Abstract
Methodological Plurality of Psychiatr y. Starting from an hippocratic text, we point out that the main themes to create a medical philosophy of science already appear in the ancient greek thought. The scientific psychiatry arises from the Age of Enlightenment's spirit and struggles from its beginning with opposed theoretical positions; the most important of those are these from a biological point of view in contrast to psychogenetic hypothesis and also the unity of continuing psychological-psychopathological thinking opposited to the normality-mental disorder discontinuity. We propose that an epistemological approach to psychiatry can be outlined by two perspectives: on the one hand refered to the building of a logical system composed of principles, postulates, axioms and corollaries about a defined object of research; on the other hand by the investigation of the main questions in philosophy of science applied to psychiatry. Among that we emphasize the question of appropriateness of methodological plurality (nomologic-deductive, hermeneutical, phenomenological and so on) and also of proliferation both explanatory and ther apeutic patterns.
