Abstract
Strands of thought in the philosophy of mind offer another way of looking at the nature of mental illness and how it arises from intense emotional states. Analysing the phenomenon of wonder is suggested as a novel approach to explaining delusions and variations in insight.
Highlights
Fulford remarked that the mind–brain debate in philosophy and the nature of mental illness debate in psychiatry ought to feed off each other, and he suggested that analysing the concept of action was a way forward.[2]
He pointed to the philosophical work of John Searle on intentionality,[3] in which the way that people relate to things in the world depends on their background experiences and understandings
In the literature concerning the evaluation of insight there have been attempts to quantify its presence or absence with questionnaires such as the Beck Cognitive Insight Scale,[16] which pays particular attention to how well individuals view their ability to reflect on their judgements and how certain they are about those decisions
Summary
Summary Strands of thought in the philosophy of mind offer another way of looking at the nature of mental illness and how it arises from intense emotional states. The ‘eliminativist’ project championed by philosophers Paul and Patricia Churchland would have us abandon the term ‘belief’ in favour of descriptions about which particular brain cells depolarised, and in what sequence they did so, to give recognition of a pattern reflecting something about the real world.[5] No duality of mind and brain is required in this scheme because everything supposedly mental can be explained by material cause and effect in the brain An example of such an approach utilising the phenomenology of wonder is the electroencephalogram recordings of brain states in astronauts experiencing spectacular views of the earth from space.[6] In terms of understanding the psychiatric states in which delusional ideas loom large, I contend that, necessary though those brain events are to allow mental phenomena to occur, a more subtle appreciation is required than just measuring physical events in particular areas of the brain
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