Definitional Circularity and Context Dependence
“Any reader reaching this point may feel short-changed that I have not attempted to say just what mental illness is: to articulate a philosophical account of it. Although pithy accounts and definitions are often a goal of philosophy, they are difficult even with concepts whose use typically commands agreement rather than a dispute in non-philosophical contexts. ‘Knowledge’ and ‘action’ are paradigmatic examples where largely unproblematic everyday use still resists non-circular philosophical analysis. The agreed extension (the class of entities to which a concept applies) seems no guarantee of an agreed philosophical account of intension (the meaning of a concept), and there can even be tension between agreed extension and philosophical accounts of intension. But mental illness is widely disputed both in its range and its meaning. Philosophical inquiry helps show some of its conceptual connections. I take it, for example, that illness is a value-laden notion, but it does not follow that the constituent values can be understood independently of, and prior to, an understanding of illness or pathology. And hence, any account of illness is likely to be circular: to presuppose the concept it was meant to explain. Nevertheless, philosophical investigation can help illuminate what is being disputed in disagreements about mental illness. It is less a matter for a semantic police force imposing the correct use and more a form of arbitration or even therapy exploring the reasons and underlying motivations of competing claims. This kind of exploration may nonetheless shed light on the nature of the complicated but very real kinds of distress to which we apply the label ‘mental illness’.”
Tim Thornton, Mental Illness (Cambridge Elements). 2022. p 68