Imperfect Cognitions

On 26th and 27th September in Berlin, the Human Abilities Centre for Advanced Studies in the Humanities organised a workshop on conspiracy beliefs and delusions. This is a report of the workshop. Logo of the Human Abilities centre The first speaker was Romy Jaster (Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin) presented a talk on self-immunization in conspiracy theories. Romy thinks about conspiracy theories from an epistemological and philosophy of science perspective and she started her presentation with the conceptual distinction between "conspiracy theories" as a neutral term (an explanation that involves a conspiracy) and "conspiracy theories" as a negatively-valued term (an explanation that is epistemically deficient). What the epistemic deficit is is open to debate and controversy.  Romy focused on the idea that conspiracy theories and delusions are both deficient because they are not responsive to counter-evidence. The idea is that conspiracy theories are built in such a

In this post, Amelia Gangemi and Valentina Cardella introduce their new book, Reasoning in Psychopathology  (Routledge 2024). Reasoning in Psychopathology Rationality can be broadly categorized into two types: rationality of action, which concerns behavior appropriate to achieving one’s goals, and theoretical rationality, which involves conformity to norms, such as logical or social norms. Many philosophers and psychologists argue that a key aspect of mental disorder is a deficiency in rational control over one’s behavior. This notion is consistent with the common view that mental illness involves a lack of discipline or self-control. Contrary to this view, individuals with mental disorders do not necessarily exhibit impaired rationality. In our book, we present studies of schizophrenia, depression, and anxiety disorders that suggest that individuals with these conditions can reason logically within their symptomatic domains and may even outperform unaffected individuals on certain tas

Here  Martino Belvederi Murri (University of Ferrara) discusses research on epistemic justice and dignity for people with psychosis. A version of this post appeared on the EPIC blog in July 2024. Martino Belvederi Murri Individuals experiencing acute psychosis in inpatient psychiatric settings face unique challenges. Consider the case of Jake, a student who is struggling between familial conflicts and economic difficulties, as well as choices related to his life career. Auditory hallucinations may take the form of “voices” that comment on his everyday actions, and may lead Jake to think that people spy on him with malevolent intent. These symptoms can lead to angst and withdrawal from social activities, possibly culminating into severe anxiety and agitation. The grave societal stigma that is attached to mental illness exacerbates feelings of isolation and diminishes help-seeking. The promotion of patient empowerment is a key component of recovery, and is increasingly seen as a duty o

Today's post is by Vanessa Schipani  (University of Pennsylvania) who discusses a recent open access  paper on journalism and public trust in science published in Synthese . A version of this post has appeared on the LSE blog on 2 September 2024. Vanessa Schipani During the 2016 U.S. presidential election, I was hired as a journalist to report on politicians’ claims about science for FactCheck.org . Coming off of finishing a master’s in the history and philosophy of science, my eye for stories was a bit more philosophical than most.  Starting with my first article on whether climate science was pseudoscience (spoiler: it’s not), I noticed a trend in how politicians misunderstood the scientific process, especially when arguing for policy inaction: They set the bar for action at certain results, and condemned researchers when they offered their opinions about policies. Now on the cusp of finishing a dissertation on trust in science, I see more clearly the trick these politicians

This post is by Rabih Chattat . Rabih is Professor in the Department of Psychology at the University of Bologna. He works on psychosocial interventions in dementia and the clinical psychology of ageing. This post was originally published on the EPIC blog on 3rd July 2024. Rabih Chattat Dementia is an umbrella term used to indicate a variety of conditions characterised by neuronal damage. The most prevalent type of dementia is Alzheimer's disease which accounts for around 62% of all types of dementia followed by vascular dementia, frontotemporal dementia, and Lewy body dementia as the most frequent. Dementia is characterised by a progressive decline in several domains of cognitive abilities such as executive functions, learning and memory, language, perceptual and motor functions, complex attention and social cognition (DSM-5). The duration is up to 12-15 years.  Cognitive decline has an impact on the person’s capacity to retain information and also to recall memories, communicate

Today's post is by Dan Cavedon-Taylor who is the author of a paper to appear in Synthese entitled " Must depression be irrational? " Dan Cavedon-Taylor From Capgras syndrome to schizophrenia, anorexia to obsessive-compulsive disorders, mental health conditions are thought to entail failures of epistemic rationality. This includes depression, which is often conceptualised by philosophers as necessarily involving mental states that are ‘unwarranted by’ or ‘disproportionate to’ events in one’s life ( Davies 2016; Wakefield & Demazeux 2016 ; Tully 2019 ). Call this view of depression, the ‘Irrationality View’. For some of us, the Irrationality View seems plainly incorrect. There appears to be a clear difference, in rational terms, between depression caused by change in season versus depression caused by, e.g., homelessness, refuge experience, serious assault, and perhaps even gaslighting ( Abrahams 2024 ). For that reason, I think we ought to prefer a Mixed View of depr