We are, let's imagine, in an economy in which everyone's money, which takes the form of paper notes, is kept under the bed in boxes. When there's an economic crash, people have fewer paper notes in their boxes. We can demonstrate this empirically, and we have a good theory as to the relation between all these pieces of paper and the economy.
When shall we say that there's a note problem?
Consider these two situations:
1. There is a plague of note-eating bugs that hits the land. The economy is damaged because people are losing money.
2. There's a failure of the crops, a war, whatever. The economy is damaged because of this.
We might want to mark this distinction by talking of a note problem only in case 1.
I don't say this analogy is perfect! In fact, I offer it as precisely as a comparison object so we can see how and why our intuitions about the relation between psychological and neurological disorders are and are not similar.
Good point! I do think there is an important difference between disorders where neurological functioning is altered & the alteration can be characterized adequately in neurological terms VS disorders where psychology/behavior/sense-making is altered and is adequately characterized in psychological terms but where nonetheless some causal associations with identifiable brain changes may exist. It is crucial not to lose sight of that. It is a reasonable worry that people will not appreciate the difference between neurological disorders as brain disorders and psychiatric disorders as brain disorders (if and when they are brain disorders).
We are, let's imagine, in an economy in which everyone's money, which takes the form of paper notes, is kept under the bed in boxes. When there's an economic crash, people have fewer paper notes in their boxes. We can demonstrate this empirically, and we have a good theory as to the relation between all these pieces of paper and the economy.
When shall we say that there's a note problem?
Consider these two situations:
1. There is a plague of note-eating bugs that hits the land. The economy is damaged because people are losing money.
2. There's a failure of the crops, a war, whatever. The economy is damaged because of this.
We might want to mark this distinction by talking of a note problem only in case 1.
I don't say this analogy is perfect! In fact, I offer it as precisely as a comparison object so we can see how and why our intuitions about the relation between psychological and neurological disorders are and are not similar.
Good point! I do think there is an important difference between disorders where neurological functioning is altered & the alteration can be characterized adequately in neurological terms VS disorders where psychology/behavior/sense-making is altered and is adequately characterized in psychological terms but where nonetheless some causal associations with identifiable brain changes may exist. It is crucial not to lose sight of that. It is a reasonable worry that people will not appreciate the difference between neurological disorders as brain disorders and psychiatric disorders as brain disorders (if and when they are brain disorders).