Completing Kraepelin’s Psychopathology Insight, Delusion, and the Phenomenology of Illness
K William M Fulford
Insight and Psychosis January 8, 1998 DOI: 10.1093/oso/9780195084979.003.0004 (opens in new tab)
Study at a glance
AI-extracted from the abstract| Characteristics | Theoretical or philosophical paper Peer reviewed |
|---|---|
| Topics | Philosophy of mind |
| Key points | Argues that although loss of insight has an equivocal place in present-day psychiatry and is minimized in modern classifications due to definitional difficulties, it remains important to ethical and medicolegal practice. Proposes that linguistic analysis, by exploring how the concept is actually used, can broaden understanding and help resolve definitional problems. |
Abstract
Abstract: Loss of insight, traditionally the essential feature of psychotic mental illness, has an equivocal place in present-day psychiatry. Difficulties of definition have led to minimilization of its significance in most modern classifications of mental disorders. Yet it remains important to the actual practice of psychiatry, especially in relation to ethical and medicolegal questions. In this chapter, the philosophical method of linguistic analysis is used to clarify the concept of psychotic loss of insight. Linguistic analysis approaches questions of definition indirectly by exploring the ways in which concepts are actually used. The rationale for this analysis is that difficulties in definition often arise from taking a too narrow or too restricted view of the concept in question. But we are generally better at using concepts than at defining them. (Try defining such everyday concepts as time, for instance, or baroque.) Hence, as the philosopher J. L. Austin argued ( 1956-7/ 1968; Fulford, 1989a), exploring the ways in which a concept is used may lead to a broader or more complete view of its meaning, and thus may help to resolve difficulties in definition.
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