Rationality and Sanity: The role of rationality judgements in understanding psychiatric disorders more

Here my main objective is to examine the role of judgements of rationality in the current understanding of psychiatric disorders. The relationship between rationality and sanity was an important theme in the anti-psychiatry literature but remains a timely question today, due to the need to update and revise the criteria for the classification and diagnosis of psychiatric disorders. To what extent are such criteria independent of judgements of rationality? The typical symptoms of many psychiatric disorders are described as instances of epistemic, procedural or emotional irrationality, and references to such forms of irrationality are frequently made in the current classificatory and diagnostic criteria for schizophrenia, dementia, depression, and personality disorders. That said, I shall defend the view that irrationality is neither necessary nor sufficient for a behaviour to be characterised as symptomatic of a psychiatric disorder.