About the Authors

Piers Benn is Lecturer in Medical Ethics and Law at Imperial College School of Medicine, University of London, and was until recently Lecturer in Philosophy at the University of Leeds. As well as medical ethics, his interests lie in ethical theory, philosophy of religion, and the philosophy of sex and love. He is the author of Ethics (1998), and his articles include "Freedom, Resentment, and the Psychopath," Philosophy, Psychiatry, & Psychology 6.1 (1999); "Morality, the Unborn, and the Open Future," in Questions of Time and Tense, ed. Robin Le Poidevin (1998); and "Is Sex Morally Special?" Journal of Applied Philosophy 16.3 (1999).

S. Nassir Ghaemi is Instructor in Psychiatry at Harvard Medical School and Assistant Director of the Harvard Bipolar Research Program at Massachusetts General Hospital. He is also a Visiting Fellow in the Center on Cognitive Studies in the Department of Philosophy at Tufts University. His research interests are in the nosology and treatment of mood disorders, particularly manic-depressive illness, and in philosophy of mind. His recent publications include "Is Bipolar Disorder Still Underdiagnosed? Are Antidepressants Overutilized?" (Ghaemi, Sachs, Chiou et al. 1999), "Insight and Psychiatric Disorders" (Ghaemi 1997), and "Mind-Brain Theories in Psychiatry" (Ghaemi and Oepen 1994).

Before starting at Oxford in October of 1998, John McMillan was an Assistant Lecturer at the University of Otago, New Zealand, where he completed his Ph.D. dissertation, "Noetic Consciousness and Psychiatry," in 1998. He is coauthor, along with Grant Gillett, of Consciousness and Intentionality (forthcoming).

Mike W. Martin (Ph.D., University of California, Irvine) is Professor of Philosophy at Chapman University (Orange, Calif.). His recent publications include Meaningful Work: Rethinking Professional Ethics (forthcoming, Oxford University Press) and Love's Virtues (University Press of Kansas). Currently he is working on a book integrating moral and therapeutic perspectives, both in theory and with regard to practical topics such as depression, alcoholism, gambling, and sociopathy.

Eric Matthews is a Professor in the Department of Philosophy, University of Aberdeen, Scotland, U.K. He has a longstanding interest in the philosophy of psychiatry, and is a member of the Committee of the Royal College of Psychiatrists Philosophy Group. His relevant publications include "Paternalism, Care, and Mental Illness," in Decision-Making and Problems of Incompetence, ed. A. Grubb (Wiley, 1994), and "Mental and Physical Illness: An Unsustainable Separation?" in Law without Enforcement, ed. Eastman and Peay (Hart Publishers, 1999).

James Phillips is Associate Clinical Professor of Psychiatry in the Yale Department of Psychiatry and also has a private practice. He has taught, lectured, and written in the interface of psychiatry, psychoanalysis, and philosophy. His recent articles include: "From the Unseen to the Invisible: Merleau-Ponty's Sorbonne Lectures on Psychoanalysis as Preparation for His Later Thought," in Merleau-Ponty: Interiority and Exteriority, Psychic Life, and the World, ed. D. Olkowski and J. Morley (SUNY Press, 1999); and "The Psychodynamic Narrative," in Healing Stories: Narrative in Psychiatry and Psychotherapy, ed. G. Roberts and J. Holmes (Oxford University Press, 1999).

Deborah Spitz, M.D., is Clinical Professor of Psychiatry at New England Medical Center, Tufts University School of Medicine. She is the Director of Residency Training and directs the outpatient psychiatry clinics after many years of supervising a psychiatric inpatient unit. A general adult psychiatrist with particular interests in affective disorders and issues of autonomy in psychiatric illness, she is the author of "Collaboration between Psychiatrist and Patient: How Avoidable is Paternalism?" in the Annual Review of Law and Ethics 4 (1996):233-48.

Martin Warner is Senior Lecturer in Philosophy at the University of Warwick and Chair of its Steering Group for the Philosophy and Ethics of Mental Health. His Philosophical Finesse (Oxford: Clarendon Press), for which he is preparing a sequel, explores patterns of argument that do not fit the standard logical canons, and his extensive teaching and publications on the relations of philosophy and literature have been centrally concerned with interpretation theory.

Guy Widdershoven has written several books and articles on hermeneutics and the humanities. Since 1989, he has been Associate Professor in Philosophy at Maastricht University, The Netherlands. In 1995 he...