This book presents new philosophical work on delusions and their impact on everyday human behavior. It explores a cluster of related topics at the intersection of philosophy of mind and psychiatry, while also charting the historical development of work on delusions.
Within psychiatry, there are several disputes about the nature and origin of delusions. Whereas some authors see only an abnormal phenomenon that needs to be treated by psychological or pharmacological means, others hold that delusions can be psychologically adaptive and even have epistemic benefits. This book brings together an interdisciplinary group of contributors to build consensus around what delusions are and how they impact the human mind. Part 1 provides readers with an informed historical discussion of delusions and carefully examines the contemporary impact of these historical perspectives. Part 2 analyzes the impact of contemporary views of delusions on the mental and emotional life of human agents. Finally, Part 3 explores the normative frameworks of delusions and analyzes the impact of some of their behavioral consequences on the daily life of subjects and their caregivers.
The Philosophy and Psychology of Delusions is essential reading for researchers and graduate students working at the intersection of philosophy, psychiatry, and psychology.
About the Author: Ana Falcato holds a PhD in Philosophy from the NOVA/FCSH, Lisbon, Portugal. Between 2013 and 2015, she was a Humboldt Research Fellow at the Johannes-Gutenberg University and the University of Oxford. Her work has appeared in Studies in the Novel, Hypatia: A Journal of Feminist Philosophy, Kant-Studien, Wittgenstein-Studien, Daimon: Revista International de Filosofía and the Deutsche Zeitschrift für Philosophie. She published Philosophy in the Condition of Modernism in 2018 and Phenomenological Approaches to Intersubjectivity and Values in 2019 (co-edited with Luís Aguiar de Sousa). In 2021 appeared her edited collection The Politics of Emotional Shockwaves. Ana is Assistant Researcher at NOVA/FCSH, where she conducts a project about the novelistic and critical work of J.M. Coetzee.
Jorge Gonçalves is a Post-doctoral research fellow in Philosophy at Instituto de Filosofia da Nova (IFILNOVA), Universidade Nova de Lisboa, where he works on Philosophy of Psychiatry, Consciousness and Self-Studies, and Philosophy of Psychology. He graduated first in Psychology (1988) and afterwards in Philosophy (1997), both in Lisbon. He has a Master's degree in Philosophy (2002) and a PhD (2007) in Philosophy ("Consciousness and Natural Order"). Between 1988 and 1999, he worked as a clinical psychologist (educational, learning disabilities & chronic mental illness). Gonçalves's current research is on topics in Philosophy of Psychiatry, with a special focus on the concept of mental illness, the mind-body problem and psychiatry, theories of delusion, and the problem of the unconscious. He is the author of several papers and editor of three books. Jorge was PI of the funded project "Cognitive Foundations of the Self", sponsored by the Portuguese Foundation for Science and Technology (FCT) between 2009 and 2012.
