Causal pathways, random walks, and tortuous paths: Moving from the descriptive to the etiological in psychiatry

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kathryn Tabb ◽  
Kenneth F. Schaffner
Keyword(s):  
Random Walks ◽  
Natural Kinds ◽  
Signs And Symptoms ◽  
Ontological Status ◽  
Causal Explanations ◽  
Diagnostic Categories ◽  
Causal Mechanisms ◽  
Causal Pathways ◽  
Pattern Approach

Most philosophers of psychiatry as well as psychiatrists themselves believe that instead of revising psychiatric categories, researchers should attempt to discover causal mechanisms that can explain these common clusters of signs and symptoms. But what sorts of causal explanations can realistically be hoped for? We argue here that psychiatric nosologists should aim to construct categories that represent robust patterns in the data that emerge from our best theories. The portmanteau term “robust pattern” introduces two philosophical terms: Dennett’s real patterns, and Wimsatt’s theory of robustness. Robust patterns are best seen heuristically, as categories growing out of empirical theories in response to practical needs. In the case of schizophrenia, we explore how a robust pattern approach might differ from a traditional diagnostic kind as formulated by the DSM. We conclude by considering the ontological status of diagnostic categories viewed as robust patterns, and comparing this with a “natural kinds” approach.

scholarly journals Natural kinds of mental disorder

Synthese ◽  
2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sander Werkhoven
Keyword(s):  
Mental Health ◽  
Mental Disorders ◽  
Mental Disorder ◽  
Mental Health Problems ◽  
Natural Kinds ◽  
Health Problems ◽  
Abnormal Behaviour ◽  
Diagnostic Categories ◽  
Socially Constructed

AbstractAre mental disorders (autism, ADHD, schizophrenia) natural kinds or socially constructed categories? What is at stake if either of these views prove to be true? This paper offers a qualified defence for the view that there may be natural kinds of mental disorder, but also that the implications of this claim are generally overestimated. Especially concerns about over-inclusiveness of diagnostic categories and medicalisation of abnormal behaviour are not addressed by the debate. To arrive at these conclusions the paper opens with a discussion of kind formation in science, followed by an analysis of natural kinds. Seven principled and empirically informed objections to the possibility of natural kinds of mental disorder are considered and rejected. The paper ends with a reflection on diagnostics of mental health problems that don’t fall into natural kinds. Despite the defence of the possibility of natural kinds of mental disorder, this is likely to be the majority of cases.

scholarly journals Shared understanding of color among congenitally blind and sighted adults

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Judy Sein Kim ◽  
Brianna Aheimer ◽  
Veronica Montane Manrara ◽  
Marina Bedny
Keyword(s):  
Visual Experience ◽  
Natural Kinds ◽  
Shared Understanding ◽  
Linguistic Communication ◽  
Causal Explanations ◽  
Stop Sign ◽  
Congenitally Blind ◽  
Novel Objects ◽  
Blind Individuals

Empiricist philosophers such as Locke famously argued that people born blind could only acquire shallow, fragmented facts about color. Contrary to this intuition, we report that blind and sighted people share an in-depth understanding of color, despite disagreeing about arbitrary color facts. Relative to the sighted, blind individuals are less likely to generate ‘yellow’ for banana and ‘red’ for stop-sign. However, blind and sighted adults are equally likely to infer that two bananas (natural kinds) and two stop-signs (artifacts with functional colors) are more likely to have the same color than two cars (artifacts with non-functional colors), make similar inferences about novel objects’ colors, and provide similar causal explanations. We argue that people develop inferentially-rich and intuitive “theories” of color regardless of visual experience. Linguistic communication is more effective at aligning people’s theories than their knowledge of verbal facts.

Comments on “Causal pathways, random walks, and tortuous paths: moving from the descriptive to the etiological in psychiatry”

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Hasok Chang
Keyword(s):  
Latent Class Analysis ◽  
Random Walks ◽  
Latent Class ◽  
Class Analysis ◽  
Causal Pathways

This chapter presents a commentary on the move from the descriptive to the etiological perspective in psychiatry, as discussed in the previous chapter. It also raises additional considerations, including the notion of the “cause” of non-existent things, epistemic iteration and evolving meaning, and description and latent class analysis (LCA).

