Gayretimin bir kısmı bilim dünyasına hizmet, ama diğer çok mühim bir gayesi ise; koskoca bir İslam aleminin yitirmiş olduğu kendine hürmeti, güveni ve insanlık tarihindeki yerini hatırlatmak, kaybettiklerini inşa etmek içindir. Prof. Dr. Fuat Sezgin Prof. Dr. Fuat Sezgin anısına ithaf ettiğimiz Felsefe ve Din Bilimleri Özel Sayımıza hoşgeldiniz. Prof. Dr. Fuat Sezgin, 24 Ekim 1924 tarihinde Bitlis’te dünyaya gelen Fuat Sezgin, il-kokulu Doğubayazıt’ta, ortaokul ve liseyi ise Erzurum’da bitirdikten sonra 1943 yılında İstanbul’a geldi. İstanbul Üniversitesi şarkiyat (Doğu bilimi) Araştırmaları (...) Enstitüsü’nde ünlü Alman şarkiyatçı Prof. Dr. Hellmut Ritter’in (1892-1971) öğrencisi olan Sezgin, Ritter’in tavsiyesi üzerine İslâm bilimlerine yöneldi. 1951’de İstanbul Üniversitesi Edebiyat Fakülte-si’den mezun olduktan sonra Arap Dili ve Edebiyatı alanında “Buhârî’nin Kaynakları Hakkın-da Araştırmalar” başlıklı teziyle doktorasını tamamladı. Bu çalışmasıyla, hadis kaynağı olarak İslâm kültüründe önemli bir yere sahip olan Buhârî’nin sözlü kaynaklar yerine yazılı kaynaklara dayandığı tezini ortaya attı. Doçent unvanını 1954 yılında alan Sezgin, 1960 askeri darbesinin ardından üniversi-telerden uzaklaştırılan 147 akademisyen arasında kendi adının da bulunması üzerine 1961’de Türkiye’den ayrıldı ve çalışmalarına Goethe Üniversitesi’nde (Frankfurt) devam etti. Câbir bin Hayyân hakkında hazırladığı ikinci tezini 1965’te Goethe Üniversitesi Doğa Bilimleri tarihi Enstitüsü’ne sunan ve bir yıl sonra profesörlüğe yükseltilen Sezgin, aynı yıl kendisi gibi şarkiyatçı olan Ursula Sezgin ile Evlendi. Alanında şimdiye kadar yazılan en kapsamlı eser kabul edilen Geshichte des arabisc-hen Schrifttums (Arapça Yazma Eserler Literatürü Tarihi) başlıklı kapsamlı eserinin ilk cildini 1967’de yayımlayan Sezgin, 1978’de Kral Faysal İslâmi İlimler Ödülü’ne lâyık görüldü. Bu ödül nedeniyle kendisine takdim edilen maddi desteği değerlendirerek 1982’de Goethe Üniversitesi Arap-İslâm Bilimleri Tarihi Enstitrüsü’nü, ertesi yıl ise bu enstitü bünyesinde, tarih boyunca Müslüman bilim insanlarının icat ettiği 800’den fazla bilimsel alet ve düzene-ğinin modellerinin sergilendiği İslam Bilim ve teknoloji Müzesi’ni kurdu. Bu müzenin bir benzerini 2008 yılında istanbul’da kuran Sezgin, 2010 yılında Prof. Dr. Fuat Sezgin İslam Bilim Tarihi Araştırmaları Vakfı’nın kuruluşuna öncülük etti. Kahire Arap Dili Akademisi, Şam Arap Dili Akademisi, Fas Rabat Kraliyet Akademisi, Bağdat Arap Dili Akademisi, Türkiye Bilimler Akademisi şeref üyeliği de dâhil olmak üzere çok sayıda ödül ve nişana layık görülen Sezgin’e; Erciyes Üniversitesi, Atatürk Üniversitesi, Süleyman Demirel Üniversitesi ve İstanbul Üniversitesi tarafından fahri doktora unvanları verildi. Frankfurt am Main Goethe Plaketi, Almanya Üstün Hizmet Madalyası, İran İslâmi Bilimler Kitap Ödülü ve Cumhurbaşkanlığı Kültür ve Sanat Büyük Ödülü ile taltif edildi. Prof. Sezgin’in öncülüğünde kurulan İstanbul İslâm Bilim ve teknoloji tarihi Müzesi, Kültür ve Turizm bakanlığı 2016 özel Ödülü’ne lâyık görüldü. Arapça, Süryanice, İbranice, Latince ve Almanca başta olmak üzere 27 dil bilen Prof. Dr. Fuat Sezgin, 30 Haziran 2018’de İstanbul’da vefat etti ve Gülhane Parkı’ndaki İstanbul İslâm Bilim ve teknoloji tarihi Müzesi’nin bahçesine defnedildi. Vefatının ardından, 2018/6 sayılı Cumhurbaşkanlığı genelgesi ile 2019 yılı “Prof. Dr. Fuat Sezgin Yılı” olarak ilân edildi. Cumhurbaşkanlığı genelgesinde "İslam kültür ve medeniyetinin daha iyi anlaşılmasını sağlamak ve onu yeni nesillere en doğru şekilde aktarmak amacıyla yapılacak söz konusu çalışmalara ilgili tüm kamu kurum ve kuruluşlarınca her türlü destek ve katkının sağlanması hususunda gereğini rica ederim." İfadelerine yer verilerek Fuat Sezgin’in ülke sathında anlatılması ve düşüncelerinin anlaşılması için çeşitli faaliyetlerin yürütülmesi istenmişti. Koordinasyon Merkezi olarak da Kırıkkale Üniversitesi seçildi Dünyanın önde gelen bilim tarihçilerinden olan, İslam Bilim Tarihi alanındaki çalışmaları bulunan Prof. Dr. Fuat Sezgin’i gelecek nesillere tanıtmak, fikirlerini anlatmak amacıyla Sivas Cumhuriyet Üniversitesi tarafından da birçok faaliyet yapıldı. Dünyanın önde gelen bilim tarihçilerinden Prof. Dr. Fuat Sezgin’e, İslam Bilim Tarihi alanındaki çalışmalarından dolayı Üniversitemiz tarafından “Fahri Bilim Doktoru” unvanı verildi. Prof. Dr. Sezgin’e fahri bilim doktoru unvanı verilmesi dolayısıyla Üniversitemiz Kül-tür Merkezi’nde düzenlenen tören İstiklal Marşımızın okunması ve saygı duruşuyla başladı. Programa Rektörümüz Prof. Dr. Alim Yıldız, Sivas Belediye Başkan Yardımcısı Ah-met Özaydın, Fatih Sultan Mehmet Üniversitesi Rektörü Prof. Dr. Musa Uzun, öğretim elemanları ve öğrenciler katıldı. Rektörümüz Prof. Dr. Alim Yıldız yaptığı açış konuşmasında, "İnsanlara İslam bilimlerinin gerçeğini tanıtmak, benlik duygularını olumsuz etkileyen yanlış yargılardan onları kurtarmak ve ferdin ehemmiyetine olan inancı kazandırmak amacıyla İslam Bilimi Tarihi araştırmalarına adanmış bir ömürdür Prof. Dr. Fuat Sezgin Hocamız. Öyle büyük bir otoritedir ki onu anmadan, onun hazırladığı eserlere bakmadan, bilim tarihiyle, İslam tarihiyle ilgili ortaya bir şeyler sunabilmek çok zordur. Bilim tarihinin en çalışkan, en birikimli bilim insanlarından biridir. İslam tarihine, İslam düşüncesine, İslami eserlere ve bilim dünyasına vermiş olduğu katkılarıyla bir medeniyet kâşifi, eşi bulunmaz bir değer ve ‘darbeler neden kötüdür’ sorusunun mücessem cevabıdır Prof. Dr. Sezgin. Bizim medeniyet ve kültürümüzde kültür, sanat ve beşerin, Yaratıcının her eserinde müşahede ettiği güzellikleri, çeşitli yol ve yöntemlerle ortaya koymasının vasıtasıdır. Bilgiyi hikmetle taçlandırıp irfana ulaştırmadıkça hiçbir şeyi yerli yerine oturtamayız." dedi. Konuşmanın ardından Rektör Yıldız, 93 yaşındaki Prof. Dr. Fuat Sezgin’e cübbe giydirdi. Daha sonra Sezgin katılımcılara ‘Arap İslam Tarihinden Bazı İzlenimler’ konulu ders verdi. Prof. Dr. Fuat Sezgin, “İnsanların bilgi tarihi ile ilgili verileri yazılı olarak kaydetme gayreti, politik tarihe olana nispetle tesadüflere ve keyfi değerlendirmelere göre çok geri zamanlarda oldu. İslam bilim tarihi yüksek ve kaliteli görüşleri yansıtır. Bunları burada sunamayacağım. Birçoğunu Arap-İslam tarihi adlı kitabımın