Philosophy, Psychiatry, & Psychology

Philosophy, Psychiatry, & Psychology 7.3 (2000) 203-205

Thought Insertion and Subjectivity

G. Lynn Stephens

In "Self-Consciousness, Mental Agency, and the Clinical Psychopathology of Thought Insertion"(1994), George Graham and I distinguish two questions concerning the provenance of a thought, M:

1) Who is the subject in whose mind or psychological history M occurs?

2) Who is the agent or author of M?

We argue that persons suffering from delusions of thought insertion get question (1) right, but give the wrong answer to question (2). Or, as Paul Gibbs would put it, we think that they commit an "error of agency," but not an "error of subjectivity." Based on this understanding of thought-insertion, we conclude that such delusions are not counterexamples to the Inseparability Thesis.

Gibbs allows that delusions of thought insertion involve errors of agency. He insists, however, that such delusion also involve errors of subjectivity. From which he concludes that delusions of thought insertion are counterexamples to the Inseparability Thesis. I shall argue that, as he understands the notion, errors of subjectivity do not raise problems for our account of thought insertion or for the Inseparability Thesis.

What is the Inseparability Thesis? Certain theories of self-consciousness entail that I might be introspectively aware of some episode in my mental life, a thought or feeling, for example, and yet not be aware that it is an episode in my mental life. According to these accounts, my mere introspective apprehension of a thought, M, represents something distinct from my sense of the subjectivity of M, i.e., my sense that I am the subject in whose psychological history M occurs. Even if introspection and sense of subjectivity usually go together, there is no reason why introspective awareness could not occur separately from sense of subjectivity. The Inseparability Thesis is simply the denial that such a separation is possible. For defenders of this thesis, introspective awareness of M always involves awareness of M's subjectivity.

I shall not here attempt to motivate this thesis, explore its various interpretations or the history of the debate concerning it. Graham and I discuss these issues in Stephens and Graham (2000, chap. 6). I should note that, although we are not aware of any decisive counterexamples to it, we do not endorse the Inseparability Thesis and have no interest in mounting a general defense of it. We undertake to show that delusions of thought insertion are not counterexamples to the thesis only because it's a good way to introduce our account of thought insertion.

Let us suppose that I suffer from a delusion of thought insertion with respect to a particular episode of thinking, M. I am introspectively aware of M, but I insist that M is not my thought, that I do not think M. Rather, I maintain that someone else, call him "Eugene," has inserted M into my mind and the M is Eugene's thought. [End Page 203]

What exactly is the nature of my delusion concerning M? Since I deny that M is my thought and attribute it to Eugene, one might suppose that I am in error about where or in whom M occurs. I fail to recognize that M occurs within the boundaries of my psychological history and mislocate it within Eugene's psychological history. If this is my error, then I am introspectively aware of M but not aware that I am the subject in whom M occurs; in which case, my delusion of thought insertion provides a counterexample to the Inseparability Thesis.

But, if I am supposed to deny that M occurs in me, what are we to make of my claim that Eugene has inserted M into my mind. I seem to be well aware that M occurs in my mind, though I have some strange ideas about how it got there. In Stephens and Graham, "Self-Consciousness, Mental Agency" (1994) and at greater length in When Self-Consciousness Breaks (2000), I and my coauthor argue that the subject's impression that another has invaded her mind by inserting his thoughts into her psychological history represents...