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21 - Non-reductionism, Eliminativism, and Modularity in RDoC: Thoughts about a Progressive Mechanistic Science

from Section 7

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 April 2020

By
Peter Zachar
Edited by
Kenneth S. Kendler ,
Josef Parnas  and
Peter Zachar
Kenneth S. Kendler
Affiliation:
Virginia Commonwealth University
Josef Parnas
Affiliation:
University of Copenhagen
Peter Zachar
Affiliation:
Auburn University, Montgomery
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Summary

In a commentary on Miller and Bartholomew, Zachar notes that the Research Domain Criteria initiative (RDoC) has always represented an incursion of cognitive neuroscience and factor analytic dimensional models from psychology into biological psychiatry, and that non-reductionist aspirations have been a part of RDoC from the beginning. Rather than reductionism, a more problematic tenet of the RDoC initiative is a contempt for the categories of the DSM, seen in a tendency to blame the lack of progress on adherence to a categorical model rather than on the intrinsic complexity of psychopathology.One aspect of this complexity is the open nature of psychological concepts.Turning to the “neural circuit” metaphor, Zachar suggests that the notion of a “circuit for” may reflect adopting too modular a theory of mind, which as a framework, may unnecessarily constrain a mechanistic science.

Keywords

DSMResearch Domain Criteria (RDoC)biological psychiatryopen conceptsPaul Meehl
Type
Chapter
Information
Levels of Analysis in Psychopathology
Cross-Disciplinary Perspectives
 , pp. 267 - 274
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2020

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