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Introduction
I am Professor of Philosophy and The Marvin and Kathleen Stone Distinguished Professor of Humanities in Medicine and Science. I am faculty at UT Dallas in the History and Philosophy Program (Bass School of Arts, Humanities, and Technology) and Director of the Center for Values in Medicine, Science, and Technology (CVMST).
My research interests include philosophy of science, philosophy of psychiatry, philosophy of cognitive science, and history of twentieth-century philosophy of science.
Current institution
Additional affiliations
August 2021 - June 2022
August 2014 - July 2021
August 2009 - July 2014
Education
October 2001 - July 2008
Field of study
- History and Philosophy of Science (Conceptual and Historical Studies of Science)
September 2000 - July 2001
September 1993 - July 2000
Publications
Publications (47)
In psychiatry, pharmacological drugs play an important experimental role in attempts to identify the neurobiological causes of mental disorders. Besides being developed in applied contexts as potential treatments for patients with mental disorders, pharmacological drugs play a crucial role in research contexts as experimental instruments that facil...
This paper addresses the question of how human science categories yield projectable inferences by critically examining Ron Mallon's 'social role' account of human kinds. Mallon contends that human categories are projectable when a social role produces a homeostatic property cluster (HPC) kind. On this account, human categories are projectable when...
Jonathan Y. Tsou examines and defends positions on central issues in
philosophy of psychiatry. The positions defended assume a naturalistic and realist perspective and are framed against skeptical perspectives on biological psychiatry. Issues addressed include the reality of mental disorders; mechanistic and disease explanations of abnormal behavio...
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...
A large part of the controversy surrounding the publication of DSM-5 stems from the possibility of replacing the purely descriptive approach to classification favored by the DSM since 1980. This paper examines the question of how mental disorders should be classified, focusing on the issue of whether the DSM should adopt a purely descriptive or the...
My aim in this chapter is to clarify the nature of the shift in Feyerabend’s philosophical thinking in the 1970s, focusing on issues of realism, relativism, and pluralism. Contra-Preston, I argue that realism-relativism is a misleading variable for characterizing Feyerabend’s shift in the 1970s. Rather, I characterize this shift as Feyerabend’s exp...
This paper critically examines Ian Hacking’s account of looping effects and human kinds, focusing on three related arguments defended by Hacking: (1) the looping effects of human science classifications render their objects of classification inherently unstable, (2) looping effects preclude the possibility of generating stable projectable inference...
Considerations of realism and pluralism pervade Feyerabend’s later works as they do in his earlier corpus. However, Conquest of Abundance and surrounding papers mark Feyerabend’s first sustained foray into metaphysics. Specifically, he hypothesizes a pluralist realism which incorporates Kantian and constructivist elements (Oberheim 2006; Tambolo 20...
In this chapter, I critically examine issues relevant to the construction and reality of social categories, focusing on issues concerning conceptual schemes and conventionalism. Conceptual schemes (‘paradigms,’ ‘linguistic frameworks,’ ‘forms of life’) are systems of concepts that organize and give (intersubjective) meaning to empirical experience....
This chapter examines the history of philosophy of psychology and philosophy of psychiatry as subfields of philosophy of science that emerged in the late twentieth and early twenty-first century. The chapter also surveys related literatures that developed in psychology and psychiatry. Philosophy of psychology (or philosophy of cognitive science) ha...
This chapter examines the legacy of Kuhn’s Structure for normative philosophy of science. As an argument regarding the history of 20th century philosophy of science, I contend
that the main legacy of Structure was destructive: Structure shifted philosophy of science away from addressing general normative philosophical issues (e.g., the demarcation...
Commentary on Justin Garson, "Madness and idiocy: Reframing a basic problem of philosophy of psychiatry." Philosophy, Psychiatry, & Psychology
A minimal essentialism ('intrinsic biological essentialism') about natural kinds is required to explain the projectability of human science terms. Human classifications that yield robust and ampliative projectable inferences refer to biological kinds. I articulate this argument with reference to an intrinsic essentialist account of HPC kinds. This...
This chapter examines the influence of the empirical sciences (e.g., physics, biology, psychology) in contemporary analytic philosophy, with focus on philosophical theories that are guided by findings from the empirical sciences. Scientific approaches to philosophy follow a tradition of philosophical naturalism associated with Quine, which strives...
Commentary Anne-Marie Gagné-Julien's "Dysfunction and the Definition of Mental Disorder in the DSM." Philosophy, Psychiatry, & Psychology.
Book review of Asta (2018). Categories we live by. Oxford University Press.
Jonathan Y. Tsou examines and defends positions on central issues in philosophy of psychiatry. The positions defended assume a naturalistic and realist perspective and are framed against skeptical perspectives on biological psychiatry. Issues addressed include the reality of mental disorders; mechanistic and disease explanations of abnormal behavio...
