Contemporary perspectives on delusions offer valuable neuropsychiatric, psychoanalytic, and philosophical explanations of the formation and persistence of delusional phenomena. However, two problems arise. Firstly, these different perspectives offer us an explanation “from the outside”. They pay little attention to the actual personal experiences, and implicitly assume their incomprehensibility. This implicates a questionable validity. Secondly, these perspectives fail to account for two complex phenomena that are inherent to certain delusions, namely double book-keeping and the primary delusional experience. The purpose of this (...) article is to address both problems, by offering an understanding “from the inside”. Our phenomenological approach is a form of “radical empathy”, and crosses the Jaspersian limits of understanding. It compares delusional experiences with variations of reality experience in everyday life, and makes use of the structure of imagination. Six factors influencing the experience of reality are discussed and illustrated by clinical and non-clinical examples. These factors are: continuity, materiality and resistance, multiplicity of sensations and perceptions, intensity, the sense of authorship, and the complex role of intersubjectivity. I suggest that experiences of hypo- and hyperreality are not restricted to pathology, but have their place in everyday life as well. Delusional phenomena can be better understood by investigating the interplay of these six factors. With this framework, the two complex phenomena consequently prove to be better understandable to us. Our approach remains within the phenomenal experience and might thereby contribute to the validity of psychopathology. (shrink)

This essay considers the role of depersonalization in the philosophy of Merleau-Ponty. While there has been a modest amount of interest in depersonalization from a phenomenological perspective, a critical exploration of the theme of depersonalization in Merleau-Ponty’s thinking itself remains overlooked ; Colombetti and Ratcliffe. This is an oddity, given that the theme of depersonalization proves instructive in Merleau-Ponty’s account of the constitution of the subject, and appears within Phenomenology of Perception at key points in his thinking. This paper serves (...) as a critical exposition of the role of depersonalization in Merleau-Ponty’s thought. I proceed in three ways. In the first instance, I provide an overview of depersonalization, addressing its salient characteristics, which includes: a feeling of disturbed bodily subjectivity; a diminishment of affective feeling; and a corresponding and overarching sense of unreality, carrying with it a sense of estrangement. In the main part of the paper, I consider the articulation of depersonalization in Merleau-Ponty, especially as it figures in Phenomenology of Perception. My claim is that depersonalization can be best captured as an expression of Merleau-Ponty’s idea of ambiguity. I conclude by considering to what extent Merleau-Ponty’s account of depersonalization corresponds with the medical understanding of the condition. (shrink)

It is a distinctive mark of normal conscious perception that perceived objects are experienced as actually present in one’s surroundings. The aim of this paper is to offer a phenomenologically accurate and empirically plausible account of the cognitive underpinning of this feature of conscious perception, which I shall call perceptual presence. The paper begins with a preliminary characterization of. I then consider and criticize the seminal account of proposed by Mohan Matthen. In the remainder of the paper I put forward (...) and defend my own attentional account. I first outline a simple version of the view by focusing on vision and then extend it to audition. After discussing the case of depersonalization, I consider some objections. The last objection, in particular, will motivate a refinement of the attentional account for the visual case. The paper ends with some remarks mainly about the specificity of the visual case vis-à-vis the auditory one. (shrink)

Delusions are often thought of as the hallmark of irrationality. Accepted definitions of delusion are cast in terms of epistemic features that reflect irrationality: impossibility or falsity of con...

If I see, hear, or touch a sparrow, the sparrow seems real to me. Unlike Bigfoot or Santa Claus, it seems to exist; I will therefore judge that it does indeed exist. The “sense of existence” refers to the kind of awareness that typically grounds such ordinary judgments of existence or “reality.” The sense of existence has been invoked by Humeans, Kantians, Ideologists, and the phenomenological tradition to make substantial philosophical claims. However, it is extremely controversial; its very existence has (...) been called into question. This paper aims to clarify the nature and reality of the sense of existence by studying a psychiatric condition in which the sense appears to be disrupted: depersonalization disorder (DPD). (shrink)

Depersonalization-Derealization Disorder is a dissociative syndrome characterized by a sense of disconnectedness from one’s own self and the world around. People suffering from the condition report feeling like external observers, cut off from their own bodies, emotions and thoughts; their surroundings are perceived as unreal. The present thesis analyses DDD by sustaining the view that its phenomenology can be understood through Metzinger’s notion of phenomenal transparency. This idea is not entirely new: recent contributions have framed the dramatic experiences of depersonalization (...) and derealization as instances of highly opaque mental states. However, more detailed discussions of phenomenal transparency are sparse. My contribution wishes to partially fill in this gap. To elucidate the concept of transparency, I will first highlight the distinction between the classical representationalist notion of transparency and the metzingerian, phenomenal account of it. I will then argue that phenomenal transparency adequately describes the associated depersonalized phenomenology. Finally, I will attempt to present and dissipate ambiguities contained in the concept and address potential criticism regarding the redundancy of transparency as an explanatory tool for dissociative phenomena. (shrink)