Thomas Szasz on Psychiatry

[MMMark]

Thurs. 12/06/21 15:47 EDT
.post #176
[url=Thomas Szasz on Psychiatry - #20 by baxter]

@baxter

[/url]Is vitamin deficiency, e.g. beriberi, a disease? Or do you need lesions to form first before getting diagnosed?

This is a sensible question, because “lesion” is a word that applies to living tissue. “Disease” is

…an abnormal condition affecting the body of an organism.

But “the mind” is not corporeal, i.e., of the body of an organism, so how can “the mind” have “lesions” or be “diseased”? So to suggest, as you seem to here, that “Well, just because we can’t see lesions of the mind doesn’t mean that the mind isn’t diseased; after all, what about Beriberi?!” is not sensible. We can never “see lesions of the mind,” because “the mind” is just an abstraction, and abstractions don’t have “lesions,” nor can abstractions be “diseased” or “healthy.”