Keeping concepts in context

Conceptual pluralism is the view for any category that we can think about, we typically possess many different concepts of it—that is, many different ways of representing that category in higher cognition. Different kinds of concepts encode their own specific perspective on the target category, and each one can be …

SpaceTimeMind

You may (or may not) have noticed that Pete Mandik and Richard Brown (me) have started a podcast, called SpaceTimeMind, where we talk about tax law updates for 2014, uh, I mean, er, we talk about space and time and mind! The first episode is up now (and has been …

False selves and fading selves

Do confabulatory explanations and memory distortions occurring in the clinical population have any epistemic benefits? Let’s start by considering evidence for the view that autobiographical memory is instrumental to self-knowledge and identity formation processes. Autobiographical memory encompasses memories of specific events (e.g. how I felt when I passed my driving …

Epistemic definitions of delusion and confabulation

In my previous post I suggested that the epistemic faults listed in most definitions of delusions are not distinctive of delusions. Although delusions may diverge from norms of rationality to a greater extent than non-delusional beliefs, they are irrational in no special way. Excessively positive beliefs about ourselves, and widespread …

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