In this paper, I will argue for two interrelated theses. First, if we take phenomenological psychopathology seriously, and want to understand what it is like to undergo various psychopathological experiences, we cannot treat madpeople’s testimony as mere data for sane clinicians, philosophers, and other scholars to analyze and interpret. Madpeople must be involved with analysis an interpretation too. Second, sane clinicians and scholars must open their minds to the possibility that there may be experiences that other people have, which they (...) nevertheless cannot conceive of. I look at influential texts in which philosophers attempt to analyze and understand depersonalization and thought insertion. They go astray because they keep using their own powers of conceivability as a guide to what is or is not humanly possible to experience. Several experiences labeled inconceivable and therefore impossible by these philosophers, are experiences I have had myself. Philosophers and others would be less likely to make this mistake if they would converse and collaborate more with the madpeople concerned. When this is not feasible, they should nevertheless strive to keep an open mind. Fantastical fiction may have a role to play here, by showing how bizarre experiences may nevertheless be prima facie conceivable. (shrink)

Subjects experiencing thought insertion disown thoughts they are introspectively aware of. According to what I call “the rationality hypothesis”, thought-insertion reports are not merely intelligible, but also express, or potentially express, fully rational judgments in the light of highly disruptive experience. I argue that the hypothesis is ethically and theoretically motivated, and provides two insights into the philosophical significance of reports by subjects with schizophrenia. First, the reports can be seen as evidence that rational judgments of ownership of a thought (...) prioritize agency awareness over introspective awareness of it. This point fits with an integrative account of thought insertion at the personal and mechanistic levels. Second, rational and competent uses of the first person purely based on introspection do not necessarily involve a full-fledged first-person perspective over one’s thoughts. This suggests that agency awareness, and not introspection as such, is primarily involved in determining the reference of the first person featuring in the judgments. (shrink)

There are a number of conflicting accounts of thought insertion, the delusion that the thoughts of another are inserted into one’s own mind. These accounts share the common assumption of _realism_: that the subject of thought insertion has a thought corresponding to the description of her thought insertion episode. I challenge the assumption by arguing for an anti-realist treatment of first-person reports of thought insertion. I then offer an alternative account, _simulationism_, according to which sufferers merely simulate having a thought (...) inserted into their heads. By rejecting realism, the paper undermines a widespread explanatory framework that unites otherwise competing cognitive models of thought insertion. (shrink)

Various psychopathologies of self-awareness, such as somatoparaphrenia and thought insertion in schizophrenia, might seem to threaten the viability of the higher-order thought (HOT) theory of consciousness since it requires a HOT about one’s own mental state to accompany every conscious state. The HOT theory of consciousness says that what makes a mental state a conscious mental state is that there is a HOT to the effect that “I am in mental state M.” I have argued in previous work that a (...) HOT theorist can adequately respond to this concern with respect to somatoparaphrenia and thought insertion. There is also Cotard syndrome which is a rare neuropsychiatric disorder in which people hold the delusional belief that they are dead, do not exist, or have lost their blood or internal organs. In this paper, I argue that HOT theory has nothing to fear from it either and can consistently account for what happens in such unusual cases. I analyze Cotard syndrome in light of my previous discussion of somatoparaphrenia and thought insertion, and argue that HOT theory can provide a somewhat analogous account without the worry of inconsistency. It is crucial to recognize that there are multiple “self-concepts” and levels of HOTs which can help to provide a more nuanced explanation. With regard to the connection between consciousness and self-consciousness, it is proposed that Cotard patients are indeed capable of having some “I-thoughts” about their bodies and mental states. (shrink)

Subjects have various ways of thinking about themselves. Here are three examples: a subject can think of herself under an appropriate description (the hiker), d.

In recent years, the scientific study of meditation and psychedelic drugs has seen remarkable developments. The increased focus on meditation in cognitive neuroscience has led to a cross-cultural classification of standard meditation styles validated by functional and structural neuroanatomical data. Meanwhile, the renaissance of psychedelic research has shed light on the neurophysiology of altered states of consciousness induced by classical psychedelics, such as psilocybin and LSD, whose effects are mainly mediated by agonism of serotonin receptors. Few attempts have been made (...) at bridging these two domains of inquiry, despite intriguing evidence of overlap between the phenomenology and neurophysiology of meditation practice and psychedelic states. In particular, many contemplative traditions explicitly aim at dissolving the sense of self by eliciting altered states of consciousness through meditation, while classical psychedelics are known to produce significant disruptions of self-consciousness, a phenomenon known as drug-induced ego dissolution. In this article, we discuss available evidence regarding convergences and differences between phenomenological and neurophysiological data on meditation practice and psychedelic drug-induced states, with a particular emphasis on alterations of self-experience. While both meditation and psychedelics may disrupt self-consciousness and underlying neural processes, we emphasize that neither meditation nor psychedelic states can be conceived as simple, uniform categories. Moreover, we suggest that there are important phenomenological differences even between conscious states described as experiences of self-loss. As a result, we propose that self-consciousness may be best construed as a multidimensional construct, and that “self-loss,” far from being an unequivocal phenomenon, can take several forms. Indeed, various aspects of self-consciousness, including narrative aspects linked to autobiographical memory, self-related thoughts and mental time travel, and embodied aspects rooted in multisensory processes, may be differently affected by psychedelics and meditation practices. Finally, we consider long-term outcomes of experiences of self-loss induced by meditation and psychedelics on individual traits and prosocial behavior. We call for caution regarding the problematic conflation of temporary states of self-loss with “selflessness” as a behavioral or social trait, although there is preliminary evidence that correlations between short-term experiences of self-loss and long-term trait alterations may exist. (shrink)

