Workshop with Philip Gerrans on the14th of April 11:00 - 17:30 & 18th of April 16:00 - 18:00
Philip Gerrans will be visiting the Lisbon Mind and Cognition Group between the 14th and 18th of April. On the 14th there will be a workshop and the 18th Prof. Gerrans will give a special lecture.
All sessions will take place at: Av. de Berna, 26 - 4º Piso, 1069-061 Lisbon, PORTUGAL
All sessions will take place at: Av. de Berna, 26 - 4º Piso, 1069-061 Lisbon, PORTUGAL
- Phone: +351 217 9083 00 - Ext.1527
- Email: ifl.fcsh@gmail.com
- See Map
Philip Gerrans: 11:00 - 12:30 An integrative explanation of delusion (Room 0.07 ID Building)
Delusional subjects who are capable of rational belief fixation in some contexts seem unable to submit their delusions to rational evaluation, even in cases where they show insight into its implausibility.
This odd partitioning of delusional beliefs has led to them being described as rational, irrational, arational. As beliefs, imaginary states self-ascribed as beliefs, waking dreams, sui generis propositional attitudes. One problem with these all these psychological accounts is linking them to the cognitive neuroscience of delusion. We have identified some neural and cognitive correlates of delusion but no satisfactory multilevel explanation, which integrates them with the phenomenology and psychology.
At present there do seem to be candidates for neural correlates of delusion: Abnormalities of dopamine regulation, lack of the normal anticorrelation between ventromedial and dorsolateral processing and right lateral hypofrontality. However we do not understand their role in producing delusion because we do not know how they influence the cognitive processes involved in delusion formation.
This requires what Craver calls a theoretical definition. A description of systemic functioning that captures the relationships between mechanisms which play their roles at different levels within a system. I propose a theoretical definition of delusion as default cognitive processing of hypersalient information unsupervised by decontextualised processing and defend it on the grounds that it is faithful to the psychology and phenomenology , accurately captures the cognitive architecture which subserves delusional thought and makes transparent the role of neural correlates. It is a better theoretical definition than others which import normative notions of rationality into the characterization of delusion.
2.30 - 5.00 Afternoon presentations from the mind and cognition group. (Room 0.07 ID Building -) Session chaired by Jorge Gonçalves
Mariaflavia Cascelli: Is the core self a self-conscious self? On the non-minimality of the self-attribution of agency. According to some interpretations (Wegner 2002; De Vignemont, Fourneret 2004) the sense of agency results from a retrospective inference about the source of action. Therefore the kind of self-awareness involved in action seems not to be minimal and immediate as common sense would think.
Robert Clowes: The Overlooked Disunity of the (Situational) Virtual Self
Many theorists regard some notion of self to be necessary to make sense of a variety of mental illnesses such as DPD and Schizophrenia (Sass, Parnas, & Zahavi, 2011). Here I explore the idea that the self is both dialogical (Lysaker & Lysaker, 2008) - situational in the terms I use – and virtual (Gerrans, 2014; Metzinger, 2004), i.e., a representational instrument for facing the world as a unified entity. However, I argue that we are typically inattentively blind to the labile nature of the self. If anything is illusory about the self, it is this. Recognizing these characteristics offers us new opportunities for rethinking of what is going wrong in several disorders of self.
Gerrans, P. (2014). All the Self We Need Open MIND: Open MIND. Frankfurt am Main: MIND Group.
Lysaker, P. H., & Lysaker, J. T. (2008). Schizophrenia and the fate of the self: Oxford University Press, USA.
Metzinger, T. (2004). Being No One: The Self-Model Theory of Subjectivity. Cambridge, MA: Bradford Book.
Sass, L. A., Parnas, J., & Zahavi, D. (2011). Phenomenological psychopathology and schizophrenia: contemporary approaches and misunderstandings. Philosophy, Psychiatry, & Psychology, 18(1), 1-23.
Dina Mendonça: Emotional Self. (abstract to follow)
Delusional subjects who are capable of rational belief fixation in some contexts seem unable to submit their delusions to rational evaluation, even in cases where they show insight into its implausibility.
This odd partitioning of delusional beliefs has led to them being described as rational, irrational, arational. As beliefs, imaginary states self-ascribed as beliefs, waking dreams, sui generis propositional attitudes. One problem with these all these psychological accounts is linking them to the cognitive neuroscience of delusion. We have identified some neural and cognitive correlates of delusion but no satisfactory multilevel explanation, which integrates them with the phenomenology and psychology.
At present there do seem to be candidates for neural correlates of delusion: Abnormalities of dopamine regulation, lack of the normal anticorrelation between ventromedial and dorsolateral processing and right lateral hypofrontality. However we do not understand their role in producing delusion because we do not know how they influence the cognitive processes involved in delusion formation.
This requires what Craver calls a theoretical definition. A description of systemic functioning that captures the relationships between mechanisms which play their roles at different levels within a system. I propose a theoretical definition of delusion as default cognitive processing of hypersalient information unsupervised by decontextualised processing and defend it on the grounds that it is faithful to the psychology and phenomenology , accurately captures the cognitive architecture which subserves delusional thought and makes transparent the role of neural correlates. It is a better theoretical definition than others which import normative notions of rationality into the characterization of delusion.
