Minimal Biological Adaptiveness And The Phenomenology Of Delusions In Schizophrenia

Within analytic philosophy, delusions have been conceptualized as beliefs that are not correct in all particulars. This chapter deals with the question whether delusions qua beliefs in schizophrenia might have some kind of benefit for the deluded. It suggests that beliefs are psychologically adaptive when their adoption helps a subject to deal with psychologically problematic stimuli. At the same time, beliefs will be biologically adaptive when their adoption helps a subject to increase her chances of survival within a specific environment. From this, the currently dominant view within the debate claims that, while delusional phenomena might be psychologically adaptive, they cannot be biologically adaptive. This chapter suggests that the applicability of the dominant formulation of the adaptiveness of delusions is not guaranteed. As described by the phenomenological tradition in psychiatry, in schizophrenia the adoption of delusions is accompanied by other symptoms and a number of generalized bodily and quasi-perceptual transformations in the experience of the self, intersubjectivity, and reality. This chapter argues that, when taking into consideration the phenomenologically rarified conditions in which delusions are adopted in schizophrenia, it is possible to think of delusions as playing a minimal adaptive role from a biological perspective.