Philosophers discuss Jerome Wakefield's influential view of mental disorder as "harmful dysfunction," with detailed responses from Wakefield himself.

One of the most pressing theoretical problems of psychiatry is the definition of mental disorder. Jerome Wakefield's proposal that mental disorder is "harmful dysfunction" has been both influential and widely debated; philosophers have been notably skeptical about it. This volume provides the first book-length collection of responses by philosophers to Wakefield's harmful dysfunction analysis (HDA), offering a survey of philosophical critiques as well as extensive and detailed replies by Wakefield himself.

Luc Faucher is an associate professor in the Department of Philosophy at the Université du Québec à Montréal. He has published many papers on emotions, racial cognition and evolutionary psychology. In 2006, he edited a volume of Philosophiques on philosophy and psychopathologies.

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“Defining Mental Disorder is an extremely thought-provoking volume of work that serves to elucidate a number of under-discussed issues in Wakefield’s philosophy. The chapters contributed by critics provide a comprehensive taxonomy of a variety of philosophical issues raised by Wakefield’s work, while Wakefield himself performs admirably in defending and strengthening his influential view. I recommend it wholeheartedly to students and researchers in philosophy of medicine who draw on Wakefield’s analysis in their work, and to philosophically interested clinicians and empirical researchers who wish to gain a deeper understanding of underlying philosophical issues.”
—Philosophy of Medicine