Delusion Formation through Uncertainty and Possibility-blindness

  1. Ariso, José María 1
  1. 1 Universidad Internacional de La Rioja
    info

    Universidad Internacional de La Rioja

    Logroño, España

    ROR https://ror.org/029gnnp81

Journal:
Logos: Anales del Seminario de Metafísica

ISSN: 1575-6866

Year of publication: 2019

Issue: 52

Pages: 29-50

Type: Article

DOI: 10.5209/ASEM.65851 DIALNET GOOGLE SCHOLAR lock_openOpen access editor

More publications in: Logos: Anales del Seminario de Metafísica

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Abstract

Some scholars have tried to consider delusions as certainties – understood in Wittgenstein’s sense – due to the similarities that seem to exist between their epistemological statuses. However, such an attempt has been sharply criticized, among other things, because the content of delusions clashes head on with the content of certainties, so that delusions cannot be understood due to the changes of meaning relations. But it is obvious that, even though delusions cannot be regarded as certainties, many delusions affect in one way or another the patient’s system of certainties. On this basis, it is not farfetched to think that such influence might also be reciprocal: stated otherwise, it appears highly advisable to analyze whether some delusions might be contemplated as the upshot of changes in certainties. In this article, I carry out such an analysis by intending to show that the origin of some pedestrian and stark delusions can be found respectively in what I will call “possibility-blindness” and “uncertainty”, terms which I have developed taking into account the work of the philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein.

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