Delusions as Doxastic States: Contexts, Compartments and Commitments


Συγγραφέας: Tim Bayne


Tim Bayne: Delusions as Doxastic States: Contexts, Compartments and Commitments (pdf, 12 pages)
Although delusions are typically regarded as beliefs of a certain kind, there have been worries about the doxastic conception of delusions since at least Bleuler’s time. ‘Antidoxasticists,’ as we might call them, do not merely worry about the claim that delusions are beliefs, they reject it. Reimer’s paper weighs into the debate between ‘doxasticists’ and ‘anti-doxasticists’ by suggesting that one of the main arguments given against the doxastic conception of delusions—what we might call the functional role objection—is based on a fallacy. She also draws attention to certain parallels between delusions and what she calls “nihilistic philosophical doctrines,” such as the skeptical position that we have no knowledge. I read Reimer as presenting the anti-doxasticist with a dilemma: they must either adopt an anti-doxastic treatment of philosophical nihilism or they must identify a crucial respect in which nihilistic states differ from delusional states. As she puts it, “If we are to withhold the label ‘belief’ from psychiatric delusions, . . . parity of reason requires that we withhold it from seemingly sincere endorsements of [standard] philosophical doctrines” (2010, xx). Although Reimer herself stops short of endorsing the doxastic conception of delusions, she is clearly very sympathetic to it.