Posted by alexandra_k on December 20, 2004, at 13:19:04
In reply to Re: 1.2, posted by smokeymadison on December 20, 2004, at 2:14:27
> so are you basically proposing that it takes a trigger as well as a "vulnerable" indidual to create a delusion?
Ok well, I haven't got to what I'm proposing yet. Maher and Davies et al are both bottom-up theorists in the sense that they maintain that anomalous experience is necessary for delusion. (I briefly consider a rationalist objection to the empiricist framework later, but for the most part I just accept the empiricist framework).
What Maher and Davies et al disagree about, however, is whether an anomalous experience alone is enough to produce (and hence to explain) delusion. Maher thinks that an anomalous experience alone sufficient (thats why hes a one factor theorist) and so the delusional subject adopts a normal rationalising strategy for their experience and comes up with a delusion.
Davies et al. consider that no matter what Maher thinks DELUSIONS ARE NOT NORMAL RESPONSES TO ANY KIND OF EXPERIENCE. They think that not only do delusional subjects have an anomalous experience, they also have a cognitive (reasoning) deficit or bias (hence two factor theorists).
Most theorists consider that delusions are 'irrational' (so there is a second facotor - a faulty cognition). The trouble with this is that if they are indeed irrational, then how are we supposed to come up with a rational explanation for them? Jaspers thought that delusions proper are ununderstandable in the sense that we can only explain them with recourse to a neurological disease process. But a neurological explanation isn't good enough for me. I want a fairly much common sense (intentional) explanation. This is just what Jaspers thinks we can't have. I reckon he is just giving up. He should have tried harder.
I guess the 'trigger' would be the anomalous experience. The 'vulnerable individual' would be pre-existing cognitive deficit. (Though, to be fair it is unclear whether the cognitive deficit is supposed to be pre-existing or not..) I am not sure that those terms map very well onto 'anomalous experience' and 'cognitive deficit'. Though if the cognitive deficit is preexisting then I suppose that would work.
(P.S. I want a one-factor model myself, I like Maher's line).
> but i don't see the importance of focusing on utterances. i mean, they can be false, in that they do not reflect what one is thinking. sometimes people say things knowing that they really don't believe what they say. again, i am getting back to the fragmentation of the mind in that some small part knows that the delusion is a delusion, challenging the DSM's criteria, of course. i think that treatment would not be an option if somewhere the person did not know the delusion was a false belief. meds can't totally rewire the brain. it makes more sense to believe that they work by bringing the part that knows the truth to the forefront.The trouble is that we cannot access anothers beliefs directly. The only thing that we have to go on in making a diagnosis is the behaviour (especially the verbal behaviour) of subjects. That is a reality about diagnosis, so it is something I have gone with. Another point is that it is a matter of controversy whether delusions are appropriately classified as beliefs (this is something I touch on a bit later). I don't want to presuppose that, because I do think it is a genuine problem. Delusions don't seem to quite be beliefs.... Gregory Currie has suggested that they are 'imaginings misidentified as beliefs' (by the delusional subject) but that proposal has problems too...
Cognitive therapy for delusions requires them to be based on faulty cognitions. But maybe this is as wrong as cognitive therapies insistance that faulty thinking causes extreme / intense emotional states. Maybe they have it backwards. Some people with delusions appreciate that their 'belief' will sound implausible to others. Some seem to express confusion (at times) about just what it is they 'believe'. I like what you are saying, actually. Someone I know is currently working on different mental modules becoming isolated so that one module can believe that p and another can believe that not p at the same time. The subject could kind of waver between them... Sometimes there is good motivation for just accepting cognitive dissonance (sorting it out could take up a heck of a lot of cognitive resources which are needed for alternative projects that have more to do with survival)...
Thats why philosophers are interested in this. Delusions have much to show us about the nature of belief. It is thought that an adequate model of the belief formation processes of normal subjects should be able to explain delusions by the positing of a breakdown in this model (though I guess that presupposes that they are beliefs). And rationality / irrationality (and whether that might have a structure so that there could be a localised failure rather than a global breakdown) has long been of interest to philosophers too...
poster:alexandra_k
thread:431950
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/write/20041210/msgs/432062.html