Wright, Cory (2002) Animal Models of Depression in Neuropsychopharmacology qua Feyerabendian Philosophy of Science. [Preprint]

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Abstract

The neuropsychopharmacological methods and theories used to investigate the nature of depression have been viewed as suspect for a variety of philosophical and scientific reasons. Much of this criticism aims to demonstrate that biochemical- and neurological-based theories of this mental illness are defective, due in part because the methods used in their service are consistently invalidated, failing to induce depression in pre-clinical animal models. Neuropsychopharmacologists have been able to stave off such criticism by showing that their methods are context and domain-sensitive, and that the worth of an animal model is relative to its purpose � thereby creating logical space for the question of whether there could ever be a �good� animal model of depression. I contend that this sort of response implicitly leans on Feyerabendian principles in the philosophy of science, and exemplify this connection using a standard taxonomy of behavioral models of depression. I then take one central Feyerabendian principle � methodological and theoretical pluralism � and show how it maps onto the neuropsychopharmacological research tradition as it is currently practiced.

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