Cognitive Psychiatry and the dichotomy between the science of matter and the science of Being: Necessity, propositionality, problematicity and a critique of psychiatric materialism
Year: 2026
Type: article
Abstract: Western science was built on principles of determination, necessity, identity and non-contradiction, which proved highly effective in the study of matter but produce distortions when applied to the self and to human existence. This article aims to propose, from the standpoint of Cognitive Psychiatry, a distinction between a science of matter and a science of Being and to examine its consequences for Psychiatry. It is a theoretical proposition essay supported by a narrative review of the philosophical, psychopathological and clinical literature, with emphasis on works published between 2021 and 2026. Matter admits relatively stable conceptual delimitations, whereas the self presents conative unity, historical continuity, significance and openness to existential possibilities. The ontological intuition of a single Being is proposed to derive, in part, from the experience of this conative unity. The propositions Socrates is bald and Socrates is wise, formally equivalent, show that propositional logic does not establish the processual hierarchy of attributes in the essentialization of an entity. Conceptual apodicticity, the coagulation of concepts and the closure of problematicity explain part of the reification of human manifestations. A psychological and cultural hypothesis is formulated according to which the preference for control and formalization expresses obsessive tendencies in the organization of knowledge. In Psychiatry, materialistic predominance favours the reduction of existential conflicts to pharmacological problems, sustained by commercial conditioning and by a shared therapeutic illusion. A processual science of Being is needed, integrating history, conflict, moral engagement and personal transformation into biological investigation.
Source: Research Society and Development
Language: English
Topic: Mental Health and Psychiatry
Subfield: Philosophy
Field: Arts and Humanities
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: diamond
OpenAlex ID: W7225401161