What Are Mental Disorders?

Abstract

Mental disorders are currently defined in the official classification systems (DSM-5 and ICD-10) as syndromes consisting in clusters of symptoms combined with various exclusions conditions. However, these systems also assume that the symptoms occurs because of some underlying causes, which explain as why we regularly encounter in the population some specific clusters of symptoms rather than random distribution of symptoms. This paper aims at investigating the ontological status of mental disorders, reviewing the ontological commitments of various theoretical accounts defining mental disorders. It argues that, especially given the current state of the art in empirical research, mental disorders should be conceived as theoretical entities.