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- Lisa Bortolotti (2009). Delusions and Other Irrational Beliefs. Oxford University Press.This is a monograph which contributes to the debate on the nature of delusions and to the literature on the conditions for belief ascription. There are numerous challenges to the view that delusions are beliefs, and many of these are due to the conviction that there needs to be a background of rationality in the behaviour of the people we ascribe beliefs to: delusions cannot be beliefs because (a) they are badly integrated with the subject’s other intentional states; (b) they are not supported by and responsive to the evidence available to the subject; (c) they are not consistently acted upon. Here I attempt to show that the arguments against the doxastic conception of delusions are misleading when they are based on an idealised notion of belief, and I present many examples of irrationality in paradigmatic cases of belief. As a result, I maintain that we should give up (once and for all) the assumption that belief ascription is hostage to the satisfaction of norms of rationality. By bringing together recent work in philosophy of mind, cognitive psychology and psychiatry, the book offers a comprehensive review of the philosophical issues raised by the psychology of normal and abnormal cognition, defends the doxastic conception of delusions, and develops a theory about the role of judgements of rationality and self-knowledge in belief ascription.In my reading list | Discuss this book | Edit | Categorize |My bibliography
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I argue that some cases of delusions show the inadequacy of those theories of interpretation that rely on a necessary rationality constraint on belief ascription. In particular I challenge the view that irrational beliefs can be ascribed only against a general background of rationality. Subjects affected by delusions seem to be genuine believers and their behaviour can be successfully explained in intentional terms, but they do not meet those criteria that according to Davidson (1985a) need to be met for the (...)
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| Discuss this article | Edit | Categorize | My bibliography | Export citation | Other links: philosophy.bham.ac.uk law.manchester.ac.uk blackwell-synergy.com ingentaconnect.com | Scholar | More..
| | Other links: philosophy.bham.ac.uk law.manchester.ac.uk blackwell-synergy.com ingentaconnect.com | Scholar | More.. In this paper we defend the doxastic conception of delusions against the metacognitive account developed by Greg Currie and collaborators. According to the metacognitive model, delusions are imaginings that are misidentified by their subjects as beliefs: the Capgras patient, for instance, does not believe that his wife has been replaced by a robot, instead, he merely imagines that she has, and mistakes this imagining for a belief. We argue that the metacognitive account is untenable, and that the traditional conception of (...)
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| Discuss this article | Edit | Categorize | My bibliography | Export citation | Other links: philosophy.ox.ac.uk blackwell-synergy.com | Scholar | More..
| | Other links: philosophy.ox.ac.uk blackwell-synergy.com | Scholar | More.. Philosophers have been long interested in delusional beliefs and in whether, by reporting and endorsing such beliefs, deluded subjects violate norms of rationality (Campbell 1999; Davies & Coltheart 2002; Gerrans 2001; Stone & Young 1997; Broome 2004; Bortolotti 2005). So far they have focused on identifying the relation between intentionality and rationality in order to gain a better understanding of both ordinary and delusional beliefs. In this paper Matthew Broome and I aim at drawing attention to the extent to which (...)
Although well-documented, delusions have proved extremely hard to explain, and many important questions remain open, including the basic one of what kind of mental state a delusion is. The standard position is that delusions are beliefs (the doxastic conception); but there are difficulties for this view, and alternative characterizations have been offered. In this chapter I shall propose a new framework for conceptualizing delusions, building on recent work in philosophy of psychology and cognitive science. There are good reasons for thinking (...)
Delusions are explanations of anomalous experiences. A theory of delusion requires an explanation of both the anomalous experience _and _the apparently irrational explanation generated by the delusional subject. Hence, we require a model of rational belief formation against which the belief formation of delusional subjects can be evaluated. _Method. _I first describe such a model, distinguishing procedural from pragmatic rationality. Procedural rationality is the use of rules or procedures, deductive or inductive, that produce an inferentially coherent set of propositions. Pragmatic (...)
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| Discuss this article | Edit | Categorize | My bibliography | Export citation | Other links: adelaide.edu.au arts.adelaide.edu.au ncbi.nlm.nih.gov taylorandfrancis.metapress.com informaworld.com ingentaconnect.com | Scholar | More..
| | Other links: adelaide.edu.au arts.adelaide.edu.au ncbi.nlm.nih.gov taylorandfrancis.metapress.com informaworld.com ingentaconnect.com | Scholar | More.. It is often taken for granted in standard theories of interpretation that there cannot be intentionality without rationality. According to the background argument, a system can be interpreted as having irrational beliefs only against a general background of rationality. Starting from the widespread assumption that delusions can be reasonably described as irrational beliefs, I argue here that the background argument fails to account for their intentional description.
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| | Other links: philosophy.bham.ac.uk blackwell-synergy.com ingentaconnect.com | Scholar | More.. We provide a battery of examples of delusions against which theoretical accounts can be tested. Then, we identify neuropsychological anomalies that could produce the unusual experiences that may lead, in turn, to the delusions in our battery. However, we argue against Maher’s view that delusions are false beliefs that arise as normal responses to anomalous experiences. We propose, instead, that a second factor is required to account for the transition from unusual experience to delusional belief. The second factor in the (...)
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| Discuss this article | Edit | Categorize | My bibliography | Export citation | Other links: muse.jhu.edu | Scholar | More..
| | Other links: muse.jhu.edu | Scholar | More.. In some ways, someone suffering from the delusion that his or her spouse has been kidnapped and replaced with an imposter appears to believe that he or she eats dinner with an imposter every night. But the imperviousness of delusions to counter-evidence makes it hard to classify them as beliefs, and easier to classify them as imaginings. Bayne and Pacherie want to use Schwitzgebel’s dispositional account of belief to restore confidence in the doxastic character of delusion. While dispositionalism appears to (...)
Some otherwise rational people appear to believe strange things. Sometimes people believe that someone, usually a near relative or member of their family - often their spouse - has been replaced by an impostor. Sometimes people believe that they are dead. These two delusions – known as the Capgras and Cotard delusion respectively – are instances of monothematic delusions, for they are limited to very specific topics. Other monothematic delusions involve the delusion that one is being followed by known people (...)
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| Discuss this article | Edit | Categorize | My bibliography | Export citation | Other links: hal.ccsd.cnrs.fr jeannicod.ccsd.cnrs.fr hal.archives-ouvertes.fr philosophy.ox.ac.uk muse.jhu.edu | Scholar | More..
| | Other links: hal.ccsd.cnrs.fr jeannicod.ccsd.cnrs.fr hal.archives-ouvertes.fr philosophy.ox.ac.uk muse.jhu.edu | Scholar | More.. Some monothematic types of delusions may arise because subjects have unusual experiences. The role of this experiential component in the pathogenesis of delusion is still not understood. Focussing on delusions of alien control, we outline a model for reality testing competence on unusual experiences. We propose that nascent delusions arise when there are local failures of reality testing performance, and that monothematic delusions arise as normal responses to these. In the course of this we address questions concerning the tenacity with (...)
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| Discuss this article | Edit | Categorize | My bibliography | Export citation | Other links: blackwell-synergy.com interscience.wiley.com ingentaconnect.com | Scholar | More..
| | Other links: blackwell-synergy.com interscience.wiley.com ingentaconnect.com | Scholar | More.. 