bugüne kadar çıkmış olan 17. cildinde kaydetmeye çalıştım. Onu İstanbul’da Gülhane Parkı’nda İslam Tarihi Araştırmaları Vakfı yayınları arasında bulabilirsiniz.” dedi. Prof. Dr. Sezgin “Bilimler tarihinin verilerini değerlendirmekte, yaşanılan zamanın etüt şartını gözden kaçırılmasının esas olması gerektiğini anladım ve henüz kitabımı yazma-ya başlamadan rastladığım Fransız Coğrafya tarihçisi Joseph Toussaint Renaud (1795-1867)’un şu sözleri beni çok etkilemişti. “Tesadüf teknik ve sanatın ilerlemesinde çok büyük bir rol oynamaz. İnsanlar buluşlarında devamlı bir şekilde birden bir sıçrayışla değil, adım adım hareket eder. Her zaman aynı hızda değil, fakat devamlı olarak insan icat etmez. Olanı ilerletir.” ifadelerine yer verdi. Konuşmasının sonunda Prof. Dr. Sezgin, “Benim 65 yıldır yaymaya çalıştığım Arap İslam bilimleri tarihi hemen hemen her gün beni hayata bağladı. İslam dünyasında büyük bir hızla ilerleyen bilimler MS. 8. yüzyıldan itibaren Fransa ve İngiltere’ye diğer taraftan 10 ve 11. yüzyıldan itibaren Sicilya’ya ve İtalya’ya 9. yüzyıldan itibaren Bizans’a ulaştılar. Avrupa-lılar teknik bilimleri diğer bilimlere nazaran daha kolay anlıyor ve alabiliyorlardı. Bu anlam-da onlar 16. yüzyılda bazı yönlerde Müslümanlara ulaşmaya hatta onları geçmeye başladılar.” ifadelerini kullandı. Programın sonunda Rektörümüz ve Fatih Sultan Mehmet Üniversitesi Rektörü Prof. Dr. Musa Duman, Prof. Dr. Fuat Sezgin’e tezhipli bir tablo hediye ettiler. 2019 Prof. Dr. Fuat Sezgin Yılı kapsamında Sivas Cumhuriyet Üniversitesi Merkezî Kütüphanesi’ne Prof. Dr. Fuat Sezgin’in ismi verildi. Ayrıca Üniversitemiz Rektörlüğü tarafından düzenlenen 5’inci Hazan Şiir Dinletisi Sezgin anısına ithaf edilmiştir. 2019 yılının Haziran ayı içerisinde ise Üniversitemiz Rektörlüğü öncülüğünde ve İlahiyat Fakültesi Dekanlığınca ile Sivas Merkez Ulu Cami’de merhum Prof. Dr. Sezgin için Kur’an-ı Kerim tilaveti ve Mevlid-i Şerif programı gerçekleştirilmiştir. Son olarak üniversitemiz rektörlüğü tarafından desteklenen ve Sivas Cumhuriyet Üniversitesi İlahiyat Fakültesi tarafından yayımlanan Cumhuriyet İlahiyat Dergisi’nin 23. Cilt 3. Sayısı (Felsefe ve Din Bilimleri Özel Sayısı) Prof. Dr. Fuat Sezgin anısına ithaf edilmiştir. Felsefe ve Din Bilimleri alanından birçok güncel ve ilgi çekici araştırmayı bir araya getirdiğimiz sayımızı sizlere sunmaktan heyecan ve mutluluk duyuyoruz. Bize emanet edi-len değerli çalışmaları uluslararası alana taşımak için geniş bir ekiple tüm gayretimizi gösterdiğimizi ifade etmek isteriz. Yeni sayımızda başta makale sahibi değerli bilim insanlarımıza, yayın, danışma ve hakem kurullarımıza, Rektörlüğümüz Basımevi personeline ve özellikle dergimizin yayın aşamasında yadsınmaz emekleri olan alan editörlerimiz Dr. Öğr. Üyesi Adem Çiftçi, Arş. Dr. Öğr. Üyesi Gör. Fatma Kurttekin, Arş. Gör. Maruf Çakır, Arş. Gör. Alper Ay, Arş. Gör. Esma Güneş, Gör. Bayram Ünce, Arş. Gör. Sena Kaplan, Arş. Gör. Gülistan Aktaş,Arş. Gör. Hamit Demir Arş. Gör. Merve Yetim, Arş. Gör. Rukiye Göğen, Arş. Gör. Ömer Faruk Özbek, Arş. Gör. Salime Bera Kemikli, Arş. Gör. Naim Yaman, Arş. Gör. Sema Tombul, Arş. Gör. Nurgül Akdoğan, Arş. Gör. Ayşe Mine Akar, Arş. Gör. İlknur Bahadır ile Arapça dil editörü Prof. Dr. Ömer Faruk Yavuz ve İngilizce dil kontrolü sorumluluğunu üstlenen alan editörlerimiz Dr. Miyase Yavuz Altıntaş, Uzm. Zeynep Yücedoğru, Dr. Öğr. Üyesi Zuhal Ağılkaya Şahin, Dr. Metin Güven ve Dr. Kenan Tekin’e teşekkür ederiz. Dergimizin 23. Cilt 2. ve 3. Sayı (Özel Sayı)’larından itibaren Yazı İşleri Müdürü olarak Dr. Ahmet Çelik’in görevlendirildiğini bildirir kendisine yeni görevinde başarılar dileriz. Önceki sayılarımızda dergimizin Yazı İşleri Müdürlüğünü ifa eden Doç. Dr. Ali Yılmaz’a teşekkürlerimizi sunarız. 15 Haziran 2020’de yayınlanacak bir sonraki sayımız için makale kabul tarihlerinin yayın kurulumuz tarafından 1 Ocak- 15 Mart olarak değiştirildiğini hatırlatır çalışmalarınız-da kolaylıklar dileriz. 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Background: Moral distress is a common problem among professionals working in the field of healthcare. Moral distress is the distress experienced by a professional when he or she cannot fulfill the correct action due to several obstacles, although he or she is aware of what it is. The level of moral distress experienced by nurses working in intensive care units varies from one country/culture/institution to another. However, in Turkey, there is neither a measurement tool used to assess moral distress suffered (...) by nurses nor a study conducted on the issue. Aim/objective: The study aims to (a) validate the Turkish version of the Moral Distress Scale–Revised to be used in intensive care units and to examine the validity and reliability of the Turkish version of the scale, and (b) explore Turkish intensive care nurses’ moral distress level. Method: The sample of this methodological, descriptive, and cross-sectional design study comprises 200 nurses working in the intensive care units of internal medicine and surgical departments of four hospitals in three cities in Turkey. The data were collected with the Socio-Demographic Characteristics Form and The Turkish Version of Moral Distress Scale–Revised. Ethical considerations: The study proposal was approved by the ethics committee of the Faculty of Medicine, Cumhuriyet University. All participating nurses provided informed consent and were assured of data confidentiality. Results: In parallel with the original scale, Turkish version of Moral Distress Scale–Revised consists of 21 items, and shows a one-factor structure. It was determined that the moral distress total and item mean scores of the nurses participating in the study were 70.81 ± 48.23 and 3.36 ± 4.50, respectively. Conclusion: Turkish version of Moral Distress Scale–Revised can be used as a reliable and valid measurement tool for the evaluation of moral distress experienced by nurses working in intensive care units in Turkey. In line with our findings, it can be said that nurses suffered low level of moral distress. However, factors which caused the nurses in our study to experience higher levels of moral distress are inadequate communication within the team, working with professionals they considered as incompetent, and futile care. (shrink)

