Book contents
- Levels of Analysis in Psychopathology
- Advance Praise for Levels of Analysis in Psychopathology
- Levels of Analysis in Psychopathology
- Copyright page
- Contents
- Figures
- Tables
- Contributors
- Preface
- General Introduction
- Part I Neuroscience, Mechanisms, and RDoC
- Part II Phenomenology, Biological Psychology, and the Mind–Body Problem
- Part III Taxonomy, Integration, and Multiple Levels of Explanation
- Section 8
- 22 Introduction
- 23 Descriptive Psychopathology: A Manifest Level of Analysis, or Not?
- 24 Psychiatry without Description
- Section 9
- Section 10
- Section 11
- Section 12
- Section 13
- Section 14
- Section 15
- Index
- References
22 - Introduction
from Section 8
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 02 April 2020
- Levels of Analysis in Psychopathology
- Advance Praise for Levels of Analysis in Psychopathology
- Levels of Analysis in Psychopathology
- Copyright page
- Contents
- Figures
- Tables
- Contributors
- Preface
- General Introduction
- Part I Neuroscience, Mechanisms, and RDoC
- Part II Phenomenology, Biological Psychology, and the Mind–Body Problem
- Part III Taxonomy, Integration, and Multiple Levels of Explanation
- Section 8
- 22 Introduction
- 23 Descriptive Psychopathology: A Manifest Level of Analysis, or Not?
- 24 Psychiatry without Description
- Section 9
- Section 10
- Section 11
- Section 12
- Section 13
- Section 14
- Section 15
- Index
- References
Summary
Peter Zachar’s chapter is devoted to the issue of description and descriptive psychiatry. Description is one of the discursive modes, the other being argumentation, narration and exposition. In practical use, all four components frequently co-exist. The purpose of description is a linguistic attempt to make an object, a person or a state of affairs more clear, articulated and vivid. The issue of description, taken on a theoretical or philosophical level, is an immense topic with connections to linguistics, semiotics, philosophy of language, pragmatics of language use, concept formation, philosophy of mind and metaphysics. Neither the chapter nor the following commentary have an aspiration to branch into all those domains. Peter Zachar is primarily concerned with the notion of the so-called descriptive psychiatry which is usually considered as a sort of inferior kind of psychiatry, only useful in our attempt to create explanatory models.
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- Levels of Analysis in PsychopathologyCross-Disciplinary Perspectives, pp. 279Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2020