The Puzzle of the Psychiatric Interview

2004 ◽  
Vol 35 (2) ◽  
pp. 173-195 ◽  
Author(s):  
Giovanni Stanghellini
Keyword(s):  
Critical Role ◽  
Reliability And Validity ◽  
Signs And Symptoms ◽  
Phenomenological Approach ◽  
Structured Interviews ◽  
Psychiatric Assessment ◽  
Psychiatric Interview ◽  
Diagnostic Categories ◽  
Life Context ◽  
Participant Observer

AbstractThe psychiatric interview plays a critical role in clinical assessment and therapy. Problems with assessment reliability and validity that were apparent in nosological and diagnostic discrepancies plagued the field of psychiatry historically. Technical approaches including structured interviews were developed to address these problems. Although these approaches decreased diagnostic variance, they focused narrowly on eliciting signs and symptoms conforming to previously agreed diagnostic categories, necessarily restricting the range and richness of experiences and narratives that are elicited. This restriction inhibits the utility of assessment in furthering the interpersonal rapport and exploration that is essential to the task of therapy. The author reviews critiques of technical approaches to psychiatric assessment and highlights critical, often unexamined, epistemological assumptions and questions. In light of these critiques, he proposes a phenomenological approach to psychiatric assessment focused on narratives that situate particular experiences in the broader life context. In this approach the assessor functions as a participant observer, relying on the same empathic skills that inform effective therapy. It is argued that without over turning the advances in assessment reliability gained through technical approaches to the psychiatric interview, a phenomenological approach can illuminate, enrich, and broaden psychiatric assessment, increasing its effectiveness in psychopathological understanding and in therapy.

scholarly journals Theory development in servitization through the application of fsQCA and experiments

2021 ◽  
Vol ahead-of-print (ahead-of-print) ◽  
Author(s):  
Anna Salonen ◽  
Marcus Zimmer ◽  
Joona Keränen
Keyword(s):  
Explanatory Power ◽  
Qualitative Comparative Analysis ◽  
Theory Development ◽  
Future Research ◽  
Managerial Decision ◽  
Case Study Methodology ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Causal Explanations ◽  
Causal Pathways ◽  
Advance Theory

PurposeThe purpose of this study is to explain how the application of fuzzy-set qualitative comparative analysis (fsQCA) and experiments can advance theory development in the field of servitization by generating better causal explanations.Design/methodology/approachFsQCA and experiments are established research methods that are suited for developing causal explanations but are rarely utilized by servitization scholars. To support their application, we explain how fsQCA and experiments represent distinct ways of developing causal explanations, provide guidelines for their practical application and highlight potential application areas for a future research agenda in the servitization domain.FindingsFsQCA enables specification of cause–effects relationships that result in equifinal paths to an intended outcome. Experiments have the highest explanatory power and enable the drawing of direct causal conclusions through reliance on an interventionist logic. Together, these methods provide complementary ways of developing and testing theory when the research objective is to understand the causal pathways that lead to observed outcomes.Practical implicationsApplications of fsQCA help to explain to managers why there are numerous causal routes to attaining an intended outcome from servitization. Experiments support managerial decision-making by providing definitive “yes/no” answers to key managerial questions that address clearly specified cause–effect relationships.Originality/valueThe main contribution of this study is to help advance theory development in servitization by encouraging greater methodological plurality in a field that relies primarily on the qualitative case study methodology.

Introduction to “Causal pathways, random walks and tortuous paths: Moving from the descriptive to the etiological in psychiatry”

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Josef Parnas
Keyword(s):  
Random Walks ◽  
Causal Pathways ◽  
Practical Implications

This chapter presents an introduction to the move from descriptive to etiological perspective in psychiatry. It briefly outlines the arguments discussed in the following chapter, and explores their practical implications.

Fifty shades of grue: Indeterminate categories and induction in and out of the language sciences

2020 ◽  
Vol 24 (3) ◽  
pp. 465-488
Author(s):  
Matthew Spike
Keyword(s):  
Natural Kinds ◽  
A Priori ◽  
Linguistic Variation ◽  
Causal Explanations ◽  
Fundamental Distinction ◽  
New Riddle Of Induction ◽  
Linguistic Categories

AbstractIt is hard to define structural categories of language (e.g. noun, verb, adjective) in a way which accounts for linguistic variation. This leads Haspelmath to make the following claims: i) unlike in biology and chemistry, there are no natural kinds in language; ii) there is a fundamental distinction between descriptive and comparative linguistic categories, and; iii) generalisations based on comparisons between languages can in principle tell us nothing about specific languages. The implication is that cross-linguistic categories cannot support scientific induction. I disagree: generalisations on the basis of linguistic comparison should inform the language sciences. Haspelmath is not alone in identifying a connection between the nature of the categories we use and the kind of inferences we can make (e.g. Goodman’s ‘new riddle of induction’), but he is both overly pessimistic about categories in language and overly optimistic about categories in other sciences: biology and even chemistry work with categories which are indeterminate to some degree. Linguistic categories are clusters of co-occurring properties with variable instantiations, but this does not mean that we should dispense with them: if linguistic generalisations reliably lead to predictions about individual languages, and if we can integrate them into more sophisticated causal explanations, then there is no a priori requirement for a fundamental descriptive/comparative distinction. Instead, we should appreciate linguistic variation as a key component of our explanations rather than a problem to be dealt with.

