When self-consciousness breaks : alien voices and inserted thoughts / G. Lynn Stephens, George Graham.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Stephens, G. Lynn, author.

Graham, George, 1945- author.

Series:

Philosophical psychopathology. Disorders in mind.

Philosophical psychopathology. Disorders in mind

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Auditory hallucinations.

Self.

Self-perception.

Thought insertion.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (xii, 198 pages).

Other Title:

MIT Press CogNet.

Place of Publication:

Cambridge, Massachusetts : The MIT Press, [2000]

System Details:

text file

Summary:

In this book, G. Lynn Stephens and George Graham examine verbal hallucinations and thought insertion as examples of alienated self-consciousness, in which a subject is directly or introspectively aware of an episode in his or her mental life but experiences it as alien -- as somehow attributable to another person. Stephens and Graham explore two sorts of questions about verbal hallucinations and thought insertion. Questions of the first sort concern phenomenology -- what the experience is like for the subject. Questions of the second sort concern the implications of alien episodes for our general understanding of self-consciousness. Psychopathologists look at alien episodes for what they reveal about the underlying pathology of mental illness. As philosophers, Stephens and Graham ask what they reveal about the underlying psychological structure and processes of human self-consciousness. They suggest that alien episodes are caused by a disturbed sense of agency -- a condition in which the subject no longer has the sense of being the agent who thinks or carries out the thought. Distinguishing the sense of subjectivity from that of agency, they make the case that the sense of agency is a key element in self-consciousness.

Contents:

1.1 Swallowing Candy 1

2 Voice Lessons 13

2.1 Conceiving Voices 13

2.2 What Is Inner Speech? 18

2.3 Mouths Wide Open 20

2.4 Fast Confabulation 26

3 The Auditory-Hallucination Model of Voices 33

3.1 The Prospect of a Theory 33

3.2 Hallucination and Perception 35

3.3 Reality Discrimination 40

3.4 Going in Circles 44

4 A First Tale of Hoffman 49

4.1 The Best of the AHM Accounts 49

4.2 A Touch of the Bizarre 51

4.3 The Input Account 57

4.4 The Core of Hoffman's Account 59

4.5 First Critiques 62

4.6 Cognitive Breakdown and Schizophrenia 66

4.7 Inspecting Nonself Attribution 69

5 A Second Tale of Hoffman 79

5.1 The Akins-Dennett Regress Objection 79

5.2 Another Regress Objection 85

5.3 Self-Attribution, Introspection, and Attitudes 88

5.4 Discourse Planning, Inner Speech, and the Experience of Unintendedness 93

5.5 Silent Radios 97

5.6 Reality Testing 106

6 Thought Insertion 117

6.1 Just What the Theorist Ordered 117

6.2 What Is Thought Insertion? 119

6.3 Thought Insertion and Ego-Boundary Confusion 121

6.4 Boundary Confusion and Multiple Personality Disorder 128

6.5 Frith as Motetus 133

7 In the Frankfurt School 145

7.1 Frankfurtian Externality 145

7.2 The Conceptual Problem of Externalization 146

7.3 A Frankfurtian Concept of Alienation 151

8 Alienated Self-Consciousness Explained 157

8.1 Framing the Explanation 157

8.2 Explaining Failure of Self-Attribution 158

8.3 Explaining Alienation 172

8.4 Concluding Compulsively 176.

Notes:

"A Bradford book."

Includes bibliographical references (pages 187-193) and index.

Description based on print version record.

Other Format:

Print version: Stephens, G. Lynn. When self-consciousness breaks.

ISBN:

9780262284301

0262284308

Access Restriction:

Restricted for use by site license.