Believing in Doxasticism

• Published in: Philosophy, psychiatry & psychology Vol. 26; no. 2; pp. 125 - 127
• Main Author: Rodrigues, Adriano Carvalho Tupinambá
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Baltimore Johns Hopkins University Press 01.06.2019
• Subjects: Cognition & reasoning; Humanities; Language; Neurosciences; Phenomenology; Philosophy; Psychopathology
• ISSN: 1071-6076; 1086-3303; 1086-3303
• DOI: 10.1353/ppp.2019.0015

According to the author, the paradigm of cognitive neuroscience and its language would be advantageous in numerous ways, including a) providing delusion with a characterization that is really meaningful as opposed to the vacuity of merely stating its belief status; b) making a better bridge between the phenomenology and the neuroscience of delusion; and c) providing an unifying framework for delusion, that is, one that could facilitate overcoming the perceived heterogeneity by means of an account of mechanistic commonalities (Hohwy, 2013). [...]delusions like those of Schreber, and which are the focus of the argument from phenomenology, are argued to be kept on the second book in an inherently dreamlike ineffable form, directly and spontaneously perceived by the subject as departing from the experience of believing and free from empirical intersubjective standards of confirmation. To the first book, portrayed as the domain of empirical beliefs, is perhaps only left the role (although the author is silent in this regard) of providing the patient with an understanding of the shared meaning of his delusional statements and, maybe, a side role in pushing him to attempt fairer descriptions for his experience. [...]while the standard and the alternative double bookkeeping models here presented disagree with regard to the belief status of delusion, empirical data might prove valuable in settling the dispute. Because they contrast most markedly regarding the postulated origins of the ambiguities seen in the statements of patients, portraying them as emerging either from the way delusions are felt by default in the second book or from a cognitive clash between domains with different epistemic priorities, it might be particularly telling to learn a) whether cognitive interventions induce a skew toward figurative language and whether the response is similar in schizophrenia and in delusional disorder; b) whether double bookkeeping delusions are born as such or whether delusions change in this regard as patients have their delusions challenged and as their cognition decline; c) whether any correlation found between cognition and figurative language seems to be a mere cognitive requirement or a causal factor; and d) whether affect and volition play a role in the emergence of figurative language, whether as drive, aversion or indifference toward the examination of cognitive conflicts.