Antirealism Will Not Save the DSM From Empirical Inadequacy

Logically, we must concede to solipsism and related doctrines that the reality we are learning about might be an unrepresentative portion of a larger, inaccessible or incomprehensible structure. But the general refutation that I have given of such doctrines shows us that it is irrational to build upon that possibility. Following Occam, we shall ent

I frame this argument in terms of the “ontological status” of intelligibility (being, truth, etc.) and argue that if any metaphysics (scientific or otherwise) fails to account for such intelligibility, then it fails necessarily, as it cannot explain or account for its purported ability to explain or account

In spite of compelling evidence to the contrary, we continue to treat symptoms as if they are caused by a “broken brain” in which deficiencies or “imbalances” of serotonin and other neurotransmitters are regarded by modern psychiatry as sufficient explanations of mental illness.

much of psychiatric research actually undermines the biomedical hypothesis of brain disease as an explanation of madness.

We see that these kinds of “unified theories” do not illuminate the processes underlying emergent phenomena but instead ignore them as if they were not real—what scientists and philosophers call illusions, or epiphenomena—secondary effects or byproducts that have no causal effects on anything.