In both cognitive science and philosophy, many theorists have recently appealed to a predictive processing framework to offer explanations of why certain individuals form delusional beliefs. One aim of this essay will be to illustrate how one could plausibly develop a predictive processing account in different ways to account for the onset of different kinds of delusions. However, the second aim of this essay will be to discuss two significant limitations of the predictive processing framework. First, I shall draw on (...) the structure of explanatory why-questions to argue that predictive processing theories can only partially explain the formation of delusional beliefs. Second, I shall argue that predictive processing theories cannot explain how implausible delusional hypotheses are generated. Yet understanding why an agent even generates a delusional hypothesis is a crucial step to understanding why she eventually comes to believe it. The final section of the essay presents three alternative ways the process of hypothesis generation might be functionally divergent in cases of delusional cognition. (shrink)

Philosophy is witnessing an “Agential Turn,” characterised by the thought that explaining certain distinctive features of human mentality requires conceiving of many mental phenomena as acts, and of subjects as their agents. We raise a challenge for three central explanatory appeals to mental agency––agentialism about doxastic responsibility, agentialism about doxastic self‐knowledge, and an agentialist explanation of the delusion of thought insertion: agentialists either commit themselves to implausibly strong claims about the kind of agency involved in the relevant phenomena, or make (...) appeals to agency which seem explanatorily redundant. The agentialist literature does not contain a clear answer to this Agentialist Dilemma, and we put it forward here as a core challenge for the Agential Turn. But we also accept the fundamental motivation behind the Agential Turn, its critique and rejection of a purely passivist and spectatorial conception of the human mind. We close by urging the recognition of a broader category of rational subjectivity, a category which includes states which are neither active nor passive, but nevertheless form part of a subject's rational point of view on the world. (shrink)

This thesis is set out as a collection of self-standing essays. Throughout these essays, I try to illuminate a number of controversies surrounding the way in which delusions are formed, and relatedly, their nature and epistemic standing. In Chapter 2, after an introductory chapter, I flesh out a new ‘endorsement’ approach to the Capgras delusion, the main idea being that the delusion is formed by endorsing the content of a metaphorical-perceptual state in which a loved one is represented metaphorically as (...) an imposter. In Chapter 3, I take issue with the idea, prevalent in the literature, that Bayesian accounts of inference in delusions are best characterised as versions of ‘explanationism’. Taking one such influential account as a test case, I argue that it is no more or less compatible with the endorsement alternative, which says delusions are acquired non-inferentially from experience. In Chapter 4, I examine a recent critique of predictive processing theories of delusions, according to which such theories suffer two limitations: they fail to explain why an agent believes something delusional as opposed to nothing at all or something else; they fail to explain how delusional hypotheses are generated in the first place. I suggest ways in which these concerns might be addressed. In Chapter 5, I consider how the Spinozan theory of belief fixation can improve the prospects of doxasticism about delusions. Doxasticism has been criticised on the grounds that delusions typically do not abide by rational standards which we expect beliefs to conform to. If belief fixation is Spinozan, I argue, these deviations from rationality are not just compatible with, but supportive of, their status as beliefs. In Chapter 6, I ask whether misidentification delusions formed via endorsement processes have any measure of perceptual justification. To give the best chance of getting a ‘yes’ answer, I address the question from the perspective of perceptual dogmatism, as this appears the best option if we are to grant at least defeasible justifiedness to MDs. I argue that, even so, MDs are completely unjustified. (shrink)

Thought insertion is a condition characterized by the impression that one's thoughts are not one’s own and have been inserted by others. Some have explained the condition as resulting, in part, from impaired or defective self-knowledge, or knowledge of one’s mental states. I argue that such models do not shed light on the most puzzling feature of thought insertion: the patient’s experience that an introspected thought does not feel like her own. After examining ways in which existing versions of the (...) model might address this worry, I propose a significant modification. I argue that the experience of disownership consists in a rational indifference that one feels towards one’s inserted thought. I further contend that the experience is generated by an underlying absence of an expectation of rational authority towards the inserted thought, such that the patient does not expect her thought to reflect, or be shaped by, her own rational considerations. I defend my proposal using empirical studies from cognitive and social psychology which suggest that we ordinarily have and experience an expectation of rational authority towards a certain subset of our thoughts, and direct analysis of patient reports, which strongly suggest that it is this expectation and the corresponding experience that thought insertion patients lack. (shrink)