Ortega y Gasset y la psiquiatría biológica: "Si queremos que todo siga como está, es necesario que todo cambie"

Abstract

Background. Practice and research in the field of biological psychiatry requires us to assume certain positions on several philosophical issues. Objective. To focus on the basic philosophical assumptions of modern biological psychiatry. Method. To inquire into Ortega y Gasset's interpretations of the nature of man and science in order to understand the presuppositions which biological psychiatry itself can never justify scientifically. Results. Biological psychiatry allows only the insigths of what its kind of representation has admitted in advance as a possible object, i.e., brain function, gene expression, neurotransmitter. On the contrary and according to Ortega: "The man is not his body that is a thing, neither his soul that is also a thing, a subtle thing: the man is not at all a thing, but a drama: his life" Conclusions. Ortega can help us to apprehend the level of understanding peculiar of the current biological psychiatry better because his "new level is a deeper stratum of the philosophical problems" © 2006 Sociedad de Neurología, Psiquiatría y Neurocirugía.