Overview

Among other things, I am an emeritus professor (of Philosophy and Mental Health) at the University of Central Lancashire. (I was, until May 2023, Professor of Philosophy and Mental Health and Deputy Head for Research, in the School of Nursing at the University of Central Lancashire. )

As well as contemporary philosophy of thought and language, especially the philosophy of Wittgenstein and McDowell, my research concerns conceptual issues in mental health care. I have published papers on clinical judgement, idiographic and narrative understanding, the interpretation of psychopathology and reductionism and social constructionism in psychiatry. 

I wrote Wittgenstein on Language and Thought (EUP 1998), John McDowell (Acumen 2004 and 2nd edition Routlege 2019), the Oxford Textbook of Philosophy and Psychiatry (OUP 2006) co-authored with K.W.M. (Bill) Fulford and George Graham, Tacit Knowledge (Acumen 2013) co-authored with Neil Gascoigne and Mental Illness (CUP). 

I was an editor of the Oxford Handbook of Philosophy and Psychiatry (OUP 2014) (with Fulford, K.W.M., Davies, M., Gipps, R., Graham, G., Sadler, J., and Stanghellini) and Senior Editor of the journal Philosophy, Psychiatry and Psychology until 2024.

I have kept, on and off, a quasi academic blog called inthespaceofreasons.

Contact: drtimthornton@gmail.com

My cv is here.

Once more in the third person!

Among other things, Tim Thornton is an emeritus professor (of Philosophy and Mental Health) at the University of Central Lancashire. (He was, until May 2023, Professor of Philosophy and Mental Health and Mental Health and Deputy Head for Research in the School of Nursing at the University of Central Lancashire.)

As well as contemporary philosophy of thought and language, his research concerns conceptual issues at the heart of mental health care. He has written research papers on clinical judgement, idiographic and narrative understanding, the interpretation of psychopathology and reductionism and social constructionism in psychiatry. 

He wrote Essential Philosophy of Psychiatry (OUP 2007), Wittgenstein on Language and Thought (EUP 1998), John McDowell (Acumen 2004 and 2nd edition Routlege 2019) and co-author of the Oxford Textbook of Philosophy and Psychiatry (OUP 2006), Tacit Knowledge (Acumen 2013) co-authored with Neil Gascoigne and Mental Illness (CUP).

He was an editor of the Oxford Handbook of Philosophy and Psychiatry (OUP 2014) (with Fulford, K.W.M., Davies, M., Gipps, R., Graham, G., Sadler, J., and Stanghellini) and was Senior Editor of the journal Philosophy, Psychiatry and Psychology until 2024.

He has kept, on and off, a quasi academic blog called inthespaceofreasons.

Contact:  drtimthornton@gmail.com

The underlying pattern in my research

My research is situated within what used to be the ‘newly developing’ field of philosophy and/of psychiatry [*]. In research papers, book chapters and books, I have defended an anti-reductionist view of the nature and subject matter of mental healthcare. In two books in particular – the co-authored Oxford Textbook of Philosophy and Psychiatry and my concise Essential Philosophy of Psychiatry – I have attempted to outline the breadth of the field whilst at the same time arguing for the importance of person level approaches, especially to normativity and judgement, in mental healthcare.

My main contribution has been articulating and defending ideas about judgement and normativity in mainstream philosophy – by critically engaging with some important contemporary and twentieth century philosophers such as Wittgenstein, Davidson, McDowell, Ryle and Polanyi – and then applying them in detail to a wide range of issues that arise in the philosophy of psychiatry.

Reflecting the influence of Wittgenstein, my approach is therapeutic rather than systematic. Rather than attempting to construct overarching explanatory philosophical theories, I aim instead to diagnose the source of felt philosophical difficulties, piecemeal. Nevertheless, there are some common themes throughout my research, the most central of which is the nature of judgement. Implicit in the very idea of judgement is a distinction between correctness and incorrectness. Judgement can be correct or incorrect and, further, aims at correctness. It is thus an essentially normative notion. But this raises the question of what underpins such normativity, what disciplines judgement, and hence the objectivity of judgement in different areas.

I explore this issue in the context of meaning in the philosophy of psychiatry; moral judgement and values based practice; tacit knowledge and clinical judgement; opposition to reductionist accounts of the relation of mind and brain and the concept of mental disorder and understanding and explanation.

My Doctor of Letters (the first such award made by my university in the humanities) thesis outlines the main themes of my research and their connections in the following sections:

1.       Judgement and the objectivity of meaning

2.       Value judgements and Values Based Practice

3.       Tacit knowledge and clinical judgement

4.       Anti-reductionism in mental healthcare

5.       Normativity, anti-reductionism and the concept of disorder

6.       Understanding in mental healthcare

[*] The rationale for using the conjunction ‘and’ (as well as the preposition ‘of’) in the name of the field – reflected in the name of the international umbrella organisation, the Oxford University Press book series, and my own professorial title – is to reflect the co-ownership of the field by both philosophers and practitioners. It remains an urgent task for the future to expand those active in the field to include mental health service users.