Advances in applications of artificial intelligence and the use of data analytics technology in biomedicine are creating optimism, as many believe these technologies will fill the need-availability gap by increasing resources for mental health care. One resource considered especially promising is smartphone psychotherapy chatbots, i.e., artificially intelligent bots that offer cognitive behavior therapy to their users with the aim of helping them improve their mental health. While a number of studies have highlighted the positive outcomes of using smartphone psychotherapy chatbots (...) to handle various anxiety related problems no conclusive data illustrate their effectiveness or warrant their use in mental illness diagnosis and treatment settings. Yet smartphone psychotherapy is highly endorsed by experts in the field of mental health research. In this paper, I focus on the specific features of smartphone psychotherapy chatbots intended for the diagnosis and treatment of mental illness and criticize three popular promises; i.e., they enable early diagnosis and intervention through digital phenotyping; they defy the stigma of mental illness diagnosis and treatment; they offer increased access to mental health treatment globally. Going against the popular enthusiasm, I argue smartphone psychotherapy chatbots have epistemic and ethical limitations in the diagnosis and treatment of illnesses. In light of these, I encourage researchers, clinicians, policy makers, patients, and caregivers to pause before jumping on the artificial intelligence bandwagon to seek solutions for mental illness on the grounds of these three promises. (shrink)

