Epistemic Injustice and Psychiatric Classification

TY - JOUR

T1 - Epistemic Injustice and Psychiatric Classification

AU - Bueter, Anke

PY - 2019/12

Y1 - 2019/12

N2 - This article supports calls for an increased integration of patients into taxonomic decision making in psychiatry by arguing that their exclusion constitutes a special kind of epistemic injustice: preemptive testimonial injustice, which precludes the opportunity for testimony due to a wrongly presumed irrelevance or lack of expertise. Here, this presumption is misguided for two reasons: (1) the role of values in psychiatric classification and (2) the potential function of first-person knowledge as a corrective means against implicitly value-laden, inaccurate, or incomplete diagnostic criteria sets. This kind of epistemic injustice leads to preventable epistemic losses in psychiatric classification, diagnosis, and treatment.

AB - This article supports calls for an increased integration of patients into taxonomic decision making in psychiatry by arguing that their exclusion constitutes a special kind of epistemic injustice: preemptive testimonial injustice, which precludes the opportunity for testimony due to a wrongly presumed irrelevance or lack of expertise. Here, this presumption is misguided for two reasons: (1) the role of values in psychiatric classification and (2) the potential function of first-person knowledge as a corrective means against implicitly value-laden, inaccurate, or incomplete diagnostic criteria sets. This kind of epistemic injustice leads to preventable epistemic losses in psychiatric classification, diagnosis, and treatment.

KW - DSM

KW - PHENOMENOLOGY

KW - DIAGNOSIS

U2 - 10.1086/705443

DO - 10.1086/705443

M3 - Journal article

SN - 0031-8248

VL - 86

SP - 1064

EP - 1074

JO - Philosophy of Science

JF - Philosophy of Science

IS - 5

ER -