Can psychiatry refurnish the mind?

Abstract

In this paper, I will argue that the NIMH’s new Research Domain of Criteria (RDoC) is a useful test of the philosophical hypothesis of eliminative materialism and demonstrates the superiority of a moderate eliminativism over integrationism, which is a rival philosophical framework for the cognitive sciences. I begin by going over the motivation for RDOC, which rests on the problems with the existing Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders framework in psychiatry. Then, I introduce the main tenets of RDoC before discussing eliminativism and trying to show what a moderate eliminativism looks like through the example of addiction. I then contrast that approach with intregrationism to the latter’s detriment. I end by wondering whether the broadly political consequences of eliminativism give us non-scientific reasons for resisting it, as it threatens to rob ordinary people of important means of self-description

Keywords:

• RDoC
• eliminative materialism
• desire
• reductionism

Acknowledgements

I thank the editors and referees for helpful comments, along with audience members at Macquarie University. Dave Kaplan was a very helpful reader of an earlier draft of this material.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes on contributor

Dominic Murphy is Associate Professor of History and Philosophy of Science at the University of Sydney and director of the Sydney Centre for the Foundations of Science. He is the author of Psychiatry in the Scientific Image (MIT 2006).

Additional information

Funding

This research was supported by Australian Research Council Discovery Project DP120103395.