On Delusion

Jennifer Radden

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2010
• Print ISBN: 9780415774475
• eBook ISBN: 9781136934810
• Topic: Philosophy
• Subtopic: Mind & Body in Philosophy

Delusions play a fundamental role in the history of psychology, philosophy and culture, dividing not only the mad from the sane but reason from unreason. Yet the very nature and extent of delusions are poorly understood. What are delusions? How do they differ from everyday errors or mistaken beliefs? Are they scientific categories?

In this superb, panoramic investigation of delusion Jennifer Radden explores these questions and more, unravelling a fascinating story that ranges from Descartes's demon to famous first-hand accounts of delusion, such as Daniel Schreber's Memoirs of My Nervous Illness.

Radden places delusion in both a clinical and cultural context and explores a fascinating range of themes: delusions as both individually and collectively held, including the phenomenon of folies á deux; spiritual and religious delusions, in particular what distinguishes normal religious belief from delusions with religious themes; how we assess those suffering from delusion from a moral standpoint; and how we are to interpret violent actions when they are the result of delusional thinking. As well as more common delusions, such as those of grandeur, she also discusses some of the most interesting and perplexing forms of clinical delusion, such as Cotard and Capgras.

Index

abnormal sexual jealousy xviii, 17, 38, 116

agreement (in judgements);

intersubjective xxiii, 8–9, 52, 56, 65, 71, 78, 92, 96, 129

Allport 119

animal spirits 4

anorexia 34, 88–89

anosognosia 21–24

Anton’s syndrome, see anosognosia

Babinski 23

Bayne and Pacherie 45–46

behavioral intertia 45–46, 66–67

Bell, Halligan and Ellis

benign psychosis xiv

Bentall 63

Berlin Charité Hospital 11

bestiality, association with 14

Bhavsar and Bhugra 99, 108

bias 55, 118–21, 131;

attribution 55;

confirmation xvi;

jumping to conclusions 55;

self-serving 112, 117

black bile 2–4

Bleuler 36, 93

brainwashing and indoctrination 86, 103

Broome 69

bulimia 34, 88

Campbell 66, 69–72

Capgras 20–24, 40, 69–70, 111

causal explanation xxii, 53, 58–61, 99;

top down (and bottom up) 53

Charland 121

Confabulation 24–25, 35

Cotard 20–21, 95

cult of thinness 87–93

Custance 32, 112–13

cycloid (periodic) psychoses 32

Davidson xxiii, 59–60, 66–69

definitions;

essentialist 44;

nomological 44

délire 44

delusional diso...

Table of contents

• Thinking in Action
• Contents
• Acknowledgements
• Introduction
• One Delusions and Cultural Meaning
• Two Varieties of Clinical Delusion
• Three Research Controversies
• Four Do Delusions Mean Anything?
• Five Delusions as Shared: folies à deux and the Madness of Crowds
• Six Spiritual Delusions – Religious, Metaphysical, Ideological
• Seven Delusions as Vices
• Eight Delusions and Violence
• Afterword
• Notes
• Bibliography
• Index