Miguel Núñez de Prado Gordillo

My research interests sit mainly at the intersection of the philosophy of mind, the philosophy of psychiatry, and the mental health sciences. My interest in these topics emerged primarily during my early formation as a psychologist, which led me to wonder about the different concepts of mind and cognition at the root of different scientific models and approaches to clinical practice, as well as their differential implications for mental health practice and policymaking. This led me to explore what analytic philosophy of mind and psychiatry could offer in terms of clarifying and developing this conceptual framework. My PhD addresses these issues, focusing on how different concepts of mind underpinning different therapeutic models shape assessment and treatment practices, with an emphasis on the case of delusions.

Folk Psychology and Scientific Psychology

One of my most general lines of interest concerns the interplay between folk or and scientific notions of mind. How do our everyday, “commonsense” understandings of mental categories (e.g., beliefs) impact scientific explanations? And vice versa: how do new discoveries in the cognitive and behavioral sciences come to shape our commonsensical views of mindedness—and what impact does this have in areas closely related to the mental, such as ascriptions of responsibility and agency? Moreover, how should we understand and manage this interplay, and which perspective should take priority over the other in different contexts? In this line, I am particularly interested on the role of language in our understanding of cognition, and the different “language games” or linguistic practices that folk and scientific psychologists engage in when attempting to interpret an agent’s behavior, reasoning, and emotions. Specifically, I draw mainly from Wittgensteinian approaches to mental language (e.g., mindshaping and contemporary expressivist views) which emphasize the normative and evaluative—rather than descriptive—functions of folk-psychological ascriptions. My work also explores the complementarities between these views and so-called “situated” approaches to the philosophy of mind and cognitive science, which emphasize the constitutive and scaffolding role of material and cultural environments in an agent’s cognition and behavior.

Philosophy of Mental Health

In line with the above, I am especially interested in the interplay between folk and scientific approaches to cognition in the context of mental health science and policymaking. These issues intersect with traditional conceptual problems in the philosophy of psychiatry or mental health more broadly: how best to understand notions of mental health, such as ‘mental disorder’, ‘psychopathology’ or ‘mental dysfunction’, and their relation to other notions in their conceptual vicinity (e.g., ‘somatic disorders’, ‘cognitive disability’, etc.)? How to tell apart mental disorder proper from mere deviance from social norms? And what role do play—or should play—different folk and scientific perspectives in these debates? As with the mental more broadly, I am particularly interested in the language of psychiatry and clinical psychology, and the different roles that different linguistic practices play in conceptualizing and addressing mental health conditions. My current focus is on ascriptions of self-knowledge and self-regulation, as well as their role in both psychotherapy and in the assessment of mental conditions as pathological (vs. “merely deviant”).

Justice and Civil Right Movements in Mental Health

Some of the debates outlined above cut to the bone of historical and contemporary political struggles within mental health systems. In this line, I am particularly interested in the Mad and Neurodiversity movements, their differences and affinities, and their implications for the understanding of mindedness and the social structures that shape what we come to understand as healthily or properly minded. Specifically, my research tackles and aims to contribute to the conceptual developments advanced, explicitly or implicitly, by mad and neurodiversity advocates concerning the conceptualization of mind and of specific mental abilities—with a special interest in self-regulation and self-knowledge. Overall, may aim is to expand mad and neurodivergent conceptual frameworks in ways conducive to the detection and/or amelioration of the various injustices suffered by the cognitively divergent and the cognitively disabled. An example would be the epistemic injustice and oppression suffered by these collectives, which systematically undermines their ability to partake in the shaping of mental health research and policymaking.

Since 2024

Postdoctoral Researcher, Department of Philosophy, University of Rijeka, Croatia

2024

Postdoctoral Researcher, Department of Philosophy 1, University of Granada, Spain

2023 - 2024

Postdoctoral Researcher, Department of Philosophy, Utrecht University, The Netherlands

2023

Visiting Researcher, NOVA Institute of Philosophy, NOVA University of Lisbon, Portugal

2022

Research Assistant, Mind, Brain, and Behaviour Research Centre, University of Granada, Spain

2017 - 2022

Predoctoral Researcher, Department of Biological and Health Psychology, Department of Social Psychology and Methodology, Autonomous University of Madrid, Spain

2022

PhD in Clinical and Health Psychology, Department of Biological and Health Psychology, Department of Social Psychology and Methodology, Autonomous University of Madrid

2015 - 2016

MA in Logic and Philosophy of Science, Faculty of Philosophy, University of Salamanca, Spain

I have supervised 2 Masters students (Juan Vizcaíno Lara and Diego Fernando González Tuta) as part of the Master’s Degree in Behavior Analysis (Autonomous University of Madrid).