The unity of depression

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Titel: The unity of depression
Autoren: Boissard, Elodie
Weitere Verfasser: Boissard, Elodie
Quelle: Philosophical Psychology. :1-24
Verlagsinformationen: Informa UK Limited, 2025.
Publikationsjahr: 2025
Schlagwörter: [SHS.PHIL] Humanities and Social Sciences/Philosophy, Depressed mood, Depression, Intentionality, Mood, Depressive Disorders, Mood disorders, Depressive beliefs, [SHS] Humanities and Social Sciences
Beschreibung: Depression is the most widespread psychiatric disorder in the world, yet to date has no consensual explanatory model. The difficulty of explaining it causally is partly due to the variability of its clinical picture. Its central symptom, a change in affective state, can take two main forms: a loss of interest or pleasure (anhedonia), or a depressed mood, itself variable since it can consist of feelings of sadness, emptiness, hopelessness or irritability. In some cases, the change in affective state seems to be caused by the formation of depressive beliefs, while in others it occurs without any cognitive factor. This threatens the unity of depression by suggesting that this category currently encompasses a variety of disorders that should be distinguished from one another. By contrast, this article argues that the unity of depression can be preserved. It argues that this unity does not derive from the affective experience itself, whether anhedonic or depressive, in opposition to existing philosophical theories that reduce depression to this affective experience and conceive of it as a mood that is unified by an evaluative intentionality. It argues that this unity is based on a reciprocal causal relationship between anhedonic or depressive experience and depressive beliefs.
Publikationsart: Article
Dateibeschreibung: application/pdf
Sprache: English
ISSN: 1465-394X
0951-5089
DOI: 10.1080/09515089.2025.2562056
Zugangs-URL: https://hal.science/hal-05271332v1
https://doi.org/10.1080/09515089.2025.2562056
https://hal.science/hal-05271332v1/document
Dokumentencode: edsair.doi.dedup.....8b71483b2ef960d0e077e4eeb0eea0db
Datenbank: OpenAIRE
Beschreibung
Abstract:Depression is the most widespread psychiatric disorder in the world, yet to date has no consensual explanatory model. The difficulty of explaining it causally is partly due to the variability of its clinical picture. Its central symptom, a change in affective state, can take two main forms: a loss of interest or pleasure (anhedonia), or a depressed mood, itself variable since it can consist of feelings of sadness, emptiness, hopelessness or irritability. In some cases, the change in affective state seems to be caused by the formation of depressive beliefs, while in others it occurs without any cognitive factor. This threatens the unity of depression by suggesting that this category currently encompasses a variety of disorders that should be distinguished from one another. By contrast, this article argues that the unity of depression can be preserved. It argues that this unity does not derive from the affective experience itself, whether anhedonic or depressive, in opposition to existing philosophical theories that reduce depression to this affective experience and conceive of it as a mood that is unified by an evaluative intentionality. It argues that this unity is based on a reciprocal causal relationship between anhedonic or depressive experience and depressive beliefs.
ISSN:1465394X
09515089
DOI:10.1080/09515089.2025.2562056