Social epistemological conception of delusion
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Social epistemological conception of delusion Kengo Miyazono1
· Alessandro Salice2,3
Received: 1 November 2019 / Accepted: 4 September 2020 © Springer Nature B.V. 2020
Abstract The dominant conception of delusion in psychiatry (in textbooks, research papers, diagnostic manuals, etc.) is predominantly epistemic. Delusions are almost always characterized in terms of their epistemic defects, i.e., defects with respect to evidence, reasoning, judgment, etc. However, there is an individualistic bias in the epistemic conception; the alleged epistemic defects and abnormalities in delusions relate to individualistic epistemic processes rather than social epistemic processes. We endorse the social epistemological turn in recent philosophical epistemology, and claim that a corresponding turn is needed in the study of delusions. It is a turn from the (purely) individualistic conception, which characterizes delusions only by individualistic epistemic defects and abnormalities, to the (partially) social epistemic conception, which characterizes delusions by individualistic as well as social epistemic defects and abnormalities. This paper is intended as an initial step toward such a social epistemological turn. In particular, we will develop a new model of the development of delusions according to which testimonial abnormalities, including testimonial isolation and testimonial discount, are a causal factor in the development of delusions. Keywords Delusion · Schizophrenia · Testimony · Social epistemology · Group identification
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Kengo Miyazono [email protected] Alessandro Salice [email protected]
1
Department of Philosophy and Religious Studies, Hokkaido University, Kita 10, Nishi 7, Kita-ku, Sapporo, Hokkaido, Japan
2
Department of Philosophy, University College Cork, 4 Elderwood, College Road, Cork, Ireland
3
Center for Subjectivity Research, University of Copenhagen, Copenhagen, Denmark
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Synthese
1 Introduction The dominant conception of delusion in psychiatry (in textbooks, research papers, diagnostic manuals, etc.) is predominantly epistemic (Bortolotti 2013; Broome and Bortolotti 2009). Delusions are almost always characterized in terms of some epistemic notion, e.g., evidence, reasoning, judgment, etc. For instance, the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders 5th Edition (DSM-5) characterizes delusions as “fixed beliefs that are not amenable to change in light of conflicting evidence” (American Psychiatric Association 2013, p. 87), and they are said to be “based on incorrect inference about external reality” and “firmly held despite what almost everyone else believes and despite what constitutes incontrovertible and obvious proof or evidence to the contrary” (American Psychiatric Association 2013, p. 819). Looking closer, however, we can find a bias in the epistemic conception of delusions in psychiatry; this is an individualistic bias. The epistemic conception tends to characterize delusion in terms of what we call “individualistic sources of evidence” rather than “social
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