Delusions and Other Not Quite Beliefs

Neuroethics

Bortolotti argues that the irrationality of many delusions is no different in kind from the irrationality that marks many non-pathological states typically treated as beliefs. She takes this to secure the doxastic status of those delusions. Bortolotti’s approach has many benefits. For example, it accounts for the fact that we can often make some sense of what deluded subjects are up to, and helps explain why some deluded subjects are helped by cognitive behavioral therapy. But there is an alternative approach that secures the same benefits as Bortolotti’s account while bringing additional benefits. The alternative approach treats both many delusions and many of the non-pathological states to which Bortolotti compares them as in-between states. Subjects in in-between states don’t fully believe the beliefs which it is sometimes convenient to ascribe to them. This alternative approach to belief and belief-ascription fits well with an independently attractive account of the varied purposes of our ordinary attitude ascriptions. It also makes it easier to make fine-grained distinctions between intentional attitudes of different kinds.

Neuroethics, 2012

In Delusions and Other Irrational Beliefs, Lisa Bortolotti argues that the irrationality of delusions is no barrier to their being classified as beliefs. This comment asks how Bortolotti's position may be affected if we accept that there are two distinct types of belief, belonging to different levels of mentality and subject to different ascriptive constraints. It addresses some worries Bortolotti has expressed about the proposed two-level framework and outlines some questions that arise for her if the framework is adopted. It also suggests that, rather than being beliefs that fail to meet the relevant standards of rationality, delusions may be non-doxastic acceptances that were never meant to meet them.

2009

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 allow us to classify delusions as beliefs, this allowance isn't a robust vindication of doxasticism. The significance of the allowance can be increased by emphasizing the role of folk-psychological norms in individuating propositional attitudes. But letting those norms play a large role in the individuation of belief makes it hard to count as believers the deluded subjects who violate most such norms. Dispositionalism about belief can't defend doxasticism about delusion.

Mind and Language, 2011

The imperviousness of delusions to counter-evidence makes it tempting to classify them as imaginings. Bayne and Pacherie argue that adopting a dispositional account of belief can secure the doxastic status of delusions. But dispositionalism can only secure genuinely doxastic status for mental states by giving folk-psychological norms a significant role in the individuation of attitudes. When such norms individuate belief, deluded subjects will not count as believing their delusions. In general, dispositionalism won't confer genuinely doxastic status more often than do competing accounts of belief.

There is extensive debate about whether delusions are best considered beliefs. This debate is seldom addressed by clinicians though it bears on how delusions are conceived, managed and treated. Little empirical work exists to address this issue. This study explored whether individuals with first hand experiences of delusions spoke about those ideas in ways that were consistent with their being beliefs. Seventeen individuals identified as experiencing, or having experienced, delusions were recruited for a semi-structured interview. Responses to the interview were read and coded by two raters in terms of criteria relevant to whether a mental state is a belief. The majority of delusions examined here were spoken about as though they were beliefs. Most participants believed other things that were consistent with the delusions, attempted to defend their delusions with evidence, had frequently acted on their delusions and provided reasons for holding them. However, there was some varia- tion in the extent to which this was the case. This study provides tentative support for the claim that some delusions are beliefs.

Asian Journal of Philosophy

The central hypothesis of this book, Delusions and Beliefs: A Philosophical Inquiry (Routledge, 2019), is that delusions are malfunctional beliefs (Chapter 1); they belong to the category of belief (Chapter 2) but, unlike mundane false or irrational beliefs, they fail to perform some functions of belief (Chapter 3). More precisely, delusions directly or indirectly involve some malfunctioning cognitive mechanisms, which is empirically supported by the two-factor account of delusion formation (Chapter 4).

Delusions in Context, 2018

The difficulty of distinguishing between delusions and nonpathological beliefs has taxed some of the greatest minds in psychiatry. This chapter argues that this question cannot be resolved without first having an understanding of what is involved in holding an ordinary belief. Although we should not assume that ordinary-language words such as 'belief' will correspond with a specific psychological mechanism or process, sufficient evidence is available from diverse areas of psychology to reach some conclusions about what happens when someone 'believes' something. Beliefs are propositions about the world that are generated dynamically, often during interactions with other people, and therefore depend on the human capacity for language. Although many beliefs are mundane, it is possible to identify a class of master interpretive systems that includes political ideologies and religious belief systems, which are highly resistant to challenge and capable of generating considerable emotion. These systems seem to depend not only on the ability to generate propositions about the world but also on implicit cognitive processes that are related to fundamental biological and social needs, for example the need to avoid contagion, the need to form close intimate relationships or

2009

Synopsis available for download! CONTENTS Synopsis 1: The Background 2: Procedural Rationality and Belief Ascription 3: Epistemic Rationality and Belief Ascription 4: Agential Rationality and Belief Ascription 5: Beliefs and Self Knowledge 6: Conclusions Bibliography and Reference List For reviews and other information about the book, go to: http://sites.google.com/site/lisabortolottiphilosophy/books/delusions

There is continuing debate about the nature of delusions and whether they are properly described as beliefs. This chapter argues that in order to make progress on this issue we need to adopt a more complex taxonomy of psychological states and processes, building on recent work in philosophy of psychology and cognitive science. I distinguish two levels of belief, and argue that delusions, if they are beliefs at all, belong to the second of them. I go on to offer an account of second-level belief according to which it is a species of a broader mental type, sometimes called ‘acceptance’, which is dependent on attitudes at the first level. I then propose that delusions are acceptances, some of which fall within, and some without, the narrower class of second-level beliefs. I argue that this view explains our competing intuitions about delusions and that it has important implications for understanding deluded patients.