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To what do psychiatric diagnoses refer? A two-dimensional semantic analysis of diagnostic terms

In somatic medicine, diagnostic terms often refer to the disease processes that are the causes of patients' symptoms. The language used in some clinical textbooks and health information resources suggests that this is also sometimes assumed to be the case with diagnoses in psychiatry. However,...

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Autor principal: Maung, Hane Htut
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Elsevier 2016
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4736234/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/26580354
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.shpsc.2015.10.001
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author Maung, Hane Htut
author_facet Maung, Hane Htut
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description In somatic medicine, diagnostic terms often refer to the disease processes that are the causes of patients' symptoms. The language used in some clinical textbooks and health information resources suggests that this is also sometimes assumed to be the case with diagnoses in psychiatry. However, this seems to be in tension with the ways in which psychiatric diagnoses are defined in diagnostic manuals, according to which they refer solely to clusters of symptoms. This paper explores how theories of reference in the philosophy of language can help to resolve this tension. After the evaluation of descriptive and causal theories of reference, I put forward a conceptual framework based on two-dimensional semantics that allows the causal analysis of diagnostic terms in psychiatry, while taking seriously their descriptive definitions in diagnostic manuals. While the framework is presented as a solution to a problem regarding the semantics of psychiatric diagnoses, it can also accommodate the analysis of diagnostic terms in other medical disciplines.
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spelling pubmed-47362342016-02-25 To what do psychiatric diagnoses refer? A two-dimensional semantic analysis of diagnostic terms Maung, Hane Htut Stud Hist Philos Biol Biomed Sci Article In somatic medicine, diagnostic terms often refer to the disease processes that are the causes of patients' symptoms. The language used in some clinical textbooks and health information resources suggests that this is also sometimes assumed to be the case with diagnoses in psychiatry. However, this seems to be in tension with the ways in which psychiatric diagnoses are defined in diagnostic manuals, according to which they refer solely to clusters of symptoms. This paper explores how theories of reference in the philosophy of language can help to resolve this tension. After the evaluation of descriptive and causal theories of reference, I put forward a conceptual framework based on two-dimensional semantics that allows the causal analysis of diagnostic terms in psychiatry, while taking seriously their descriptive definitions in diagnostic manuals. While the framework is presented as a solution to a problem regarding the semantics of psychiatric diagnoses, it can also accommodate the analysis of diagnostic terms in other medical disciplines. Elsevier 2016-02 /pmc/articles/PMC4736234/ /pubmed/26580354 http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.shpsc.2015.10.001 Text en © 2015 The Author http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ This is an open access article under the CC BY license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).
spellingShingle Article
Maung, Hane Htut
To what do psychiatric diagnoses refer? A two-dimensional semantic analysis of diagnostic terms
title To what do psychiatric diagnoses refer? A two-dimensional semantic analysis of diagnostic terms
title_full To what do psychiatric diagnoses refer? A two-dimensional semantic analysis of diagnostic terms
title_fullStr To what do psychiatric diagnoses refer? A two-dimensional semantic analysis of diagnostic terms
title_full_unstemmed To what do psychiatric diagnoses refer? A two-dimensional semantic analysis of diagnostic terms
title_short To what do psychiatric diagnoses refer? A two-dimensional semantic analysis of diagnostic terms
title_sort to what do psychiatric diagnoses refer? a two-dimensional semantic analysis of diagnostic terms
topic Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4736234/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/26580354
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.shpsc.2015.10.001
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