Schizophrenia and the Dysfunctional Brain

Scientists, philosophers, and even the lay public commonly accept that schizophrenia stems from a biological or internal ‘dysfunction.’ However, this assessment is typically accompanied neither by well-defined criteria for determining that something is dysfunctional nor empirical evidence that schizophrenia satisfies those criteria. In the following, a concept of biological function is developed and applied to a neurobiological model of schizophrenia. It concludes that current evidence does not warrant the claim that schizophrenia stems from a biological dysfunction, and, in fact, that unusual neural structures associated with schizophrenia may have functional or adaptive significance. The fact that current evidence is ambivalent between these two possibilities (dysfunction versus adaptive function) implies that schizophrenia researchers should be much more cautious in using the ‘dysfunction’ label than they currently are. This has implications for both psychiatric treatment as well as public perception of mental disorders

A Generalized Selected Effects Theory of Function

I present and defend the generalized selected effects theory (GSE) of function. According to GSE, the function of a trait consists in the activity that contributed to its bearer’s differential reproduction, or differential retention, within a population. Unlike the traditional selected effects (SE) theory, it does not require that the functional trait helped its bearer reproduce; differential retention is enough. Although the core theory has been presented previously, I go significantly beyond those presentations by providing a new argument for GSE and defending it from a recent objection. I also sketch its implications for teleosemantics and philosophy of medicine

Function and Teleology

This is a short overview of the biological functions debate in philosophy. While it was fairly comprehensive when it was written, my short book ​A Critical Overview of Biological Functions has largely supplanted it as a definitive and up-to-date overview of the debate, both because the book takes into account new developments since then, and because the length of the book allowed me to go into substantially more detail about existing views

The Hiddenness of Psychological Symptom Amplification: Some Historical Observations

This book chapter is a short response to a paper by the psychiatrist Nicholas Kontos, on the phenomenon of psychological symptom amplification (PSA). PSA takes place when patients present symptoms to clinicians that they do not actually have, or, perhaps more commonly, they exaggerate symptoms they do have. Kontos argues that, because of modern medical training, it is very difficult for clinicians to recognize that the patient's presented symptoms are exaggerated or nonexistent. I argue that the hiddenness of PSA is a result of far-reaching instutitional changes that took place in American psychiatry in the 1970s. In short, many psychiatrists went from seeing mental disorders as (unconscious) strategies to seeing them as dysfunctions, nothing more. Recognizing PSA involves adopting a perspective that has been effectively abolished in contemporary American psychiatry

Reducing Obesity: Policy Strategies From the Tobacco War

Outlines the impact of obesity on health, healthcare costs, and productivity. Reviews successful policy interventions to reduce tobacco use and considers whether excise or sales tax, labeling requirements, and advertising bans could lower obesity rates

Race relations & class conflict as factors in South African history in the 20th Century

African Studies Seminar series. Paper presented September, 1974The use in this paper of the terms race and class has proceeded on the assumption that the historian is absolved from the obligation to contribute anything noteworthy about their meanings as concepts. To do that is the province of the sociologist or the economist. No doubt some social scientists would object to a particular historian's method of testing the usefulness of these concepts as techniques of historical explanation. To the historian that is quite acceptable as fair criticism, provided that he is not saddled with the duty of redefining them as concepts. Another difficulty lies in the fact that many historians, including myself, in terms of our temperament and approach, do not find historical explanation involving the use of large categories of this kind very satisfying. We are more interested in the particular, in specific events and in the actions of specific people. At the same time historians must accept that the social scientists are correct to stress the dimension of the impersonal in attempting to explain social change. When the role of impersonal categories in the past is at issue, the historian has a claim to be heard. For if the historian's grasp of the models and concepts of the social sciences is shaky, perhaps as imperfect is the concrete historical knowledge of many social scientists