The Peircean Metaphysics as a Basis for a Pychiatric Reform

Abstract

In this work, we argue that the realist ontology and fallibilist epistemology of Peirce can provide an alternative theoretical framework to the neo-mechanicism within which a large part of the works concerning the mainstream psychiatric thought is inserted. If, on the one hand, some thinkers advocate that the greater potential of systemic concepts lies in breaking away from mainstream thesis of mechanicism, on the other hand, it is likely that the majority of systemic thinkers understand such conceptual developments only as methodological reformulations necessary in the face of problems not resolved by classical mechanicism, providing the grounds for contemporary neo-mechanicism. Despite neomechanism has undeniably contributed to methodological advances in various fields of science, we argue that this cosmological conception adversely affects the production and employment of some scientific knowledge, as in the case of psychiatry. We therefore propose to point out some of the consequences of adopting a Peircean non-mechanicist metaphysics as a foundation for the epistemology of psychiatry. Following a pragmatic criterion for the dissolution of metaphysical disputes, we suggest that, if the adoption of a mechanicist vision in science and philosophy results in the creation of epistemological reductionisms, then the adoption of a non-mechanicist cosmology would seem to be the most promising option in certain fields, such as mental health, because, due to a kind of attachment to reality conceivedas being intrinsically complex, we would tend not to exclude complex and dynamic elements - such as the social interactions in mental illness - from the approach.