Overview

Maladapting Minds discusses a number of reasons why philosophers of psychiatry should take an interest in evolutionary explanations of mental disorders and, more generally, in evolutionary thinking. First of all, there is the nascent field of evolutionary psychiatry. Unlike other psychiatrists, evolutionary psychiatrists engage with ultimate, rather than proximate, questions about mental illnesses. Being a young and youthful new discipline, evolutionary psychiatry allows for a nice case study in the philosophy of science. Secondly, philosophers of psychiatry have engaged with evolutionary theory because evolutionary considerations are often said to play a role in defining the concept of mental disorder. The basic question here is: Can the concept of mental disorder be given an objective definition, or is it rather a normative concept? Thirdly and finally, evolutionary thinking in psychiatry has often been a source of inspiration for a philosophical view on human nature. Thus evolutionary psychiatrists have suggested, for example, that man's vulnerability to mental disorders may well be one of the defining features of our species. Written by leading authors in philosophy, psychiatry, biology and psychology, this volume illustrates that many debates in contemporary philosophy of psychiatry are profoundly influenced by evolutionary approaches to mental disorders. Conversely, it also reveals how philosophers can help contribute to the burgeoning field of evolutionary psychiatry. It is important reading for a wide range of readers interested in mental health care and philosophy.

Full Product Details

Author:   Pieter R. Adriaens (Department of Philosophy, University of Leuven, Belgium) ,  Andreas De Block (Institute of Philosophy, University of Leuven, Belgium)
Publisher:   Oxford University Press
Imprint:   Oxford University Press
Dimensions:   Width: 15.80cm , Height: 2.00cm , Length: 23.10cm
Weight:   0.522kg
ISBN:  

9780199558667

ISBN 10:   0199558663
Pages:   340
Publication Date:   10 March 2011
Audience:   College/higher education ,  Postgraduate, Research & Scholarly
Format:   Paperback
Publisher's Status:   Active
Availability:   To order  
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Table of Contents

Geoffrey Miller: Foreword Andreas De Block and Pieter R. Adriaens: Introduction - Why philosophers of psychiatry should care about evolutionary theory Part 1: Evolutionary psychiatry and its critics 1: Luc Faucher and Isabelle Blanchette: Fearing new dangers: phobias and the cognitive complexity of human emotions 2: Hanna Aronsson: Sexual imprinting and fetishism: an evolutionary hypothesis 3: Edouard Machery: Developmental disorders and cognitive architecture 4: Erwin Geerts and Martin Brüne: On the role of ethology in clinical psychiatry: what do ontogenetic and causal factors tell us about ultimate explanations of depression? Part 2: Evolutionary theory and the concept of mental disorder 5: Jerome C. Wakefield: Darwin, functional explanation, and the philosophy of psychiatry 6: Randolph M. Nesse and Eric D. Jackson: Evolutionary foundations for psychiatric diagnosis: making DSM-V Valid 7: Daniel Nettle: Normality, disorder and evolved function: the case of depression 8: Kelly Roe and Dominic Murphy: Function, dysfunction, and adaptation? Part 3: Psychopathology, evolution, and human nature 9: Farah Focquaert and Johan Braeckman: Mirroring the mind: on empathy and autism 10: John Price: The role of mood change in defining relationships: a tribute to Gregory Bateson (1904-1980) 11: Jonathan Burns: From 'evolved interpersonal relatedness' to 'costly social alienation': an evolutionary neurophilosophy of schizophrenia

Reviews

This is a fascinating and interesting look at psychiatry from the perspective of the tenets of philosophy and evolutionary theory...Though this book can be fairly complex, it is well worth the read; I highly recommend it. -- Doody's Both philosophy of psychiatry and philosophy of biology have been studied extensively, but there has not been much contact between the two disciplines. Maladapting Minds aims to address this gap. It consists of a foreword by Geoffrey Miller, an introduction by the editors, and 11 chapters, divided into three parts... This example only shows that not only is more research needed to establish the influence of evolutionary processes on mental health problems and normal functioning, but also more theoretical reflection on what is important in the overall relationship between psychiatry and evolutionary theory. Maladapting Minds is a nice starting point. -- Philosophical Psychology

<br> This is a fascinating and interesting look at psychiatry from the perspective of the tenets of philosophy and evolutionary theory...Though this book can be fairly complex, it is well worth the read; I highly recommend it. -- Doody's<p><br>

Author Information

Pieter R. Adriaens is a postdoctoral fellow at the University of Leuven's Institute of Philosophy. He was a visiting scholar at the universities of Montpellier and Cambridge (UK), and a participant observer in various mental hospitals in Belgium. Most of his work is about the history and philosophy of evolutionary psychiatry, but he has also published on evolutionary accounts of homosexuality and homophobia. He plays Fender Rhodes in a post-rock trio called Grim, and is an avid collector of mid-century modern design and decorative arts. Andreas De Block is assistant professor at the University of Leuven's Institute of Philosophy. He studied philosophy, psychology and sexology at the universities of Gent and Leuven, and was a VENI-fellow of the Netherlands Organization for Scientific Research (NWO). He is the author and editor of numerous books about philosophy, psychiatry and psychoanalysis, and has a keen interest in cultural evolution, as well as the integration of evolutionary theory and the social sciences.

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