I'm assuming you wouldn't say "pneumonia is socially constructed". If you did, I would read that as "pneumonia isn't real".
> The question is, really, what goes into the experience and what are the limits to the current science. If it is socially constructed, the science is limited to the current cultural context.
I honestly don't know what you're trying to say.
That's a complicated question. I probably would not say pneumonia is socially constructed. I would say that health insurance is, just like any other contract.
> I honestly don't know what you're trying to say.
Ok. Let's try again.
The science of mental health, like all science, rests on assumptions which are basically unscientific aspects of our cultural worldview. The creation of scientific theories is, after all, a creative endeavor and one cannot separate the unscientific assumptions that go into interpreting the data from the theory (see Heisenberg, "Physics and Philosophy").
Now, when studying things like physics this is a significant problem. We have multiple "true" theories which are ontologically and mathematically incompatible (see for example quantum mechanics and general relativity). This works in the physical sciences because truth is given a limited meaning, namely something that has predictive value. Thus two propositions can be both true, scientifically, even of they both can't be true logically. A simple way to paraphrase this is that scientific theories are merely models of behavior and are true to the extent that the model's behavior matches the observed behavior, but do not imply any deeper truth than that. (This is exactly parallel to correlation vs causation. Just because the behavior correlates does not mean that the model functions exactly like the modelled.)
This problem is manageable in the physical sciences but it is totally unmanageable when studying the human condition. The problem is that people exist in a social context and that is formative regarding the brain. Therefore, if you are studying mental health of middle class Americans, you have no real expectation that the findings will be perfectly applicable to, say, the aborigines in Australia.
This has some important ramifications. It means that the science can never tell us how culture fits into mental illness. The science has to start off with a assumptions about mental health and illness that are by definition cultural. These definitions and assumptions are not beyond question, and therefore the conclusions one can draw from the science is limited culturally, temporally, and geographically.
> This problem is manageable in the physical sciences but it is totally unmanageable when studying the human condition. The problem is that people exist in a social context and that is formative regarding the brain. Therefore, if you are studying mental health of middle class Americans, you have no real expectation that the findings will be perfectly applicable to, say, the aborigines in Australia.
That's reasonable.
> This has some important ramifications. It means that the science can never tell us how culture fits into mental illness. The science has to start off with a assumptions about mental health and illness that are by definition cultural. These definitions and assumptions are not beyond question, and therefore the conclusions one can draw from the science is limited culturally, temporally, and geographically.
I agree.
Your more verbose argument is reasonable and sound, and yet I find it inconsistent with your original statement.
Specifically :
"the conclusions one can draw from the science is limited culturally, temporally, and geographically"
vs.
"mental illness is socially constructed"
Perhaps I'm interpreting it too literally, but I can't find the evidence supporting that strong assertion.
For instance, most of the literature I could find does agree that there is a biochemical basis for schizophrenia. The literature also agrees that how it manifests, including prognosis and rates of remission, differs across cultures. Thus, it seems reasonable to state that certain beliefs regarding mental health are social constructs - but if there is a physical basis for the expression of the disease I don't see how it can be said that it itself is socially constructed.
For any interested, there's an interesting NYT piece on the subject[1]
[1] http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/10/magazine/10psyche-t.html?p...
Basis != the phenomenon though. But try reading Julian Jaynes' "The Bicameral Mind" which will give you an idea into at least one possibility into how culture fits into it.
That there is a biological aspect to mental illness is beyond dispute. However that does not make it a biological phenomenon. There is probably a biological aspect to language too. That doesn't mean that language is biologically determined.