scholarly journals What’s my age again? Age categories as interactive kinds

2021 ◽  
Vol 43 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Hane Htut Maung
Keyword(s):  
Young Adulthood ◽  
Natural Kinds ◽  
Prima Facie ◽  
Philosophical Problem ◽  
Ontological Status ◽  
Older Adulthood ◽  
Causal Processes ◽  
Inductive Inferences ◽  
Homeostatic Property Cluster ◽  
Interactive Kinds

AbstractThis paper addresses a philosophical problem concerning the ontological status of age classification. For various purposes, people are commonly classified into categories such as “young adulthood”, “middle adulthood”, and “older adulthood”, which are defined chronologically. These age categories prima facie seem to qualify as natural kinds under a homeostatic property cluster account of natural kindhood, insofar as they capture certain biological, psychological, and social properties of people that tend to cluster together due to causal processes. However, this is challenged by the observation that age categories are historically unstable. The properties that age categories are supposed to capture are affected by healthcare and cultural developments, such that people are staying biologically, psychologically, and socially young for longer. Furthermore, the act of classifying people into age categories can bring about changes in their behaviors, which in turn alter the biological, psychological, and social properties that the categories are supposed to capture. Accordingly, I propose that age categories are best understood as interactive kinds that are influenced in dynamic ways by looping effects. I consider some implications of these looping effects for our classificatory practices concerning age, including how different disciplines may need to review the ways they define and use age categories in their inductive inferences.

scholarly journals Natural kinds, psychiatric classification and the history of the DSM

2016 ◽  
Vol 27 (4) ◽  
pp. 406-424 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jonathan Y Tsou
Keyword(s):  
Mental Disorders ◽  
Natural Kinds ◽  
Promising Method ◽  
Biological Mechanisms ◽  
Psychiatric Classification ◽  
Diagnostic Categories ◽  
History Of ◽  
Causal Approach ◽  
Descriptive Approach ◽  
Natural Classes

This paper addresses philosophical issues concerning whether mental disorders are natural kinds and how the DSM should classify mental disorders. I argue that some mental disorders (e.g. schizophrenia, depression) are natural kinds in the sense that they are natural classes constituted by a set of stable biological mechanisms. I subsequently argue that a theoretical and causal approach to classification would provide a method for classifying natural kinds that is superior to the purely descriptive approach adopted by the DSM since DSM-III. My argument suggests that the DSM should classify natural kinds in order to provide predictively useful (i.e. projectable) diagnostic categories and that a causal approach to classification would provide a more promising method for formulating valid diagnostic categories.

scholarly journals Identification and Sensitivity Analysis for Multiple Causal Mechanisms: Revisiting Evidence from Framing Experiments

2013 ◽  
Vol 21 (2) ◽  
pp. 141-171 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kosuke Imai ◽  
Teppei Yamamoto
Keyword(s):  
Sensitivity Analysis ◽  
Structural Equation ◽  
Structural Equation Models ◽  
Statistical Significance ◽  
Media Framing ◽  
R Package ◽  
Social Scientists ◽  
Mediation Effects ◽  
Causal Mechanisms ◽  
Causal Pathways

Social scientists are often interested in testing multiple causal mechanisms through which a treatment affects outcomes. A predominant approach has been to use linear structural equation models and examine the statistical significance of the corresponding path coefficients. However, this approach implicitly assumes that the multiple mechanisms are causally independent of one another. In this article, we consider a set of alternative assumptions that are sufficient to identify the average causal mediation effects when multiple, causally related mediators exist. We develop a new sensitivity analysis for examining the robustness of empirical findings to the potential violation of a key identification assumption. We apply the proposed methods to three political psychology experiments, which examine alternative causal pathways between media framing and public opinion. Our analysis reveals that the validity of original conclusions is highly reliant on the assumed independence of alternative causal mechanisms, highlighting the importance of proposed sensitivity analysis. All of the proposed methods can be implemented via an open source R package, mediation.

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