Chris Letheby - Philosophy of Psychedelics

This excellent, well-argued, book is required reading for anyone with interests in philosophy of mind, philosophy of psychology, and philosophy of psychiatry. It presents the first book-length argument for the effectiveness of psychedelic therapy and provides an account of how this effectiveness may be understood from within cognitive neuroscience. Everyone should read this book!

Richard Brown, Humanities Department, LaGuardia Community College, CUNY & M.S. program in Cognitive Neuroscience at the Graduate Center, CUNY

Philosophy of Psychedelics is really two books in one. It provides an easily understood, scholarly and detailed review of psychedelic science, spanning phenomenology, psychology, neuroscience, and medical therapeutics. But setting this book apart from other recent books in this rapidly emerging field of inquiry, Chris Letheby takes his philosopher's scalpel to addressing intriguing philosophical implications of psychedelic research including the unsettling question of whether the claimed benefits from psychedelic experiences require the induction of delusional beliefs. This very readable volume should be of interest to scientists, philosophers, as well as those simply curious about recent the renaissance in psychedelic science and therapeutics.

Roland R. Griffiths, Ph.D. Director, Center for Psychedelic and Consciousness Research, Professor, Departments of Psychiatry and Neuroscience, Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine

Philosophy of Psychedelics is a terrific, intellectually meticulous study of the nature, meaning, and effects of psychedelic experiences. The discussion ranges over the mind-brain relation, transformative experiences, the ethics of psychedelic therapy, and whether psychedelics help us to see the nature of things as they really are or just produce uplifting and therapeutically positive hallucinations. Chris Letheby is a wise and careful guide to the current state of psychedelic therapy and sets very high standards for philosophers who want to follow him in thinking responsibly about this intriguing area of research.

Owen Flanagan is James B. Duke, Professor of Philosophy at Duke University, and the author of *How to Do Things with Emotions* Princeton 2021.
Philosophy of Psychedelics

INTERNATIONAL PERSPECTIVES IN PHILOSOPHY AND PSYCHIATRY

Series editors

Bill (K.W.M.) Fulford, Lisa Bortolotti, Matthew Broome, Katherine Morris, John Z. Sadler, and Giovanni Stanghellini

Volumes in the series:

Recovery of People with Mental Illness: Philosophical and Related Perspectives

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Values and Psychiatric Diagnosis

Sadler

The Oxford Handbook of Psychiatric Ethics

Sadler, Van Staden, and Fulford

Madness and Modernism: Insanity in the Light of Modern Art, Literature, and Thought

Sass

Disembodied Spirits and Deanimated Bodies: The Psychopathology of Common Sense

Stanghellini

Lost in Dialogue: Anthropology, Psychopathology, and Care

Stanghellini

One Century of Karl Jaspers Psychopathology

Stanghellini and Fuchs

Emotions and Personhood

Stanghellini and Rosfort

Essential Philosophy of Psychiatry

Thornton

The Oxford Handbook of Psychotherapy Ethics

Trachsel (ed.)

Naturalism, Hermeneutics, and Mental Disorder

Varga

The Healing Virtues: Character Ethics in Psychotherapy

Waring

Empirical Ethics in Psychiatry

Widdershoven, McMillan, Hope, and Van der Scheer (eds)

The Sublime Object of Psychiatry: Schizophrenia in Clinical and Cultural Theory

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Alternate Perspectives on Psychiatric Validation: DSM, ICD, RDoC, and Beyond

Zachar, St. Stoyanov, Aragona, and Jablensky (eds)

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DOI: 10.1093/med/9780198843122.001.0001

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My deepest thanks are due to Philip Gerrans, Gerard OBrien, and Jon Opie, without whom this book would not have been written. I am also indebted to Lisa Bortolotti and Thomas Metzinger for timely advice, encouragement, and assistance.

I am extremely grateful to Miri Albahari and Roland Griffiths for their generosity in reading the entire manuscript and providing detailed comments. For reading and commenting on sections of the manuscript, I would like to thank Sam Baron, Sascha Fink, Owen Flanagan, Remco Heesen, Nin Kirkham, Aidan Lyon, Michael Rubin, and Clas Weber. Needless to say, any errors that remain are my responsibility.

Finally, and with apologies to anyone I have forgotten, I would like to thank my stellar editorial team at Oxford University Press: Martin Baum, Janine Fisher, and Charlotte Holloway.

This research was partially supported by the Australian Government through the Australian Research Councils Discovery Projects funding scheme (project DP190101451). The views expressed herein are those of the author and are not necessarily those of the Australian Government or Australian Research Council.

The epigraph at the start of is reproduced from Jane Dunlap, Exploring Inner Space: Personal Experiences under LSD-25, p. 166. Copyright 2003, Harcourt, Brace & World.

The epigraph at the start of Copyright 1978, Springer Nature.