The Rationality of Delusions
In the talk on the video, my co-author Angeles Eraña assume delusions are beliefs and argue that they have an important rational aspect. To this aim, we will draw on a distinction among different senses of ‘rationality’ one of us has already developed (Eraña 2009). We will argue that delusions are not rational in the externalist sense of being the product of a well-functioning reliable cognitive system. On the contrary, there is ample evidence that some cognitive malfunctions are involved. Furthermore, they are not rational in an internalist, deontological sense either, since this sort of rationality requires the agent to have a well-functioning conscious, control system (corresponding to S1 in dual system theory), and delusional agents’ conscious control systems are too tied to the false and recalcitrant delusional belief. One might wonder, once we accept that delusions are rational neither in the internist sense of giving us epistemic justification nor i...