Rachel Cooper (philosopher)

{{Infobox philosopher

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| name = Rachel Valerie Cooper

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| birth_date = {{birth year and age|1974}}

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| nationality = British

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| alma_mater = University of Cambridge

| notable_works = Classifying Madness (2005), Psychiatry and the Philosophy of Science (2007), Diagnosing the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (2014)

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| institutions = Lancaster University

| main_interests = Philosophy of science, philosophy of medicine, philosophy of psychiatry

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Rachel Cooper (born 1974) is a British philosopher specialising in the philosophy of medicine and philosophy of science, especially the philosophy of psychiatry. She is currently a professor in the Department of Politics, Philosophy and Religion at Lancaster University. She is the author of Classifying Madness (2005, Springer), Psychiatry and the Philosophy of Science (2007, Acumen) and Diagnosing the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (2014, Karnac).

Career

Cooper worked as a temporary lecturer in philosophy at the University of Bristol from 1999 to 2000 and a lecturer in philosophy at the University of Bradford from 2000 to 2003.{{cite web|title=Rachel Cooper|publisher=Lancaster University|url=http://www.lancaster.ac.uk/ppr/about-us/people/rachel-cooper#phdstudents|access-date=27 August 2016}} She submitted her PhD thesis, entitled Classifying Madness: A Philosophical Examination of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, to the University of Cambridge in January 2002. A book based on the PhD thesis, and of the same name, was published by Springer in 2005 as volume 86 of their Philosophy and Medicine series. By the time of the book's publication, Cooper had moved to Lancaster University.Cooper, Rachel (2005). Classifying Madness: A Philosophical Examination of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders. Dordrecht: Springer. pp. i–vii. In Classifying Madness, Cooper offers an analysis of the fourth edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM), arguing that while the DSM{{'s}} goal of classifying mental disorders as natural kinds is a good one it is unlikely to be successful in real-world practice.Tsou, Jonathan Y. (2010). "Rachel Cooper Classifying Madness: A Philosophical Examination of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders". The British Journal for the Philosophy of Science 61 (2): 453–7. {{doi|10.1093/bjps/axp057}}Double, Duncan (2006). "[http://metapsychology.mentalhelp.net/poc/view_doc.php?type=book&id=2966 Review – Classifying Madness]". Metapsychology Online Reviews 10 (1).

In 2007, Cooper published Psychiatry and the Philosophy of Science with Acumen.Cooper, Rachel (2007). Psychiatry and the Philosophy of Science. Durham: Acumen. In the book, she explores the continuities and discontinuities between psychiatry and other scientific disciplines which are more established. In 2014, her Diagnosing the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders was published with Karnac.Cooper, Rachel (2014). Diagnosing the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders. London: Karnac. This book explored the fifth edition of the DSM, discussing philosophical issues it raises.Goodrich, R. A. (2014). "[http://metapsychology.mentalhelp.net/poc/view_doc.php?type=book&id=7287 Review – Diagnosing the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders]". Metapsychology Online Reviews 18 (46).McGuire, Anne (2015). "Diagnosing the diagnostic and statistical manual of mental disorders". Disability & Society 30 (10): 1582–95. {{doi|10.1080/09687599.2015.1062233}}Silverman, Martin A. (2015). "Diagnosing the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders. By Rachel Cooper" The Psychoanalytic Quarterly 84 (1): 239–47. {{doi|10.1002/j.2167-4086.2015.00011.x}} The same year, she co-edited, with Havi Carel, the Routledge collection Health, Illness and Disease: Philosophical Essays.Carel, Havi, and Rachel Cooper, eds. (2014). Health, Illness and Disease: Philosophical Essays. Oxford: Routledge. {{As of|2018}}, Cooper is a professor in Lancaster's Department of Politics, Philosophy and Religion and is working on a book about the concept of disease.

Selected bibliography

Cooper, Rachel (2005). Classifying Madness: A Philosophical Examination of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders. Dordrecht: Springer.
Cooper, Rachel (2007). Psychiatry and the Philosophy of Science. Durham: Acumen.
Cooper, Rachel (2014). Diagnosing the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders. London: Karnac.