Monothematic delusion: A case of innocence from experience |
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Authors: | Ema Sullivan-Bissett |
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Institution: | Department of Philosophy, University of Birmingham, Birmingham, UK |
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Abstract: | Empiricists about monothematic delusion formation agree that anomalous experience is a factor in the formation of these attitudes, but disagree markedly on which further factors (if any) need to be specified. I argue that epistemic innocence may be a unifying feature of monothematic delusions, insofar as a judgment of epistemic innocence to this class of attitudes is one that opposing empiricist accounts can make. The notion of epistemic innocence allows us to tell a richer story when investigating the epistemic status of monothematic delusions, one which resists the trade-off view of pragmatic benefits and epistemic costs. Though monothematic delusions are often characterized by appeal to their epistemic costs, they can play a positive epistemic role, and this is a surprising conclusion on which, so I argue, all empiricists can agree. Thus, I show that all empiricists have the notion of epistemic innocence at their disposal. |
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Keywords: | Anomalous experience delusion delusion formation epistemic innocence monothematic delusion one-factor prediction error two-factor |
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