For a criticism to the forensic psychiatric examination

By Saverio Fortunato.

The term methodology  comes from the latin methodus that comes from the greek methodos, a word composed by meta (destination), and after hodos, journey, route. The route that is crossed, the direction toward a destination. For Socrate, the activity that has for purpose a knowledge must concern to the rules like every kind of art; for Aristotele, the method was already an investigation, “art” of the research.

I believe that the forensic examination must accept an examination methodology, that is, a scientific branch concerning the production of a scientific language[1]. This means that the knowledge of the own professional subject is not sufficient for the expert, whether it be psychiatric or clinical criminology expert, but he needs also the competence of the scientific reasoning. This because, firstly, the science is not only a subject of observation, but also a subject of research.

Nevertheless, not all the problems of the research are methodological, but only the rational and the adjustable one.

Some scientists assert that the science is rational because it is not based on the methodology, other assert the contrary. But in the forensic examination field, particularly in the forensic psychiatry and clinical criminology, we must start from the awareness that at the base of the scientific rationality there is always the reasoning.

This because, as it is well-known, the scientific reason is realized by means of the reasoning, that means, by virtue of linguistic properties that justify a choice rather than another.  Therefore we define scientific an expert solution when it is the conclusion of an inference operated through logic procedures, using the empiric evidence in the preamble as necessary condition. In this sense the psychiatry and the neuropsychiatry can’t confuse the diagnosis with the examination.

Granted that the research is applied logic and not pure, we will say that a research (an expert or investigative survey) in the examination field is valid when the interpretation of a topic is valid. A valid topic needs no contradictory preambles but reliable, while the validity concerns the respect of the inferential rules used in the research operations. But here must be obtained that the classic structural criteria, that subdivides the deductive (certain) and inductive logic (uncertain inferences), must be integrated with other pragmatic criteria pertaining at the use of the logic that they must do, according to, they appear and disappear fallacies and paradoxes. In fact, in the opinion of H. Putnam[2], “an assumption can be rationally acceptable but, in the meantime, not true”. Then, in this sense, in the examination field, the inference “the subject is sexually abused” will be true until only one element that has determined the validity of the assertion will not denied. In other words, the inference “all the crows are black”, will be true until, in the research field, we don’t meet a black crow.

We would like to declare that the scientific rationality exclude some possible errors; in this case the point of view of the scientific research is not those to approach to the truth, but to depart as much  as possible from the error. The criteria of the truth is by topics: “True is what is based on a founded argumentation”. What the science can guarantee is the elimination of some (or lots) fallacies, but not the semantic truth of the own results. At the  semantic level, true is what convince us to be the same, but the fact that convince us doesn’t mean that it is true, on the contrary, adopting a popperian layout, we will say that the true is a temporary true, that is until it will not be falsified by another theory.

Then, in the research, the real result clashes with the valid one, but the validity must not be confused with the theoretical relevance.

In the examination the question “how you can assert this?” can be answered listing the preambles that support the conclusion and, if a preamble is denied, the motivation because it has been affirmed must be illustrated, repeating the procedure. From here the importance to make clear the research and of its documentation that makes understand as any result is questionable.

The topic of the research is always complex and this is valid for the social research, barely formalized, inductively weak, rhetorically rich, but all the more reason “in the examination”, where the argumentations used by the expert on duty, are often quite subjective, because are not based on a theoretical or empirical foundation, changing the argumentation in a pure authority or in a real will, where the result of the examination is instead of “qualified technical appraisal” is given even as “irrefutable evidence”.

The scientific reasoning differentiates itself from the other types of reasoning because it is deductive and inductive, bound to the theoretical or empirical evidence. The scientific knowledge is characterized by the empirical tie, the logical rigour, the care and the precision with whom are treated the operations. These are the properties that define it scientific and that differentiate itself from the other human experiences and that the forensic psychiatry, together with the clinical criminology, must to take possession of these in the own epistemological statute.

The assertion that the scientific rationality is not the methodological one, in the sense that it is reducible to itself, is shareable; is not shareable when the assertion excludes the methodological rationality from the scientific one.

This last remains a subset of the first, although it doesn’t coincide with it. A rational conception can set and differently evaluate the methodology in the scientific activity, not to be anti-methodological or pro-methodological. If the science doesn’t be “the” methodology, nevertheless it is its necessary condition.

We distinguish the pure methodology from the applied one. The pure one is carried out before the research, the applied one is realized inside the research. The first one is typical of the methodologist, the second one is typical of the researcher. The task of the methodologist is to build the techniques, the task of the researcher is to apply them, keeping in consideration the situation where he operate and the language that he intends to modify.

The situation where the researcher operates is always particular, while the rules are general. The division and the diversity of the tasks between methodologist and researcher don’t exclude the cooperation and don’t belittle the importance that to make research has for the methodologist. The research must to be part of his professional experiences: the rules are built over the problems and the problems, more than abstractly are met in the research. Then, the methodology, is also a meta-research. The scientific expert then, in order to be able to say to the judge something of something, must act both as methodologist and as researcher, besides being multidisciplinary and interdisciplinary expert, keeping firm that the word “crime” refers to criminologist and then, the forensic psychiatrist must study also the clinic criminology in order to avoid the scientific and judicial error.