Realism, Natural Kinds, and Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder
| dc.contributor.advisor | Ellis, Stephen | |
| dc.contributor.author | Spindle, David | |
| dc.contributor.committeeMember | Ethridge, Lauren | |
| dc.contributor.committeeMember | Hawthorne, James | |
| dc.contributor.committeeMember | Judisch, Neal | |
| dc.contributor.committeeMember | Montminy, Martin | |
| dc.date.accessioned | 2017-05-23T13:33:16Z | |
| dc.date.available | 2017-05-23T13:33:16Z | |
| dc.date.issued | 2017-05 | |
| dc.date.manuscript | 2017-05 | |
| dc.description.abstract | Realism about mental disorders is a perennial area of dispute, but the controversy burns especially intensely for Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD). In this dissertation, I clarify what is at issue in these debates, surveying how realists have typically argued for mental disorder realism: the definitional debate about health and illness. I argue that the realist need not be committed to the terms of the definitional debate and recommend that a better approach is to show that mental disorders are natural kinds. While there are many accounts of kind-hood on offer, I adopt Richard Boyd’s homeostatic property cluster (HPC) theory of kinds, which I interpret through the philosophy of neuroscience literature on mechanisms. In sum, I conclude that if ADHD is a natural kind – and thus real – then individuals diagnosed with the disorder should be sufficiently similar with respect to an underlying cognitive neurobiological mechanism. To determine whether ADHD individuals are similar in this way, I consider the question through Russell Barkley’s Executive Function Model of ADHD. Relying primarily on the cognitive neurobiological research, I argue that there is now reasonable evidence to conclude that the DSM classification of ADHD corresponds not to a single natural kind, but several. Thus, ADHD is thus real. | en_US |
| dc.identifier.uri | http://hdl.handle.net/11244/50903 | |
| dc.language | en_US | en_US |
| dc.subject | Philosophy, Psychiatry, ADHD, Natural kinds, Realism | en_US |
| dc.thesis.degree | Ph.D. | en_US |
| dc.title | Realism, Natural Kinds, and Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder | en_US |
| ou.group | College of Arts and Sciences::Department of Philosophy | en_US |
| shareok.nativefileaccess | restricted | en_US |