Philosophical Psychopathology

Philosophical Psychopathology is a benchmark volume for an emerging field where mental disorders serve as the springboard for philosophical insights. It brings together innovative, current research by Owen Flanagan, Robert Gordon, Robert Van Gulick, and others on mental disorders of consciousness, self-consciousness, emotions, personality, and action and belief as well as general methodological questions about the study of mental disorder. Topics include the problem of despair, multiple personality disorder, autism and the theory of the mind debate, and the effectiveness of psychotherapy.

An extensive introduction shows how to interpret philosophical psychopathology as an interdisciplinary field and locates the contributions in the book conceptually and in terms of the surrounding literature. Psychopathology promises to clarify and illuminate a host of philosophical issues. The twelve chapters focus chiefly on issues in applied philosophy of mind (personal identity and self- consciousness, voluntary action and self-control, cognition and practical reasoning), in the science of mind (the medical model of mental disorders, philosophy of science and psychiatry, psychopathology and folk psychology), and in the ethical and experiential dimensions of psychopathology.

A Bradford Book