Abstract
Multidisciplinary models aggregating ‘lower-level’ biological and ‘higher-level’ psychological and social determinants of a phenomenon raise a puzzle. How is the interaction between the physical, the psychological and the social conceptualized and explained? Using biopsychosocial models of pain as an illustration, I argue that these models are in fact level-neutral compilations of empirical findings about correlated and causally relevant factors, and as such they neither assume, nor entail a conceptual or ontological stratification into levels of description, explanation or reality. If inter-level causation is deemed problematic or if debates about the superiority of a particular level of description or explanation arise, these issues are fueled by considerations other than empirical findings.
Highlights
The diagnosis and pathology of many psychiatric conditions encompasses a mixture of physiological and psychological symptoms, risk factors and causal determinants (Kendall 2001; Kendler and Campbell 2009; Murphy 2006; Schaffner 1993)
The upshot of this claim is that if debates about the epistemic superiority of a particular level of description or explanation arise, or if ontological distinctions are drawn between intra- and inter-level causation, somatic and psychogenic etiology or pathogenesis, these issues are due to considerations other than empirical research
Using biopsychosocial models of pain as a case study, I defended the level-neutrality of multidisciplinary models
Summary
The diagnosis and pathology of many psychiatric conditions encompasses a mixture of physiological and psychological symptoms, risk factors and causal determinants (Kendall 2001; Kendler and Campbell 2009; Murphy 2006; Schaffner 1993). I argue that these models can aggregate any correlate or causal determinant of a phenomenon of interest, be it biological, psychological, social or other, in virtue of a methodological principle of epistemic parity among the investigative methodologies driving experimental and clinical research across disciplines. This principle denies empirical justification of the exclusion of some factors from the model, the segregation of certain kinds of factors into distinct models, or the layering of factors included in any given model along two or more levels.. I propose that, while empirical research has the internal resources for sustaining integrative multidisciplinary research, level distinctions reflect the fact that different disciplines rely on local theoretical frameworks which fail to add up to a coherent unified theory capable of accounting for all the discoveries of empirical research
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