In this chapter we cover a series of questions about the nature of certain categories that are relevant to psychopharmacology. We have already developed a particular contrast within philosophy in the discussion of categories – the classical vs. critical approaches. The classical approach takes the view that words can mirror the categories of the world. The critical approach takes the view that categories are social constructs that reflect the subjectivity of a particular time and place. The synthetic or integrative position taken here says that categories strongly reflect the way in which the brain-mind interacts with the world, that this interaction is biologically grounded so contributing to the existence of minimal standards of agreement, and that it is possible to debate reasonably (that is, cognitive-affectively) their validity.

In the next sections this schema is used to discuss in turn, the nature of psychotropics, of emotion, and of the self. We could perhaps begin with any number of other constructs in philosophy of medicine and mind in order to reach similar conclusions, but these constructs are particularly relevant to the practice of psychopharmacology. The aim is not so much to defend the schema (“classical” vs. “critical”), which is an often over-simplifying framework on which to hang the different parts of this volume, but rather to put forward a conceptual position, based in part on cognitive-affective data, on a number of key concepts about medications/enhancements, about affective/cognitive phenomena, and about the persons/patients for whom we prescribe psychotropics in order to alter the brain-mind.