Abstract
A fundamental issue in any branch of the natural sciences is validating the basic concepts for use in that branch. In psychiatry, this issue has not yet been resolved, and indeed, the proper nature of the problem has scarcely been recognised. As a result, psychiatry (or at least those parts of the discipline which aspire to scientific status) still cannot claim to be a part of scientific medicine, or to be incorporated within the common language of the natural sciences. While this creates difficulties within the discipline, and its standing in relation to other branches of medicine, it makes it an exciting place for “frontiersmen” (and women). This is one of the key growing points in the natural science tradition. In this essay, which moves from the early history of that tradition to today’s debates in scientific psychiatry, I give my views about how these fundamental issues can move towards resolution.
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Notes
Since Bacon is here standing judge over the relative merits of experimental evidence and reason, he can use neither approach as a basis for making the comparison. Here, as often in his writings, he uses a third style of rhetoric, by metaphor or analogy, arguably an older and more fundamental basis for communication than either reason or empirical evidence.
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This paper is an expansion of a lecture I gave in Tübingen on 24th October, 2011, about six weeks after Valentin’s death. I first met him on a visit to Tübingen, in 1981, attracted by his ideas on the cerebellum, and the role of axonal conduction time in that structure. He was a man of unfailing courtesy, generosity, and wisdom, a beacon of integrity, and a fine scientist, giving rise to many interesting ideas. I also regard him as a friend and mentor, and perhaps the only person I have been able to take as a guide on how to be a scientist. He was trained as a psychiatrist before he became a neuroscientist and worked briefly at the institute in Rome, where, a few years earlier, Cerletti and Bini had developed electroconvulsive therapy. He said to me more than once that the real place where the study of brain dynamics would show that its worth was in understanding mental disorders.
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Miller, R. Validating concepts of mental disorder: precedents from the history of science. Biol Cybern 108, 689–699 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00422-014-0593-7
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00422-014-0593-7