Abstract

The key objectives of this book are to demonstrate the applicability of issues in the philosophy of science to problems in psychiatry and to show how the conceptual issues raised by psychiatry should be considered more closely by philosophers of science. These are worthy aims: the philosophy of psychiatry needs to draw more thoughtfully upon contemporary philosophical debates and stimulating interest within the philosophy of science is a good way to do this.Cooper's book succeeds for both of these desiderata. The first five chapters discuss the central issues in the philosophy of psychiatry: whether mental illness is a disease/natural kind and what follows from this. There is a large literature on these questions, some of which …