Mind, Self and Psychopathology

Abstract

The past decade has seen a significant rapprochement between philosophy and the study of psychopathology in the English-speaking world. There is encouraging evidence of genuine dialogue: many philosophers, psychiatrists and psychologists are interested not only in how recent philosophical work on mind and self can increase our understanding of anomalous and paradoxical aspects of various disorders, but also in the ways these disorders challenge theoretical constructs in philosophy of mind and other areas. Here we focus on three of the philosophically most interesting forms of psychopathology: dissociative identity disorder, autism and schizophrenia. Each poses a special challenge to standard forms of psychiatric understanding and explanation, for in each disorder there is an absence of some aspect of experience which philosophers have traditionally assumed to be universally, even necessarily, present in human beings.