2.30 - 5.00 Afternoon presentations from the mind and cognition group. (Room 0.07 ID Building -) Session chaired by Jorge Gonçalves
Mariaflavia Cascelli: Is the core self a self-conscious self? On the non-minimality of the self-attribution of agency. According to some interpretations (Wegner 2002; De Vignemont, Fourneret 2004) the sense of agency results from a retrospective inference about the source of action. Therefore the kind of self-awareness involved in action seems not to be minimal and immediate as common sense would think.
Robert Clowes: The Overlooked Disunity of the (Situational) Virtual Self
Many theorists regard some notion of self to be necessary to make sense of a variety of mental illnesses such as DPD and Schizophrenia (Sass, Parnas, & Zahavi, 2011). Here I explore the idea that the self is both dialogical (Lysaker & Lysaker, 2008) - situational in the terms I use – and virtual (Gerrans, 2014; Metzinger, 2004), i.e., a representational instrument for facing the world as a unified entity. However, I argue that we are typically inattentively blind to the labile nature of the self. If anything is illusory about the self, it is this. Recognizing these characteristics offers us new opportunities for rethinking of what is going wrong in several disorders of self.
Gerrans, P. (2014). All the Self We Need Open MIND: Open MIND. Frankfurt am Main: MIND Group.
Lysaker, P. H., & Lysaker, J. T. (2008). Schizophrenia and the fate of the self: Oxford University Press, USA.
Metzinger, T. (2004). Being No One: The Self-Model Theory of Subjectivity. Cambridge, MA: Bradford Book.
Sass, L. A., Parnas, J., & Zahavi, D. (2011). Phenomenological psychopathology and schizophrenia: contemporary approaches and misunderstandings. Philosophy, Psychiatry, & Psychology, 18(1), 1-23.
Dina Mendonça: Emotional Self. (abstract to follow)
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Monday 18th April from 16:00 - 18:00 Pain asymbolia, depersonalization and the sense of self. A processing account, presented by Philip Gerrans (Room 1.05 ID Building)
It is surprising to see just how little consensus there is about the nature of emotions. This is true within as well as between disciplines. For example advocates of Intentional theories, Feeling Theories and Basic Emotion theories can be found in philosophy, psychology and neuroscience. Typically advocates from one discipline rely on the others for empirical or theoretical support. I think we can learn about the nature of emotions by focusing on disorders based on emotional processing. One such is depersonalisation disorder which illuminates the complex relationship between emotional processing, bodily awareness and self awareness.
In a recent paper Colin Klein writes. “the phenomenology of asymbolia might resemble a kind of depersonalization syndrome. … The asymbolic, and the depersonalized more generally, feel sensations that they are estranged from — that they do not take to be theirs in the sense that we normally do”.
This raises the question “in what sense we normally take sensations to be ours?” I propose an answer to this question based on an interpretation of recent neuroscientific evidence about the relationship between affective feelings and bodily representation. In particular I focus on the way placebo analgesia affects affective rather than nociceptive processing. I conclude that emotional processes create the sense of “mineness” lost in depersonalization. I then turn, less confidently, to problems for this account. The first is people who experience depersonalization for their affective responses. Prima facie this should not be possible on my account. The second is the case of R “ a conscious, self-aware, and sentient human being despite the widespread destruction of cortical regions purported [by me as well as the targets of this article] to play a critical role in self awareness” (Phillipi et. al. 2012). I think my account can be saved by attending to the hierachical, predictive, nature of cognitive-affective processing.
Monday 18th April from 16:00 - 18:00 Pain asymbolia, depersonalization and the sense of self. A processing account, presented by Philip Gerrans (Room 1.05 ID Building)
It is surprising to see just how little consensus there is about the nature of emotions. This is true within as well as between disciplines. For example advocates of Intentional theories, Feeling Theories and Basic Emotion theories can be found in philosophy, psychology and neuroscience. Typically advocates from one discipline rely on the others for empirical or theoretical support. I think we can learn about the nature of emotions by focusing on disorders based on emotional processing. One such is depersonalisation disorder which illuminates the complex relationship between emotional processing, bodily awareness and self awareness.
In a recent paper Colin Klein writes. “the phenomenology of asymbolia might resemble a kind of depersonalization syndrome. … The asymbolic, and the depersonalized more generally, feel sensations that they are estranged from — that they do not take to be theirs in the sense that we normally do”.
This raises the question “in what sense we normally take sensations to be ours?” I propose an answer to this question based on an interpretation of recent neuroscientific evidence about the relationship between affective feelings and bodily representation. In particular I focus on the way placebo analgesia affects affective rather than nociceptive processing. I conclude that emotional processes create the sense of “mineness” lost in depersonalization. I then turn, less confidently, to problems for this account. The first is people who experience depersonalization for their affective responses. Prima facie this should not be possible on my account. The second is the case of R “ a conscious, self-aware, and sentient human being despite the widespread destruction of cortical regions purported [by me as well as the targets of this article] to play a critical role in self awareness” (Phillipi et. al. 2012). I think my account can be saved by attending to the hierachical, predictive, nature of cognitive-affective processing.
