Philosophical Issues in Psychiatry III: The Nature and Sources of Historical Change

PHD Course and Conference
Regular seats 100
Course and Conference fee 4.080 DKK (free of charge for Danish PhD students)
Instructor Josef Parnas
Point 2,50

Aim and content

An important question within the history and philosophy of science is the degree to which "progress" or "change" in science results from internal, largely empirically driven processes (e.g. new data or theories) versus arising from a range of external influences including shifting cultural values, economic- and socio-political processes, other historical forces and the search for professional respect and authority. Psychiatry sits at the cross-roads of the biomedical science, the social sciences and the humanities. In being the one medical specialty that diagnoses and treats mental illness, it has been subject to major changes in the last 150 years. This conference seeks to understand the nature of the forces that have shaped these changes and especially how substantial "internal" advances in our knowledge of the nature and causes of psychiatric illness have interacted with a plethora of external forces that have impacted on the psychiatric profession. The presenters are mix of philosophers and historians with an interest in psychiatry and working psychiatrists or psychologists with an historical/philosophical bent.

Proposed four sections to the conference:

i) General Philosophical Background - Setting the Stage on the Nature of Change in Science

ii) 19th Century

iii) Early to mid 20th Century and

iv) Last half of the 20th and the 21st Century