What is wrong with reductionism? On the normative nature of mental disorder

Abstract

The subject of Marco Stier's article seems to be well-known, as he addresses a prominent topic in the philosophy of psychiatry: the normative nature of mental disorders. Of course, Stier does not attempt to cover this issue extensively, since he focuses rather on the Irreducibilty-Thesis (IT) and tries to show that “psychiatric diseases are irreducible to the brain even if the mental as such may in principle be reducible” (p. 2). Admittedly, such anti-reductionism is not an uncontroversial position (for an overview of the debate see Perring, 2010, ch. 3). Here is not the place to go into too much detail in dealing with this approach, even though I have expressed my sympathies elsewhere (Ruther, in press). Much rather, I want to pick out three points which, in my opinion, wrongly find little or no consideration. The first point concerns a position which Stier ties to IT, namely social constructivism; the second point concerns the argumentative strategy used in defending IT. The third point finally is a general comment on the orientation of the debate, i.e., the question of what we should discuss when talking about the normativity of mental disorders.