Novel Tech Ethics, Dalhousie University

Post-Doc, Philosophy

Other Affiliations: York University, Department of Philosophy

Post-Doctoral Research Fellow

About

My research program in philosophy of psychiatry is situated at the intersection of general philosophy of science, philosophy of mind/cognitive science, and applied ethics. I aim to make the “self” central to the philosophical, scientific and therapeutic approaches to mental disorders and use philosophical tools to investigate three areas: (i) scientific research on mental disorders, (ii) models of the self informed by cognitive sciences, and (iii) first-person memoirs of psychopathology.

Thus far I primarily focused on psychiatric taxonomy, the DSM, and narrative approaches to personal identity. I have criticized the DSM for sidestepping the complexity of the self,  and raised concerns about the reflective impact of psychiatric diagnosis on patients’ self-understanding, personal identity and flourishing (Tekin, 2010; Tekin, 2011; Tekin, forthcoming in 2012a; Tekin, forthcoming in 2012b). Recently, I have started exploring the implications of neglecting the self to the scientific research on and psychiatric treatment of mental disorders. To this end, I am in the process of developing a model of the self -informed by cognitive sciences, and memoirs of psychopathology-  that reintroduces its complexity to the ways we understand, philosophize, taxonomize and treat mental disorders (Tekin, forthcoming in 2013a; Tekin, forthcoming in 2013b; Tekin, under review).

I also have complementary interests in metaphilosophy. I am currently working on two articles on philosophical methodology. One defends the view that we can use patient memoirs, despite some of their inherent epistemic challenges, as resources to evaluate the ecological validity of mental disorder models. The second article I am working on defends methodological pluralism in philosophy of mind.

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