What are delusions? Examining the typology problem.
Wiley interdisciplinary reviews. Cognitive science January 1, 2024 Pablo López-silva, Miguel Núñez De Prado-Gordillo, Victor Fernández-castro 4 citations
Delusions are a varied phenomenon across psychiatric conditions, especially common in schizophrenia. A core philosophical debate, the typology problem, asks what kind of mental state underlies delusional reports—whether they are beliefs (doxastic) or something else (anti-doxastic). This paper critically reviews the scattered literature on this issue. It clarifies two main philosophical approaches (interpretivism and functionalism) and introduces new subcategories: revisionist and non-revisionist doxastic views, and commonsensical and non-commonsensical anti-doxastic views. The analysis concludes by highlighting fundamental unresolved challenges in the debate, which has implications for experimental psychiatry and psychotherapy development.