ABSTRACT
A thorough review of the burgeoning contemporary research on delusions by philosophers, cognitive psychologists, and brain scientists will not be embarked on here. But three intersecting controversies over clinical delusions, each the focus of important research, will introduce the kind – and serve to illustrate the extent – of conceptual uncertainties surrounding clinical delusions. First, researchers divide between those putting forward a continuum model and those attempting to establish – or assuming – that a categorical difference distinguishes clinical (“psychotic,” “true” or “primary”) delusions. Next, although traditional accounts depict delusions as belief states, and certainly the qualities customarily ascribed to delusions are the attributes of belief states, this “doxastic” analysis (delusions are beliefs) is controversial in a number of ways. Some propose delusions be described in equally familiar but different terms, while for others they are sui generis, falling within none of the familiar categories used to distinguish mental faculties and states. And thirdly, there is no consensus over the kind of explanation required for clinical delusions. Recent accounts depict them as a product of flawed reasoning, as normal responses to abnormal, inexplicable or disconcerting experiences – and as some combination of both of these.
