Psychiatric Diagnosis – Empirical and Philosophical Perspectives on February 21, 2025 in Krakow, Poland

Psychiatric and psychological diagnosis is an increasingly frequent component of social life and a subject of analysis in social sciences and philosophy. The role of diagnosis in the scientific as well as therapeutic discourse requires a consideration of its practices as well as its theoretical foundations, combining empirical, analytical and normative approaches. This workshop aims to create an interdisciplinary scientific discussion in which the various facets of diagnosis form the leading motif. We invite social scientists, especially anthropologists and sociologists focusing on field research and critical discourse analysis, and philosophers, examining the foundations of psychiatric diagnosis with ethical and epistemological normative frameworks.

A particularly relevant philosophical framework presents itself in the theory of hermeneutical injustice. This approach analyzes harm stemming from deficient interpretive resources, a category arguably applicable to psychiatric diagnosis. This closely relates to the fact that diagnosis can also be a process in which new empirical and identity qualities are conceptualized. The process is embedded in institutional, economic, and social conditions, the influence of which has a direct impact on an individual's experiences.

Diagnosis is also a practice that actively shapes expert and non-expert discourses, and also creates a field for their mutual interaction. It provides an opportunity for new interpretations of oneself in expert discourse through the non-expert practice of self-diagnosis. In an era when diagnosis and its language are penetrating social interpretative resources, new fields of scientific consideration are opening up for philosophy and the social sciences.

We invite submissions on questions as, but not limited to the following:

- When does a psychiatric diagnosis properly fulfill its interpretative role and how can it be empirically examined?

- How do economic, political, and institutional factors shape the diagnostic process?

- What types of diagnoses and diagnostic practices are particularly concerning from an ethical perspective and for what reasons?

- How does the process of self-diagnosis formulate, work and lead to identification with particular condition?

- How are diagnostic concepts received by the wider society and what are the consequences for their interpretive power and the self-awareness of individuals who identify with the concept?

- How does diagnosis affect the experience of the individual, their ecology and everyday environment?

- How are psychiatric diagnoses linked to broader hermeneutical gaps and social marginalisation?

Please send your abstract, no longer than 500 words and prepared for blind review, to [email protected]. Use the subject line PSY-DIAG and include your name and affiliation in the email body.

There is no conference fee.

Organizing Team:

Christoph Merdes, Interdisciplinary Centre for Ethics, Jagiellonian University
Natalia Filar, Institute of Archaeology and Ethnology of the Polish Academy of Sciences