Mental disorder is an urgent and growing public health problem.1 Scientific investigation of this problem has the pragmatic goals of identifying the causes of mental disorders and developing strategies to effectively treat them. Philosophers of psychiatry have participated in the inquiry into the empirical examination of mental disorders, predominantly by debating whether psychopathology is a legitimate target of scientific inquiry and, if so, how mental disorders should be explained, predicted, and intervened on. However, as I show in this paper, these (...) philosophical discussions have mostly neglected the actual state of inquiry in psychiatry and relevant disciplines, as well as the first-person experiences... (shrink)

Various traditions in mental health care, such as phenomenological, and existential and cognitive-behavioral psychotherapy, implicitly or explicitly acknowledge that a disruption of the self, or the person, or the agent is among the common denominators of different mental disorders. They often emphasize the importance of understanding patients as reasonsresponsive, in their full mental health relevant complexity, if their mental disorder is to be treated successfully. The centrality of the concept of the self is not mirrored in the mainstream scientific approaches (...) in psychiatry however; the self has rarely been considered as the object of scientific research, the empirical investigation of which might yield successful explanations of and interventions in mental disorders. Thus, even though self-related phenomena are clinically relevant in so far as they give important information about a mental disorder to the clinician and help the development of effective interventions, they are not considered among the scientifically relevant properties of mental disorders. Leaving the self-related phenomena out of the scientific research on mental disorders can be attributed to the presupposition that the self is not empirically tractable and its use will hinder psychiatry’s goal to be scientific. In this paper, taking issue with this, I argue the self is empirically tractable, and its use as a target of research will not hinder psychiatry’s scientific commitments. (shrink)

This paper explores the factors that contribute to the degree of a mood disorder patient’s self- insight, defined here as her understanding of the particular contingencies of her life that are responsive to her personal identity, interpersonal relationships, illness symptoms, and the relationship between these three necessary components of her lived experience. I consider three factors: (i) the Diagnostic Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM), (ii) the DSM culture, and (iii) the cognitive architecture of the self. I argue that the (...) symptom-based descriptions of mood disorders which eliminate the subjective features of the patient’s illness experience, in conjunction with the features of the DSM-culture and the cognitive biases that guide the patient, contribute to the impoverishment of her self-insight. The resulting impoverished self-insight would prevent her from developing resourceful responses to her interpersonal problems. In analyzing how these factors combine to influence the patient’s self-insight, I distinguish the therapeutic impact of receiving a psychiatric diagnosis, which facilitates patient’s clinical treatment, from its reflective impact, how the diagnosis informs the patient’s reflection on who she is, how her mental disorder is expressed, and how her interpersonal relationships proceed. I substantiate my argument by considering a patient’s memoir of psychopathology. (shrink)

his article develops a set of recommendations for the psychiatric and medical community in the treatment of mental disorders in response to the recently published fifth edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, that is, DSM-5. We focus primarily on the limitations of the DSM-5 in its individuation of Complicated Grief, which can be diagnosed as Major Depression under its new criteria, and Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD). We argue that the hyponarrativity of the descriptions of these disorders (...) in the DSM-5, defined as the abstraction of the illness categories from the particular life contingencies and personal identity of the patient (e.g., age, race, gender, socio-economic status), constrains the DSM-5's usefulness in the development of psychotherapeutic approaches in the treatment of mental disorders. While the DSM-5 is useful in some scientific and administrative contexts, the DSM's hyponarrativity is problematic, we argue, given that the DSMs are designed to be useful guides for not only scientific research, but also for the education of medical practitioners and for treatment development. our goal therefore is to offer suggestions for mental health practitioners in using the DSM-5, so that they can avoid or eliminate the problems that may stem from the limitations of hyponarrativity. When such problems are eliminated, we believe that effective psychotherapeutic strategies can be developed, which would be successful in repairing the very relationships that are strained in mental disorder: the patient's relationship to herself, her physical environment, and her social environment. (shrink)

