Maximiliano Zeller

About

I am a philosopher based at the Instituto de Filosofía “Dr. Alejandro Korn”, Universidad de Buenos Aires. My research focuses on the philosophy of psychiatry, with particular attention to the epistemology and ethics of psychiatric classification and psychedelic-assisted therapy. I work on the validity of diagnostic categories, epistemic injustice in psychiatric discourse, the normative conditions of clinical encounters, and the philosophical presuppositions embedded in psychiatric research design. My recent work examines how evidential standards and institutional frameworks structure what counts as clinically relevant knowledge, and how this applies both to mainstream psychiatric practice and to emerging therapeutic interventions. A current strand of this research, at the intersection with the philosophy of artificial intelligence, concerns the epistemology and ethics of algorithmic prediction of psychiatric diagnoses: how statistical models inherit the validity of the categories they are trained on, and when a possibly mistaken prediction may warrant acting in the clinical encounter.

I received my PhD from the Universidad de Buenos Aires in 2024, with a dissertation on psychedelic therapies between the biomedical model and the horizons of a new psychiatry, supervised by Diana Pérez. My work has appeared in Philosophy, Psychiatry, & Psychology and Philosophical Psychology. I am coordinator of the MIND Foundation reading group on philosophy of psychedelics in Buenos Aires, and director of the philosophy of psychedelics research group at SADAF.

Research

• Philosophy of psychiatric nosology: validity, naturalism, and diagnostic reform
• Ethics and epistemology of algorithmic prediction and statistical evidence in psychiatric diagnosis
• Epistemology and ethics of psychiatric practice, including diagnostic classification, clinical evidence, and therapeutic frameworks
• Epistemic injustice, reification, and the normative structure of psychiatric discourse
• Philosophy and ethics of psychedelic-assisted therapy
• Philosophy of emerging technologies, including artificial intelligence and transhumanism

Selected Publications

1. Zeller, M. (2026). Do psychiatric disorders need types? Case identity, naturalism, and the limits of biological grounding. Philosophy, Psychiatry, & Psychology. https://doi.org/10.1353/ppp.0.a988777  [PDF](With commissioned commentaries by Steven Hyman and Peter Zachar; author response forthcoming)
2. Zeller, M. (2026). Transient Epistemic Vulnerability and Normative Capture: Toward an Ethics of Contextual Conditions in Psychedelic-Assisted Psychotherapy. Philosophical Psychology. https://doi.org/10.1080/09515089.2026.2678957  [PDF]
3. Zeller, M. (in press). Bounded reform in psychiatric classification: a textual analysis of the APA’s Future DSM Strategy. Philosophy, Psychiatry, & Psychology.
4. Zeller, M. (in press). Between liberation and legitimation: why neurodiversity needs diagnosis while resisting disorder. Azimuth. Philosophical Coordinates in Modern and Contemporary Age.
5. Zeller, M. (2025). Psychedelic therapies and belief change: are there risks of epistemic harm or epistemic injustice? Philosophical Psychology, 1–32. https://doi.org/10.1080/09515089.2024.2362284  [PDF]

Manuscripts Under Review

1. Tracking Without Warrant: Statistical Evidence and Algorithmic Prediction in Psychiatry. Under review at Philosophy & Technology.
2. When Measurement Constitutes Its Object: The Specific/Non-specific Distinction as a Context-Dependent Epistemic Instrument in Psychiatric Therapeutics. Under review at European Journal for Philosophy of Science.
3. Clinical Utility and Its Institutional Endogeneity: Additive and Conflictual Plurality in Psychiatric Nosology. Under review at Philosophy of Medicine.
4. The Epistemic Floor: Institutional Conditions for Genuine Inclusion in Psychiatric Classification. Under review at Episteme.
5. Reification as a Condition of Possibility: Why Diagnostic Categories Structurally Generate Therapeutic Hype Cycles in Psychiatry. Under review at Neuroethics.

Selected Conference Presentations

1. Forthcoming, “Inherited Assumptions: A Philosophical Audit of the Psychiatric Presuppositions Embedded in Psychedelic-Assisted Therapy Research” 18th International Conference on Philosophy, Psychiatry and Psychology (INPP), Netherlands, October 2026.
2. “Transient epistemic vulnerability and normative capture: toward an ethics of contextual conditions in psychedelic-assisted psychotherapy” International Interdisciplinary Conference of Psychedelic Studies (IICPS), University of Bucharest, Romania, May 2026.
3. “Psychedelic Therapies and Belief Change: Epistemic Harm, Epistemic Injustice, and the Case for Epistemic Pluralism” UniMIND Central Sessions, MIND Foundation, March 2025.

Public Engagement