No. 76 (2026): Número en curso
Articles

Dysfunction, Mismatch, and Empirical Underdetermination

PDF (Spanish)
  • Federico Burdman,
  • Juan R. Loaiza ,
  • Francisco Pereira
Federico Burdman Alberto Hurtado University image/svg+xml
Juan R. Loaiza
https://orcid.org/0000-0003-0570-3832 (unauthenticated) Alberto Hurtado University image/svg+xml

Published 2026-06-14

How to Cite

Burdman, F., Loaiza, J. R., & Pereira, F. (2026). Dysfunction, Mismatch, and Empirical Underdetermination. Tópicos, Revista De Filosofía, 76, 219-253. https://doi.org/10.21555/top.v760.3359

Downloads

Download data is not yet available.

Copyright (c) 2026 Tópicos, Revista de Filosofía

Creative Commons License

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.

Abstract

Are psychiatric disorders caused by a malfunction in the mind’s mechanisms? Or can they be explained as the result of a mismatch between our psychological mechanisms and an environment different from the one in which these systems evolved? In this paper, we draw on central elements of Daniel Dennett’s conception of proper function to address a specific version of the debate between theories of dysfunction and theories of mismatch, focusing on cases of substance addiction. Following Dennett’s idea that there is no decisive fact determining the proper function of biological systems, we argue that the decision regarding the dysfunction of the reward system in addiction is underdetermined by the evidence. Our argument calls for a reorientation of the discussion, suggesting a new focus on the pragmatic considerations that can be invoked to choose between two empirically equivalent theories.

Keywords

  • addiction,
  • dysfunction,
  • misalignment,
  • intrinsic function,
  • reward system,
  • underdetermination,
  • evolution,
  • mechanism,
  • design stance,
  • disease
    • ...More
    Less
PDF (Spanish)

