASSIFYING MADNESS Philosophy and Medicine VOLUME 86 Founding Co-Editor Stuart F Spicker Editor H Tristram Engelhardt, Jr., Department of Philosophy, Rice University, and Baylor College of Medicine, Houston, Texas Associate Editor Kevin Wm Wildes, S.J., Department of Philosophy and Kennedy Institute of Ethics, Georgetown University, Washington, D.C Editorial Board George J Agich, Department of Bioethics, The Cleveland Clinic Foundation, Cleveland, Ohio Nicholas Capaldi, Department of Philosophy, University of Tulsa, Tulsa, Oklahoma Edmund Erde, University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey, Stratford, New Jersey Eric T Juengst, Center for Biomedical Ethics, Case Western Reserve University, Cleveland, Ohio Christopher Tollefsen, Department of Philosophy, University of South Carolina, Columbia, South Carolina Becky White, Department of Philosophy, California State University, Chico, California The titles published in this series are listed at the end of this volume CLASSIFYING MADNESS A PHILOSOPHICAL EXAMINATION OF THE DIAGNOSTIC AND STATISTICAL MANUAL OF MENTAL DISORDERS by RACHEL COOPER University of Lancaster, U.K A C.I.P Catalogue record for this book is available from the Library of Congress ISBN-10 1-4020-3344-3 (HB) Springer Dordrecht, Berlin, Heidelberg, New York ISBN-10 1-4020-3345-1 (e-book) Springer Dordrecht, Berlin, Heidelberg, New York ISBN-13 978-1-4020-3344-5 (HB) Springer Dordrecht, Berlin, Heidelberg, New York ISBN-13 978-1-4020-3345-2 (e-book) Springer Dordrecht, Berlin, Heidelberg, New York Published by Springer, P O Box 17, 3300 AA Dordrecht, The Netherlands P Printed on acid-free paper springeronline.com All Rights Reserved © 2005 Springer No part of this work may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, microfilming, recording or otherwise, without written permission from the Publisher, with the exception of any material supplied specifically for the purpose of being entered and executed on a computer system, for exclusive use by the purchaser of the work Printed in the Netherlands CONTENTS Acknowledgements vii Introduction 1 What is mental disorder? Are mental disorders natural kinds? 45 The problem of theory-ladenness 77 The D.S.M and feedback in applied science 105 Conclusions 149 Appendix 151 References 153 Index 165 v ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS A great many people have helped me in writing this book Most of all I am grateful to John Forrester, Robin Downie, Nick Jardine, and Chris Megone who read and commented on entire drafts I’d also like to thank the following people who read and commented on sections: Nick Clark-Steel, Stephen Cowley, Gregory Currie, Julien Deonna, John Dupré, Martin Elphink, Katherine Hawley, David Healy, Susan James, Joel Katzav, Martin Kusch, Peter Lipton, Hugh Mellor, Dominic Murphy, Harriet Nock, Charlotte Sleigh, Trevor Steele, and Terence Wilkerson Two referees for Kluwer also made valuable suggestions Many of those who commented on drafts will continue to disagree with the final version, but in all cases I am grateful for their help Parts of this work have been presented at conferences of the European Society for Philosophy and Psychology, the British Society for the Philosophy of Science, and the Philosophy Section of the Royal College of Psychiatrists, and also at seminars at the Universities of Birmingham, Bradford, Bristol, Cambridge, Durham, Exeter and Leeds, and at the Institute of Psychiatry at the Maudsley I have benefited greatly from the comments of those present Some of the material in this book has been published previously Chapter One draws on “Disease” in Studies in History and Philosophy of Biological and Biomedical Sciences 33 (2002), 263-282 A section of Chapter Two has been published as “Why Hacking is wrong about human kinds” in the British Journal for the Philosophy of Science 55 (2004), 73-85 The whole book is based on my Ph.D thesis of the same title, submitted to Cambridge University, January 2002 A short summary of this Ph.D has appeared as “What is wrong with the D.S.M.?” in History of Psychiatry 15 (2004), 5-25 I am grateful for funding from the Arts and Humanities Research Board, the Raymond and Edith Williamson Fund, and Bradford University Thanks are also due to the American Psychiatric Association and to the American Psychological Association for granting me access to their archives, and for permitting me to quote from manuscripts in their care vii ... computer system, for exclusive use by the purchaser of the work Printed in the Netherlands CONTENTS Acknowledgements vii Introduction 1 What is mental disorder? Are mental disorders natural kinds?... Carolina Becky White, Department of Philosophy, California State University, Chico, California The titles published in this series are listed at the end of this volume CLASSIFYING MADNESS A PHILOSOPHICAL... D.S.M and feedback in applied science 105 Conclusions 149 Appendix 151 References 153 Index 165 v ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS A great many people have helped me in writing this book Most of all I am grateful