This article discusses the notion of diagnostic validity in psychopathological nosology, from an epistemological perspective. The crisis of operational models, represented by the DSM, has deepened in recent decades due to the adoption of a literal conception of validity, understood as correspondence between diagnostic classifications and intrinsic properties. Such conception relegates the diagnostic categories to the status of artificial types devoid of ontological substrate. Based on authors such as Dupré, Rorty, Goodman, Zachar, Agich, etc., it suggests reframing the problem in terms of a pragmatic nominalism. Besides shifting us from the natural/artificial dichotomy, a pragmatic nominalist stance would admit a nosological pluralism, usually incompatible with essentialist classificatory systems.
Keywords
Diagnostic validity; pragmatism; essentialism; pluralism