The epistemic innocence of clinical memory distortions
Mind and Language 33 (3):263-279 (2018)
Abstract
In some neuropsychological disorders memory distortions seemingly fill gaps in people’s knowledge about their past, where people’s self-image, history, and prospects are often enhanced. False beliefs about the past compromise both people’s capacity to construct a reliable autobiography and their trustworthiness as communicators. However, such beliefs contribute to people’s sense of competence and self-confidence, increasing psychological wellbeing. Here we consider both psychological benefits and epistemic costs, and argue that distorting the past is likely to also have epistemic benefits that cannot be obtained otherwise, such as enabling people to exchange information, receive feedback, and retain key beliefs about themselves.Author Profiles
DOI
10.1111/mila.12175
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Citations of this work
Confabulating as Unreliable Imagining: In Defence of the Simulationist Account of Unsuccessful Remembering.Kourken Michaelian - 2020 - Topoi 39 (1):133-148.
Stranger than Fiction: Costs and Benefits of Everyday Confabulation.Lisa Bortolotti - 2018 - Review of Philosophy and Psychology 9 (2):227-249.
Monothematic delusion: A case of innocence from experience.Ema Sullivan-Bissett - 2018 - Philosophical Psychology 31 (6):920-947.
References found in this work
The Constitution of Selves.Christopher Williams & Marya Schechtman - 1998 - Philosophical Review 107 (4):641.
The evolution of misbelief.Ryan McKay & Daniel Dennett - 2009 - Behavioral and Brain Sciences 32 (6):493.
The Epistemic Innocence of Motivated Delusions.Lisa Bortolotti - 2015 - Consciousness and Cognition (33):490-499.
Epistemic Benefits of Elaborated and Systematized Delusions in Schizophrenia.Lisa Bortolotti - 2016 - British Journal for the Philosophy of Science 67 (3):879-900.
Implicit bias, confabulation, and epistemic innocence.Ema Sullivan-Bissett - 2014 - Consciousness and Cognition 33:548-560.