This paper challenges the exclusion of patients from epistemic practices in psychiatry by examining the creation and revision processes of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM), a document produced by the American Psychiatric Association that identifies the properties of mental disorders and thereby guides research, diagnosis, treatment, and various administrative tasks. It argues there are epistemic—rather than exclusively social/political—reasons for including patients in the DSM revision process. Individuals with mental disorders are indispensable resources to enhance psychiatric epistemology, (...) especially in the context of the crisis, controversy, and uncertainty surrounding mental health research and treatment. (shrink)

The scientific investigation of mental disorders is an invigorating area of inquiry for philosophers of mind and science who are interested in exploring the nature of typical and atypical cognition as well as the overarching scientific project of ‘carving nature at its joints’. It is also important for philosophers of medicine and bioethicists who are concerned with concepts of disease and with the development of effective and ethical treatments of mental disorders and the just distribution of mental health services. Philosophical (...) worries surrounding mental health and its care have recently extended beyond the bounds of academia, becoming a vigorous topic of debate in a variety of public domains in the wake of the publication of the most recent revision of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, Fifth Edition , the psychiatric classification system used by mental health professionals in the USA, and increasingly, by those around the world.The DSM-5 lists mental disorders according to the observable symptoms presented by patients. It is designed for pragmatic use across a variety of settings to accomplish several tasks: to facilitate clinical treatment, to provide clear criteria of eligibility for various administrative and policy related purposes ), and primarily, to further scientific research into mental disorder aetiology. Although designed to meet the needs and interests of various stakeholders , the recently revised manual has not fully satisfied any of them. This failure challenges the assumption that a single manual …. (shrink)

Recent advances in brain imaging methods as well as increased sophistication in neuroscientific modeling of the brain’s reward systems have facilitated the study of neural mechanisms associated with addiction such as processes associated with motivation, decision-making, pleasure seeking, and inhibitory control. These scientific activities have increased optimism that the neurological underpinnings of addiction will be delineated, and that pharmaceuticals that target and change these mechanisms will by themselves facilitate early intervention and even full recovery. In this paper, we argue that (...) it is misguided to construe addiction as just or primarily a brain chemistry problem, which can be adequately treated by pharmaceutical interventions alone. (shrink)

Words we use to characterize mental states matter; they affect, for better or worse, the individual whose mental states are in question. For example, referring to a child whose behavior seems a bit...

In “Mad Narratives: Self-Constitutions Through the Diagnostic Looking Glass,” by using narrative approaches to the self, I explore how the diagnosis of mental disorder shapes personal identities and influences flourishing. My particular focus is the diagnosis grounded on the criteria provided by the Diagnostic Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM). I develop two connected accounts pertaining to the self and mental disorder. I use the memoirs and personal stories written by the subjects with a DSM diagnosis as illustrations to bolster (...) my claims. First, expanding on the narrative approaches to the self, I explain how narratives about a subject shape her self-constitution. I elucidate how this process is generated by drawing on research in developmental psychology, cognitive science, and social psychology. Next, using this account as a springboard, I argue that the DSM diagnosis of mental disorder serves as a source of narrative, entering into the patients’ autobiographical and social narratives. This plays an important role in the diagnosed subjects’ self-understanding, self-constitution and flourishing. In this vein, how mental disorders are classified is not only a theoretical question about accurately taxonomizing the various experiences related to mental distress but also an ethical question about which ways of talking about mental disorders will allow subjects to respond effectively to their psychological distress, to flourish and to live autonomous and fulfilling lives. Finally, I suggest that the DSM-based narratives wield a double-edged sword when it comes to the subject’s flourishing: On the one hand, there are problems with some DSM-based narratives that stem from the DSM diagnostic schema and the culture of DSM diagnoses. These problems render these DSM-based narratives unbeneficial for flourishing as they constrain the range of adoptive social, cognitive and emotional responses the subjects can give to their mental disorders. On the other hand, there are grounds to believe that some DSM-based narratives help subjects to flourish. For instance, they provide certainty to subjects' otherwise puzzling symptoms and help them reach out to others with similar experiences. Understanding how the DSM-based narratives can both benefit and harm will help us address problems with psychiatric diagnoses and the dissemination of knowledge about mental disorders in popular culture. The project aims to convince both philosophers and psychiatrists that no plausible theory of the self can be developed without attending to the topic of mental disorder and that no theory of mental disorder can be complete without devising the tools provided by the philosophical approaches to the self as well as developmental and social psychology. It also calls for methodological alterations in mental health ethics research, arguing that a careful scrutiny of mental disorder memoirs can advance the ethical underpinnings to the practice of psychiatry. (shrink)