This book explores the central questions and themes lying at the heart of a vibrant area of philosophical inquiry. Aligning core issues in psychiatry with traditional philosophical areas, it presents a focused overview of the historical and contemporary problems dominating the philosophy of psychiatry.
Beginning with an introduction to philosophy o...
In psychiatry, pharmacological research has played a crucial role in the formulation, revision, and refinement of neurobiological theories of psychopathology. Besides being utilized as potential treatments for various mental disorders, pharmacological drugs play an important epistemic role as experimental instruments that help scientists uncover th...
Book review of Ron Mallon, The Construction of Human Kinds. Oxford. Oxford University Press.
Recently, some philosophers of science (e.g., Gürol Irzik, Michael Friedman) have challenged the ‘received view’ on the relationship between Rudolf Carnap and Thomas Kuhn, suggesting that there is a close affinity (rather than opposition) between their philosophical views. In support of this argument, these authors cite Carnap and Kuhn’s similar vi...
While few would question the importance of the objectivity of science for providing a well-supported factual basis upon which policy decisions can be reliably made, it is far from clear what scientific objectivity is or how it should be achieved. In recent decades, questions regarding the objectivity of science have become increasingly salient in f...
This highly multidisciplinary collection discusses an increasingly important topic among scholars in science and technology studies: objectivity in science. It features eleven essays on scientific objectivity from a variety of perspectives, including philosophy of science, history of science, and feminist philosophy. Topics addressed in the book in...
In this article, I argue that depression and suicide are natural kinds insofar as they are classes of abnormal behavior underwritten by sets of stable biological mechanisms. In particular, depression and suicide are neurobiological kinds characterized by disturbances in serotonin functioning that affect various brain areas (i.e., the amygdala, ante...
According to David Chalmers, the hard problem of consciousness consists of explaining how and why qualitative experience arises from physical states. Moreover, Chalmers argues that materialist and reductive explanations of mentality are incapable of addressing the hard problem. In this chapter, I suggest that Chalmers’ hard problem can be usefully...
Recently, some philosophers of psychiatry (viz., Rachel Cooper and Dominic Murphy) have analyzed the issue of psychiatric classification. This paper expands upon these analyses and seeks to demonstrate that a consideration of the history of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM) can provide a rich and informative philosophi...
In the 1960s and 1970s, Hilary Putnam articulated a notion of relativized apriority that was motivated to address the problem
of scientific change. This paper examines Putnam’s account in its historical context and in relation to contemporary views.
I begin by locating Putnam’s analysis in the historical context of Quine’s rejection of apriority, p...
Review of Derek Bolton, What is Mental Disorder? An Essay in Philosophy, Science, and Values.
This paper examines Ian Hacking's analysis of the looping effects of psychiatric classifications, focusing on his recent account of interactive and indifferent kinds. After explicating Hacking's distinction between 'interactive kinds' (human kinds) and 'indifferent kinds' (natural kinds), I argue that Hacking cannot claim that there are 'interactiv...
Review of George Reish (2005) How the cold war transformed philosophy of science. Cambridge University Press.
Logical Empiricism: Historical and Contemporary Perspectives Edited by ParriniPaolo, SalmonWesley C., and SalmonMerrilee H.Pittsburgh, PA: University of Pittsburgh Press, 2003, ix + 396 pp., $49.95 - Volume 45 Issue 4 - Jonathan Y. Tsou
This paper concerns Jean Piaget's (1896–1980) philosophy of science and, in particular, the picture of scientific development suggested by his theory of genetic epistemology. The aims of the paper are threefold: (1) to examine genetic epistemology as a theory concerning the growth of knowledge both in the individual and in science; (2) to explicate...
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This paper concerns the recent debate on the nature and motivations of the epistemological project advanced in Rudolf Carnap's (1891-1970) Aufbau. Much of this debate has been initiated by Michael Friedman and Alan Richardson who argue (against the received view of the Aufbau as a foundationalist defense of empiricism) that Carnap's epistemological...
This paper explores Paul Feyerabend's (19241994) skeptical arguments for anarchism in his early writings between 1960 to 1975. Feyerabend's position is encapsulated by his well-known suggestion that the only principle for scientific method that can be defended under all circumstances is: anything goes. I present Feyerabend's anarchism as a recommen...
C. Medical provision of orally-administered stimulants is a harm reduction technique that could reduce suffering and slow the spread of AIDS among cocaine misusers in Vancouver, B.C., Canada. However, experimentation with stimulant maintenance will be difficult to carry out until the public's exaggerated fears of cocaine and other stimulants, engen...
