Current research project
2023-2025: Principal Investigator of a postdoctoral project entitled ''Delusional Experiences and Evidence''.
(no. 2022/45/P/HS1/02793; co-funded by the National Science Centre and the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under the Marie Skłodowska-Curie grant agreement no. 945339.)
Publications
Revisiting Maher’s one-factor theory of delusion
Neuroethics (forthcoming)
[Accepted version]
Can a bodily theorist of pain speak Mandarin?
Philosophia (2023) 51, 261–272
[Open access]
Continuing commentary: challenges or misunderstandings? A defence of the two-factor theory against the challenges to its logic.
Cognitive Neuropsychiatry (2019) 24(4): 300-307
[Accepted version | Published version]
Delusional beliefs, two-factor theories, and bizarreness
Frontiers of Philosophy in China (2016) 11(2): 263-278
[Accepted version | Published version]
PhD thesis
Understanding delusions: evidence, reason, and experience
Department of Philosophy, University of Warwick (2022)
[Warwick Library e-thesis]
Abstract
This thesis develops a novel framework for explaining delusions.
In Chapter 1, I introduce the two fundamental challenges posed by delusions: the evidence challenge lies in explaining the flagrant ways delusions flout evidence; and the specificity challenge lies in explaining the fact that patients’ delusions are often about a few specific themes, and patients rarely have a wide range of delusional or odd beliefs.
In Chapter 2, I discuss the strengths and weaknesses of current theories of delusions, which typically appeal to one or both of two factors: anomalous experience and reasoning abnormality. I argue that anomalous experience can help explain the specificity of delusions, but has difficulties in addressing the evidence challenge; reasoning abnormality can help address the evidence challenge, but has difficulties in explaining the specificity of delusions. This suggests that there may be an important factor that has not been captured by current theories of delusions.
To search for this missing factor, in Chapter 3, I turn to normal believing. Inspired by the literature on Cartesian clarity and phenomenal dogmatism, I develop a dual-force framework of believing, according to which beliefs can be understood as the results of the interaction between the justificatory force and causal force of evidence and the justificatory force and causal force of clear experience, in which something clearly seems to be so to the subject. This framework suggests that the missing factor may be the clear experience with its distinctive phenomenal clarity that compels assent.
In Chapter 4, I return to delusions, and argue that the dual-force framework can help us to get a better grip on some personal descriptions of delusions; make progress in addressing the evidence and specificity challenges of delusions; and shed new light on the underpinnings of delusions. In the end, I conclude with some remaining questions for future study.
Forthcoming presentations
The dark side of clarity.
Birkbeck and The Institute of Philosophy, University of London, UK, 7-9 July 2023.
Betwixt experience and counterevidence.
The 35th Conference of the European Society for Philosophy of Medicine and Health Care,
Riga, Latvia, 23-26 August 2023.
Delusion, two-factor theory and experience.
The 9th Congress of the Society for the Philosophy of Science
University of Paris Nanterre, France, 31 May - 2 June 2023.
The 4th Lisbon International Conference on Philosophy of Science
University of Lisbon, Portugal, 12-15 July 2023.
Previous presentations
Believing what we clearly perceive and being deluded.
The 28th Annual Meeting of the European Society for Philosophy and Psychology
Leipzig-Online, Germany, September 2021.
Jumping to delusions?.
The 27th Annual Meeting of the European Society for Philosophy and Psychology
Athens, Greece, September 2019.
When is a cognitive system immune to delusions?.*
Uniting Two Perspectives on Mental Illness: Philosophy and Linguistics
University of Essex, UK, September 2018.
Jena Summer Symposia in Philosophy
Institut für Philosophie, Friedrich Schiller Universität Jena, Germany, July 2018.
(*An abstract is posted on Imperfect Cognitions, December 2017)
Delusional beliefs and the origin of their contents.
King’s College London, London, UK, November 2017.
Respondent: Jørgen Dyrstad
Invited presentations
A new framework for explaining delusions
BIOUNCERTAINTY Research seminars
Interdisciplinary Centre for Ethics, Jagiellonian University, May 2023.
Delusional belief.
Department of Philosophy Postgraduate Welcome Conference
University of Warwick, UK, October 2021
Respondent: Barney Walker
The triad of irrationality.
Global Humanities: Language, Literature and History
Department of History, University of Warwick, UK, January 2018.
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