CANCELLED Externalising Psychopathology

CFS Lecture by Joel Krueger, Senior Lecturer in Philosophy, University of Exeter, UK.

Abstract

A family of recent externalist approaches in philosophy of mind argues that our psychological capacities are realized not just by our brain but also our bodies, as well as the complex ways these bodies interact with their material and social environments.

In this talk, I consider how externalist approaches to mental illness might reconfigure some debates in philosophy of psychiatry.

First, I develop a taxonomy of possible varieties of externalism and indicate how each relates to psychiatric disorders.

I then focus on what I call “constitution externalism” (CE): the idea that psychological phenomena are constituted by a range of processes spanning neural, bodily, and environmental constituents. I apply CE to two case studies—schizophrenia and autism—and explore not only how CE challenges biomedical orthodoxy but also how it might inform new approaches to diagnosis and intervention.