Educators who start a philosophy of medicine or medical ethics class with a philosophical discussion on the definition of basic concepts in medicine, such as health and disease, might relate to this anecdotal account. Students initially find the topic engaging because of the ubiquity of the concept of disease regulating not only their direct encounter with health-related contexts, for example, when veterans returning to school receive accommodations after being diagnosed with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD), but also their social world, (...) say, when they get in an argument with their classmates about whether vaccines cause or prevent diseases, or when they join the campus gym to improve their health. Yet their enthusiasm wanes when they read the seminal naturalist and normative accounts of disease. This happens not because such conceptual work does not have any philosophical sophistication and value but because the discussion seldom makes direct contact with the common uses of the disease concept in the medical, social, moral and institutional contexts in which the students are heavily embedded. As the authors of ‘Rethinking ‘Disease’: A Fresh Diagnosis and a New Philosophical Treatment’ argue, the notion of disease central to the naturalist and normativist positions is conceptually insulated from its applications in various institutional settings in healthcare and also from its personal, social and economic contexts. This insularity largely stems from the fact that traditional conceptual analysis in philosophy assumes a lot more than it can show, including the assumption that concepts, such as disease, have necessary and sufficient conditions that exist independently of the world as we encounter it and are accessed through our intuitions. This is a problem, because the concept of disease plays a crucial role in medical epistemology, scientific research, and ethical and policy-related issues; a philosophical account of disease that does not directly engage …. (shrink)

In their article, “Patients’ beliefs about deep brain stimulation (DBS) for treatment resistant depression,” Lawrence, Kaufmann, DeSilva, and Appelbaum analyze the responses of 24 psychiatric inpat...

The question “What is the relationship between the self and mental disorder?” is especially important for mental health professionals interested in understanding and treating patients, as most mental disorders are intimately tied to self‐related concerns, such as loss of self‐esteem and self‐control, or diminished agency and autonomy. Philosophy, along with the cognitive and behavioral sciences, offers a wealth of conceptual and empirical resources to answer this question, as the concepts of the self and psychopathology have occupied a central place in (...) these fields since their inception. Interestingly, and unfortunately, however, scientific psychiatry, in its approach to mental disorder as primarily a cluster of signs and symptoms has been slow in acknowledging the advances in conceptualizing and investigating mental disorders in relation to the self. The article addresses this problem and offers solutions for better cross‐fertilization between empirical and philosophical inquiry into the self and psychiatric research on mental disorders. The first part evaluates what empirically informed philosophical inquiry and philosophically informed empirical inquiry offer to the examination of the relationship between the self and mental disorders. The second part argues that scientific psychiatry has missed opportunities to find effective treatments for mental disorders because of its insularity from debates in naturalistic philosophy and cognitive and behavioral sciences. Psychiatry has much to gain from the conceptual, scientific, and clinical resourcefulness of philosophy's collaboration with the cognitive and behavioral sciences. (shrink)

Philosophers and psychologists have advanced a plethora of explanations of the self in relation to narratives, positing varying degrees of connection between them. For some, narratives created by a subject about herself shape her self-constitution (Flanagan 1991; Fivush 1994). For others, they help the subject to participate in social cognition (Hutto 2008). Some represent narratives as merely one basis of personal identity and consider them cognitive tools used by the subject to construct self-concepts (Neisser 1997; Tekin 2011); others render narratives (...) the basis for self-constitution (Dennett 1992; MacIntyre 1981; Schechtman 1996). Some require that the subject create her ‘whole life narrative’ unifying her .. (shrink)

, Looping Effects, the Self, Psychopathology.

The special issue, “Psychiatry and Its Philosophy,” focuses on addressing the mindbrain dualism and connected problems in the clinical and scientific contexts of psychiatry. Authors in this special issue address the theoretical disagreements that are manifest in the clinical and scientific goals of psychiatry and explore the possibility of reconciling the claim that research on psychopathology needs to be scientific with the claim that it needs to address the needs of patients in the clinic. Our approach is forward looking and (...) concerned with drawing on ideas and methods from the philosophy of science and philosophy of mind to promote pluralism in psychiatry. (shrink)