References

  1. Ahn, S. (2020). How Non-Epistemic Values Can Be Epistemically Beneficial in Scientific Classification. Studies in History and Philosophy of Science Part A, 84, 57-65. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.shpsa.2020.08.002
  2. APA DSM Team. (2021). Guide to Submitting Proposals for Changes to DSM-5. American Psychiatric Association. Consultado el 13 de enero de 2025 de https://www.psychiatry.org/File%20Library/Psychiatrists/Practice/DSM/DSM5-Proposal-Submissions-General-Guidance.pdf
  3. Berridge, K. C. (2009). Wanting and Liking: Observations from the Neuroscience and Psychology Laboratory. Inquiry, 52(4), 378-398. https://doi.org/10.1080/00201740903087359
  4. Boorse, C. (2014). A Second Rebuttal on Health. Journal of Medicine and Philosophy, 39(6), 683-724. https://doi.org/10.1093/jmp/jhu035
  5. Burdman, F. (2024). Recalcitrant Desires in Addiction. En S. Amaya, D. Shoemaker y M. Vargas (eds.), Oxford Studies in Agency and Responsibility: Volume 8. Non-Ideal Agency and Responsibility (pp. 58-80). Oxford University Press. https://doi.org/https://doi.org/10.1093/oso/9780198910114.003.0004
  6. Burdman, F. (2025). On the Grounds for Calling Addiction a Disease. Análisis Filosófico, 45(1), 203-231. https://doi.org/10.36446/af.e1048
  7. Butlin, P. y Papineau, D. (2017). Normal and Addictive Desires. En N. Heather y G. Segal (eds.), Addiction and Choice: Rethinking the Relationship (pp. 99-115). Oxford University Press. https://doi.org/10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198727224.003.0006
  8. Carrier, M. (2011). Underdetermination as an Epistemological Test Tube: Expounding Hidden Values of the Scientific Community. Synthese, 180(2), 189-204. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11229-009-9597-6
  9. Colombo, M. (2014). Deep and Beautiful: The Reward Prediction Error Hypothesis of Dopamine. Studies in History and Philosophy of Science Part C: Studies in History and Philosophy of Biological and Biomedical Sciences, 45, 57-67. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.shpsc.2013.10.006
  10. Cooper, R. (2004). What is Wrong with the DSM? History of Psychiatry, 15(1), 5-25. https://doi.org/10.1177/0957154X04039343
  11. Cosmides, L. y Tooby, J. (1999). Toward an Evolutionary Taxonomy of Treatable Conditions. Journal of Abnormal Psychology, 108(3), 453-464. https://doi.org/10.1037/0021-843X.108.3.453
  12. Cummins, R. (1975). Functional Analysis. The Journal of Philosophy, 72(20), 741-765. https://doi.org/10.2307/2024640
  13. De Haro, S. (2023). The Empirical Under-Determination Argument Against Scientific Realism for Dual Theories. Erkenntnis, 88, 117-145. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10670-020-00342-0
  14. Dennett, D. C. (1978). Brainstorms: Philosophical Essays on Mind and Psychology. Bradford Books.
  15. Dennett, D. C. (1987). The Intentional Stance. The MIT Press.
  16. Dennett, D. C. (1991). Real Patterns. The Journal of Philosophy, 88(1), 27-51. https://doi.org/10.2307/2027085
  17. Dennett, D. C. (1995). Darwin’s Dangerous Idea: Evolution and the Meanings of Life. Simon & Schuster.
  18. Dennett, D. C. (2017). Darwin and the Overdue Demise of Essentialism. En D. L. Smith (ed.), How Biology Shapes Philosophy: New Foundations for Naturalism (pp. 9-22). Cambridge University Press. https://doi.org/10.1017/9781107295490.002
  19. Dill, B. y Holton, R. (2014). The Addict in Us all. Frontiers in Psychiatry, 5. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyt.2014.00139
  20. Durrant, R., Adamson, S., Todd, F. y Sellman, D. (2009). Drug Use and Addiction: An Evolutionary Perspective. Australian and New Zealand Journal of Psychiatry, 43(11), 1049-1056. https://doi.org/10.3109/00048670903270449
  21. Flanagan, O. (2025). What Is It Like to Be an Addict? Oxford University Press. https://doi.org/10.1093/oso/9780199388929.001.0001
  22. Fodor, J. A. (2000). The Mind Doesn’t Work that Way: The Scope and Limits of Computational Psychology. The MIT press. https://doi.org/10.7551/mitpress/4627.001.0001
  23. Garson, J. (2019). What Biological Functions Are and Why They Matter. Cambridge University Press. https://doi.org/10.1017/9781108560764
  24. Ginnobili, S. y Roffé, A. (2017). Dos usos de los modelos de optimalidad en las explicaciones por selección natural. Metatheoria, 8(1), 43-55. https://doi.org/10.48160/18532330me8.161
  25. Gorelick, D. A., Zangen, A. y George, M. S. (2014). Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation in the Treatment of Substance Addiction. Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences, 1327(1), 79-93. https://doi.org/10.1111/nyas.12479
  26. Grace, A. A., Floresco, S. B., Goto, Y. y Lodge, D. J. (2007). Regulation of Firing of Dopaminergic Neurons and Control of Goal-Directed Behaviors. Trends in Neurosciences, 30(5), 220-227. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tins.2007.03.003
  27. Harding, S. (1986). The Science Question in Feminism. Cornell University Press.
  28. Heilig, M., MacKillop, J., Martinez, D., Rehm, J., Leggio, L. y Vanderschuren, L. J. M. J. (2021). Addiction as a Brain Disease Revised: Why It Still Matters, and the Need for Consilience. Neuropsychopharmacology, 46(10), 1715-1723. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41386-020-00950-y
