From Psychiatric Times: “He argued that conceptualizing psychiatric disorders as ‘natural kinds’âentities existing in nature that can be defined in terms of underlying biopathological processes or inherent statistical propertiesâis inadequate and unnecessary. Instead, he argued for the notion of ‘practical kinds’âstable patterns of phenomena that we can identify and classify in light of our scientific goals and interests. His critique of essentialism and defense of pragmatism is a philosophical thread that runs through his entire philosophical output and finds its most mature expression in A Metaphysics of Psychopathology.”
