Wittgenstein and the limits of empathic understanding in psychopathology.
The aim of this paper is three-fold. Firstly, to briefly set out how strategic choices made about theorising about intentionality or content have actions at a distance for accounting for delusion. Secondly, to investigate how successfully a general difficulty facing a broadly interpretative approach to delusions might be eased by the application of any of three Wittgensteinian interpretative tools. Thirdly, to draw a general moral about how the later Wittgenstein gives more reason to be pessimistic than optimistic about the prospects of a philosophical psychopathology aimed at empathic understanding of delusions.
Thornton
Tim
T
Department of Philosophy, University of Warwick, Coventry, UK. tim.thornton@warwick.ac.uk
D003071:Cognition; D003702:Delusions; D004645:Empathy; D006801:Humans; D001523:Mental Disorders / Q000523:psychology*; D010684:Philosophy