Muḳātil b. Sulaymān’s (d. 150/767) tafsīr named al-Tafsīr al-kabīr, is accepted as the first completed tafsīr that has reached us from the early sources of tafsīr literature. One of the issues that the mufassir, deals with emphatically by emphasizing the concealment of the Prophet’s tabs̲h̲īr in the Bible. The Mufassir make a connection between the concealment of the Prophet’s tabs̲h̲īr and the falsification of the Bible. When we examine the verses that Muḳātil commented to prove his claim related with falsification (...) of these books, we encounter the phenomenon of takhṣīs in tafsīr. Takhṣīs is a term used in the literature of fiḳh method, in the sense of explaining with a word, with a proof, that some of the individuals it covers are meant. Considering the content of this term, it is understood that Muḳātil’s takhṣīs in tafsīr means limiting the meaning of words with many meanings to only one content. The main issue that prompted Muḳātil to make a takhṣīs in tafsīr is falsification. The issue of falsification of the Bible has been a subject that attracted the attention of Muslim scholars. Because in the Ḳurʾān, the distortion of the Torah is described in the following terms: يحرفون “they distort”, فبدل “altered”, يلون السنتهم “who twist their tongues”, يكتمون “they conceal”, ولا تلبسوا الحق بالباطل “confound not truth with falsehood”, وتكتموا الحق “conceal the truth”, يكتبون الكتاب بِاَيْد۪يهِمْ “They write the book with their hands”. The Ḳurʾān’s statement on this matter encouraged the criticism of the scholars about the Torah. Among the issues criticized there are; tabs̲h̲īr of Muḥammad in previous books, the origin of the Torah, inaccuracy in chronological order, stylistic differences, information errors and contradictions. Among these criticisms directed at the People of the Book, Muḳātil focuses on tabs̲h̲īr. The main source that leads him to argue that Muḥammad was heralded in previous books is the verses of the Ḳurʾān. In addition to this, it is highly probable that the geography where the mufassir lived was also influential in shaping his criticisms. Considering the Jewish population in the neighborhoods where he lived, such as Balk̲h̲ and Marw, it is possible for the commentator to develop a dialogue with the Jews, and it is also possible that his criticisms will be shaped within the framework of these dialogues. Muḳātil’s falsification criticism is expressed in the context of the Prophet’s tabs̲h̲īr. However, the mufassir’s emphasis on tabs̲h̲īr goes beyond the criticism of falsification. The mufessir always keeps the issue alive on the reader’s agenda with short phrases such as “كتم أمر محمد / بكتمان أمر محمد Muḥammad’s subject is hidden in the Torah”, “نعت محمد / صفة محمد / Muḥammad’s qualification”. As far as we can determine, there are fifty-two verses in al-Tafsīr al-kabīr that Muḳātil consider directly related to tabs̲h̲īr. He deals with the issue of distortion in thirty-eight verses. The number of verses that the mufassir associates with both distortion and tabs̲h̲īr is thirty-six. The number of verses that he does not associate with falsification but only about tabs̲h̲īr is twelve. Among them, it has been determined that Muḳātil made takhṣīs in the interpretation of forty-eight verses in total. When we classify his takhṣīs’s, we can form a tidy framework under four main headings: in the interpretation of sila sentences, idioms and idiomatic expressions, determining the content of words, and indicates of pronoun. Since the thought of tabs̲h̲īr is one of the main motifs in the mind of the commentator, his tafsīr’s follow a parallel course to this motif. In the interpretation of many verses, there are examples of interpretations that will legitimize this thought and confirm this claim. As a matter of fact, in the interpretation of the expression يلوون ألسنتهم بالكتاب “While reading the Book, they bend their tongues” in the 78th verse of sūrat āl ʿImrān, it is said that Muḥammad’s qualification in the Torah were deleted and other adjectives were written instead of it. In the tafsīr of the 37th verse of sūrat al-Nisāʾ, there are the expressions like this: “The concealment of Muḥammad’s tabs̲h̲īr and its removal from the Torah (بكتمان أمر محمد و محوه من التوراة)”. Muḳātil narrowed the content of the expression, which has a wide meaning area. This narrowing of the meaning is technically considered an example of takhṣīs. Other examples where takhṣīs made in tafsir are present in the interpretations of the phrases of guidance/aberration, right/false, belief/disbelief, verse, word, stinginess, knowledge, promise, declaration, turning away and the book of Allah. The tafsīr’s extreme loyalty to the context is accompanied by his limiting the meaning of words with broad content to a narrow content. (shrink)

Kur’an tefsirleri muhteva, metot, yararlandığı malzeme, odaklandığı meseleler, hitap ettiği okur kitlesi ve dil kullanımı gibi çeşitli açılardan benzerlik ve farklılık göstermektedir. Tefsirler bu kesişim ve ayrışım noktaları göz önünde bulundurularak sınıflandırılmıştır. Tefsirleri tasnif etme işinde kronolojik seyre tabi olmak diğerlerine nispetle daha az riskli bir çaba olarak görülebilir. Zira tefsirleri tematik başlıklar halinde kategorize etmek yahut tefsirlerin metodunu merkeze alarak sınıflandırmak öznel değerlendirmelerden hareket eden yapısı hasebiyle tenkitleri ve spekülatif yorumları da beraberinde getirebilir. Tasnif, basit bir kategorize işinden ziyade (...) zihinsel öncüllerin devreye girdiği bir süreçtir. Bu makalede John Wansbrough’un (öl. 2002) Kur’an tefsirlerine yönelik tasnifi incelenmektedir. İslam tefsir geleneğinde üretilen kavramları kullanmaktan ısrarla kaçınan yazarın, Kutsal Kitap tefsir literatüründen adlandırmalara yer vermesi tenkide açık bir meseledir. Rivâyet ve dirâyet kavramlarının yerine haggadic ve halakhic terimlerinin kullanımı, tefsir türlerinin tasnifinde etkileşim yahut intihal olgusunu ihsas ettirmesi bakımından araştırılmaya değer bir konudur. Her iki gelenekte tefsirin teşekkülüne dair tarihsel verilerin ortaya konması ve kültürel alışverişlerde hâkim unsurun tespiti sayesinde, İslam tefsir türlerinin tasnifinde orijinallik iddiası yahut intihal söylemi açığa çıkacaktır. Bu yazı, iki kültür arasında etkileşimin yaşandığı çeşitli sahalardan veriler sunmak suretiyle Wansbrough’un İslam tefsir geleneğine dair iddiasındaki çelişkileri ortaya koymayı hedeflemektedir. (shrink)

