Explanation in Contexts of Causal Complexity: Lessons from Psychiatric Genetics

Over the past decade there have been increasingly common claims that psychiatry is in a “crisis”. These claims often target the lack of known or identifiable causal etiologies for psychiatric diseases, suggesting that they are “among the most intractable enigmas in medicine”. While the intractable nature of these disorders is often associated with their “causal complexity”, it is not always clear exactly what is meant by this. How should we understand causal complexity in this domain How does it challenge scientific efforts to understand and explain these diseases? This paper addresses these questions by examining two main types of causal complexity in psychiatry. My analysis clarifies what these types of causal complexity are, how they challenge efforts to understand and explain these disorders, and how scientists are working to overcome these challenges.