Posted by alexandra_k on August 17, 2005, at 23:07:26
In reply to The Second Factor in the Explanation of Delusion, posted by alexandra_k on August 17, 2005, at 23:04:37
At this point I wish to take something of a detour into having a look at the notion of rationality, and into how much we can expect to be able to understand delusion if it is in fact an irrational phenomenon. Delusions have long been taken to be a paradigmatic example of irrationality. If delusions are in fact irrational then it might be the case that they will resist our attempts to explain them. Karl Jaspers was an early psychiatrist / philosopher who considered that primary delusions, or delusions proper are ununderstandable in the sense that they cannot be explained by recourse to the subjects prior perceptions, experiences, and beliefs. Jaspers considers that while such delusions may possibly be given a neurological explanation which appeals to some underlying brain pathology he thought that primary delusions are ununderstandable from the intentional level.
John Campbell is similarly led to the conclusion that we cannot offer an intentional explanation of delusion. He maintains that ‘a finding of irrationality can always be traded for a finding of mis-translation’. Along the lines of Quine, he considers that we are required to make use of the principle of charity in intentional state attributions so we must always radically translate so as to make the subject out to be rational by their use of the term. He concludes that there is no content that we can attribute to delusional utterances that makes the subject out to be rational, and thus delusions don’t seem to be contentful states. They thus seem to be beyond the reach of intentional explanation.
It is an important point that while some delusional subjects, typically subjects with schizophrenia seem to have become enmeshed in their own solipsistic world coming up with a new delusion in response to almost every question that is put to them - this is not always the case. Some people have a mono-thematic delusions like the Cotard delusion. Mono-thematic delusions are based on a single theme and aside from that delusion the person seems to exhibit beliefs and behaviors that are comparable to normal subjects. The significance of this is that in the cases of monothematic delusions at least it would clearly be inadequate to posit a complete breakdown or failure of rationality. The delusional subject seems to have comparable rationality to normal subjects in other contexts. It seems that if we do need to add a second factor to anomalous experience in order to explain delusion then we need to specify a more limited breakdown or deficit than a complete breakdown in rationality.
To try and get into the spirit of the problem of irrationality it is worth looking at the American Psychiatric Association’s definition of delusion. The APA maintains that delusions are ‘radically false beliefs based on incorrect inference about external reality that are firmly sustained despite what everyone else believes and despite incontrovertible and obvious proof or evidence to the contrary’. It would seem to flow rather naturally from this definition to consider that the delusional subject is making a false claim about their no longer being biologically alive. This has historically been the main interpretation of the claim that the subject is attempting to express with their delusional utterance.
Clinicians attempted to provide evidence against the subject’s claim that they were dead by drawing their attention to such facts as the subject being able to walk around, being able to feel their heart beat, and feeling bodily urges such as the need to go to the bathroom. That the subject did not seem to take such biological signs of life as evidence against their delusional belief was itself taken as evidence for the irrationality of the delusional subject. It seems to have been the result of observations such as these that the APA has been led to conclude that delusions are held ‘despite incontrovertible and obvious proof or evidence to the contrary’. It was thus thought to be pointless to attempt to argue a delusional subject out of their delusion.
What doesn’t seem to have been noted is that beliefs such as ‘I can feel my heart beating’ and ‘I can still walk around’ do not seem to straightforwardly contradict the belief ‘I am biologically dead’. To extract a contradiction from these beliefs we need to add further beliefs and make them explicit.
Lets look at the logic of this:
P1) I can feel my heart beating
P2) I can still walk around
P3) I feel bodily urges such as the need to go to the bathroom
________________________________________
C1) I exhibit biological signs of lifeP4) Anything that exhibits biological signs of life cannot be biologically dead
I am (biologically) deadIf the delusional subject believes that they exhibit biological signs of life and that anything that exhibits biological signs of life cannot be dead and that they are biologically dead all at the same time then this would seem to result in the subject endorsing contradictory beliefs. I am not sure that these steps have been brought to the delusional subjects attention to see whether they are prepared to endorse these beliefs or not. Rather, their endorsement of Premises 1-3 has been taken to be sufficient evidence of their irrationality in believing a contradiction.
poster:alexandra_k
thread:543149
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/write/20050807/msgs/543257.html