Background and Hypothesis: Paranoia is commonly conceptualized along a continuum ranging from transient suspiciousness and mistrust to fixed persecutory delusions. However, similar paranoid contents may differ in conviction, flexibility, self-reference, distress, functional impact, and embeddedness in broader changes of self, agency, and world-experience. We synthesized qualitative evidence on...
Letheby’s book is an engaging and crystal-clear exploration of the philosophical issues raised by the use of psychedelic drugs. In this paper, we focus on the epistemological issues Letheby examines in chapter 8 and argue that his analysis requires an agency-first approach to epistemic evaluation. On an agency-first approach, epistemic evaluation is about identifying the skills agents needs to...
Delusions are often portrayed as paradigmatic instances of incomprehensibility and meaninglessness. Here we investigate the relationship between delusions and meaning from a philosophical perspective, integrating arguments and evidence from cognitive psychology and phenomenological psychopathology. We review some of the empirical and philosophical literature relevant to two claims about...