Am J Psychiatry 1979; 136:1135-1138
Copyright © 1979 by American Psychiatric Association
Philosophical foundations of French and U.S. nosology
J Kroll
The author examines the philosophical foundations of French and American
nosology with a view toward understanding the relatively minor influence of
French psychiatry in America. Despite the excellence of its descriptive
psychiatry, much of French nosological writing is based on philosophical
viewpoints that are antithetical to the empirical and pragmatic traditions
of American psychiatry. French nosology, which is closely involved with the
metaphysical issues of existentialism, phenomenalism, and structuralism,
reveals these interests in language and concepts that do not easily permit
its hypotheses to be scientifically tested, a prerequisite for any American
classification.