Sadrüşşerîa’nın (ö. 747/1346) Fahreddin er-Râzî’nin (ö. 606/1210) insanın ihtiyârî fiillerini nefyettiği argümanını çü- rütmeye çalıştığı ve Hanefî-Mâtürîdî geleneğin bu husustaki prensiplerini nazarî bir dille yeniden temellendirdiği dört mu- kaddimesi (mukaddimât-ı erba‘) ile Mehmed Birgivî’nin (ö. 981/1573) bu mukaddimeler üzerinden geliştirdiği açıklamaları, diyar-ı Rum’daki düşünürlerin insan fiilleri ve cüz’î iradeye dair tartışmalarına yön vermiştir. On yedinci yüzyılda Hicaz topraklarında faaliyet gösterip Eş‘arî-Ekberî geleneği merkeze alarak ihtiyârî fiillere dair yazdığı eserleriyle bu geleneğin nispeten güçlü olduğu Hicaz, Şam ve Kuzey Afrika’da etki uyandıran (...) İbrâhîm el-Kûrânî (ö. 1101/1690), Hanefî-Mâtürîdî gelenekte Sadrüşşerîa ve Birgivî’nin görüşleri etrafında cereyan eden tartışmalara da bigâne kalmamış, bu âlimlerin me- tinlerini merkeze alarak kaleme aldığı Cilâü’l-enzâr risalesiyle o zamana kadar dolaylı ve nispeten zayıf irtibatının olduğu diyar-ı Rum havzasındaki tartışmalara dahil olmuştur. Kûrânî, bu eserle yaşadığı dönemdeki hâkim Hanefî-Mâtürîdî gele- neğe yönelik eleştiri ve değerlendirmelerde bulunmuş, bu çerçevede insanın sorumluluğunun cüz’î irade ve îkâ üzerinden ispatlanıp ispatlanamayacağı, hallerin yaratmaya konu olup olmadığı ve iradenin tercihinde bir sebebe bağlı olup olmadığı gibi belli meseleleri ele almıştır. Ayrıca mutlak hürriyet (tefvîz) ile mutlak zorunluluk (cebr) arasındaki orta yolun nasıl tesis edileceği konusuna da yoğunlaşmıştır. Kûrânî’nin diğer ilim havzalarıyla kurduğu irtibatlarda olduğu gibi Hanefî-Mâtürîdî geleneğin eleştirisi üzerinden diyar-ı Rum ile kurduğu ilişkinin aynı zamanda kendisinin eğilim ve mezhepleri uzlaştıran fikirlerine alan açmaya matuf olduğunu iddia eden bu çalışma, zikri geçen risalede yer verilen eleştiri ile değerlendirmelerin ortaya çıkarılmasını ve bunun tarihî-fikrî bağlamına yerleştirilmesini amaçlamaktadır. (shrink)

There is increased enthusiasm about the use of Artificial Intelligence (AI) technologies in psychotherapy. Notably, AI psychotherapy chatbots are increasing in popularity, especially since the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) gave one of these apps breakthrough device designation. This article raises concerns about the lack of consideration of potential harms of this technology for clinical trial participants, and current and future users. We outline what these harms might be, by turning to the Belmont Report and the existing literature on (...) harms of (typical) psychotherapy and conclude with two recommendations. Note that our goal is not to articulate doomsday fears regarding the use of AI in psychotherapy contexts; rather we offer a constructive proposal in thinking about the potential harms of these tools and invite clinicians, patients, developers, researchers, policymakers and funding agencies to work together to augment the benefits of these tools and minimize their potential harms. (shrink)

In a compelling and provocative paper, ‘Solving the Self-Illness Ambiguity: The Case for Construction Over Discovery,’ Sofia M.I. Jeppsson distinguishes two ways of addressing the self-illness ambiguty problem. The first is the Realist Solution, which postulates a pre-existing border between the self and the illness and frames the goal of treatment in psychiatry as helping the patient ‘discover’ this boundary. Addressing the shortcomings of the Realist Solution, both in terms of its feasibility and possible outcomes, Jeppsson proposes and defends the (...) Constructivist Solution, according to which the patient, through self-reflection and deliberation with others, including the clinicians, decides, which parts of her experiences they identify with themselves and which parts they attribute to their illness. This paper critically evaluates Jeppson’s arguments and addresses some of the shortcomings of Jeppsson’s positive argument, i.e. the Constructivist Solution. (shrink)

The paper considers the problem of the level of freedom a scientist enjoys while conducting scientific experiments and choosing scientific theories. The paper analyses the notion of epistemic freedom that refers to the relationship between human beings and the world, and the notion will be expanded and elaborated using the hermeneutic theory. The problem recently surfaced in Anglo-Saxon philosophy, and it is still in a developing phase. In a sense given, the theory of hermeneuticists who studied the problem of interpretation (...) within science is of particular use, for the most part, because they pointed at the ontological limits of human beings. The paper aims at contributing to the theory of science by pointing at the interpretative, and thus hermeneutical nature of science in such a way that it analyses epistemic freedom via the role of scientific tradition and the use of instruments. (shrink)