  29. Holton, R. y Berridge, K. (2013). Addiction between Compulsion and Choice. En N. Levy (ed.), Addiction and Self-Control: Perspectives from Philosophy, Psychology, and Neuroscience (pp. 239-268). Oxford University Press. https://doi.org/10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199862580.003.0012
  30. Kostko, A. (2019). Inductive Risks and Psychiatric Classification. En R. Bluhm y Ş. Tekin (eds.), The Bloomsbury Companion to Philosophy of Psychiatry (pp. 197-215). Bloomsbury Academic. https://doi.org/10.5040/9781350024090.ch-010
  31. Loaiza, J. R. (2024). Functionalism and the Emotions. The British Journal for the Philosophy of Science, 75(1), 233-251. https://doi.org/10.1086/715207
  32. Longino, H. E. (1990). Science as Social Knowledge: Values and Objectivity in Scientific Inquiry. Princeton University Press. https://doi.org/10.1515/9780691209753
  33. Millikan, R. (1984). Language, Thought and Other Biological Categories. The MIT Press. https://doi.org/10.7551/mitpress/4124.001.0001
  34. Montague, P. R., Dayan, P. y Sejnowski, T. J. (1996). A Framework for Mesencephalic Dopamine Systems Based on Predictive Hebbian Learning. Journal of Neuroscience, 16(5), 1936-1947. https://doi.org/10.1523/JNEUROSCI.16-05-01936.1996
  35. Murphy, D. (2009). Psychiatry and the Concept of Disease as Pathology. En M. Broome y L. Bortolotti (eds.), Psychiatry as Cognitive Neuroscience: Philosophical perspectives (pp. 103-118). Oxford University Press. https://doi.org/10.1093/med/9780199238033.003.0006
  36. Murphy, D. y Stich, S. (2000). Darwin in the Madhouse: Evolutionary Psychology and the Classification of Mental Disorders. En P. Carruthers y A. Chamberlain (eds.), Evolution and the Human Mind: Modularity, Language and Meta-Cognition (pp. 62-92). Cambridge University Press. https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511611926.005
  37. Nesse, R. M. y Berridge, K. C. (1997). Psychoactive Drug Use in Evolutionary Perspective. Science, 278(5335), 63-66. https://doi.org/10.1126/science.278.5335.63
  38. Nestler, E. J. (2005). Is There a Common Molecular Pathway for Addiction? Nature Neuroscience, 8(11). https://doi.org/10.1038/nn1578
  39. Papineau, D. (2017). Teleosemantics. En D. L. Smith (ed.), How Biology Shapes Philosophy: New Foundations for Naturalism (pp. 95-120). Cambridge University Press. https://doi.org/10.1017/9781107295490.006
  40. Quine, W. V. O. (1951). Two Dogmas of Empiricism. The Philosophical Review, 60(1), 20-43. https://doi.org/10.2307/2181906
  41. Quine, W. V. O. (1975). On Empirically Equivalent Systems of the World. Erkenntnis, 9(3), 313-328. https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00178004
  42. Richters, J. E. y Hinshaw, S. P. (1999). The Abduction of Disorder in Psychiatry. Journal of Abnormal Psychology, 108(3), 438-445. https://doi.org/10.1037/0021-843X.108.3.438
  43. Robinson, T. y Berridge, K. (2008). The Incentive Sensitization Theory of Addiction: Some Current Issues. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences, 363(1507), 3137-3146. https://doi.org/10.1098/rstb.2008.0093
  44. Ross, D. (2020). Addiction Is Socially Engineered Exploitation of Natural Biological Vulnerability. Behavioural Brain Research, 386, 112598. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.bbr.2020.112598
  45. Schroeder, T. (2004). Three Faces of Desire. Oxford University Press. https://doi.org/10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195172379.001.0001
  46. Schultz, W. (2016). Dopamine Reward Prediction Error Coding. Dialogues in Clinical Neuroscience, 18(1), 23-32. https://doi.org/10.31887/DCNS.2016.18.1/wschultz
  47. Tooby, J. y Cosmides, L. (1990). The Past Explains the Present. Ethology and Sociobiology, 11(4-5), 375-424. https://doi.org/10.1016/0162-3095(90)90017-Z
  48. Verhulst, B., Neale, M. C. y Kendler, K. S. (2015). The Heritability of Alcohol Use Disorders: A Meta-Analysis of Twin and Adoption Studies. Psychological Medicine, 45(5), 1061-1072. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0033291714002165
  49. Volkow, N. D., Koob, G. F. y McLellan, A. T. (2016). Neurobiologic Advances from the Brain Disease Model of Addiction. New England Journal of Medicine, 374(4), 363-371. https://doi.org/10.1056/nejmra1511480
  50. Wakefield, J. C. (1992). The Concept of Mental Disorder: On the Boundary between Biological Facts and Social Values. American Psychologist, 47(3), 373-388. https://doi.org/10.1037/0003-066X.47.3.373
  51. Wakefield, J. C. (2017a). Addiction and the Concept of Disorder, Part 1: Why Addiction is a Medical Disorder. Neuroethics, 10(1), 39-53. https://doi.org/10.1007/s12152-016-9300-9
  52. Wakefield, J. C. (2017b). Addiction and the Concept of Disorder, Part 2: Is Every Mental Disorder a Brain Disorder? Neuroethics, 10(1), 55-67. https://doi.org/10.1007/s12152-016-9301-8
  53. Wakefield, J. C. (2020). Addiction from the Harmful Dysfunction Perspective: How There Can Be a Mental Disorder in a Normal Brain. Behavioural Brain Research, 389, 112665. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.bbr.2020.112665
  54. Zawidzki, T. (2007). Dennett. Oneworld Publications.