Miguel Núñez de Prado Gordillo

This paper explores the intersection between affective fictionalism and the neurodiversity movement, which advocates for the recognition of cognitive differences (e.g. autism, ADHD) as natural variations that, although potentially disabling, are not inner deficits. We argue that affective fictionalism, which views mental state attributions as normative evaluations rather than fact-stating claims, is well positioned to accommodate three desiderata that the neurodiversity paradigm imposes on any theory of folk psychology: (1) acknowledging a diversity of cognitive styles, (2) recognizing the openness to social change of mental attribution, and (3) mitigating different contributory and epistemic injustices faced by neurodivergent individuals. By analyzing disagreements and resistance within neurodiversity activism, we defend that affective fictionalism captures the evaluative nature of mental ascriptions and their role in shaping social dynamics.

Belief ascription in Western contexts is typically guided by the congruency principle: believing something entails, ceteris paribus, acting and reasoning in accordance with that belief. Some people with delusions appear to violate this, leading some to deny delusions a doxastic status. However, this contradicts both scientific characterizations of delusions and experimental evidence that ‘the folk’ consistently interpret delusions as beliefs, incongruencies notwithstanding. The issue isn’t merely philosophical but has repercussions on the agential status of people with delusions. This presents a challenge: can the intuitive appeal of doxasticism about delusions be reconciled with the congruency principle? We argue that regulative approaches to folk psychology, characterized by the ideas that belief ascription is (a) primarily geared towards normative regulation and (b) thoroughly context-sensitive, provide conceptual tools to address this challenge. This perspective builds on and further develops previous attempts to reframe the congruency principle as a regulative ideal that is differentially emphasized across contexts, rather than a fixed factual benchmark. This explains interpreters’ doxastic tendencies as an expression of lower congruency demands in cases of delusions compared to other interpretation contexts. Drawing on empirical literature, we propose possible contextual modulators that could explain lower congruency expectations, including the valence of belief, its ingroup-outgroup status, and the availability of alternative folk-psychological explanations.

Over the last years, 4E approaches to cognition have attempted to overcome the limitations of brain-centered conceptions of psychiatric disorders by emphasizing the enactive, embodied, embedded, and extended nature of the mind. However, even though all 4E approaches reject the claim that mental health conditions can be fully explained as brain disorders, the conceptual and disciplinary plurality within the framework has led to internal disparities when it comes to establishing the exact way in which mental health (and illness) should be reconceptualized. We do not think this is necessarily a bad thing. As pointed out in our target paper, these theoretical disparities show the conceptual richness of the 4E framework... Read More.

Over the last years, 4E Cognition approaches have emerged in an attempt to overcome the limitations of neuro-reductionism about mental disorders, that is, the view that mental disorders can be fully explained as brain disorders. Instead, 4E approaches emphasize in varying degrees the situated, embodied, embedded, and enactive features of psychopathological conditions. Despite its growing popularity, the development of this alternative framework is not characterized by a distinguishable conceptual unity. This paper examines and classifies the main current 4E approaches to mental health, outlining their core commitments, differences, and implications. Two main strands are distinguished: strongly situated or extended views, comprising applications of the classical and social versions of the extended mind hypothesis, and strongly embodied and enactive views, involving applications of the so-called autopoietic enactivism. We examine the main claims of such approaches regarding two conceptual issues: i) _the location problem_, that is, whether mental disorders are predicable of individuals, social contexts, or the relation between them, and ii) _the boundary problem_, that is, how to distinguish psychopathology from non-pathological diversity such as cases of mere social deviance and the like. In the final section, we offer an overview of some of the main practical implications of the 4E turn in mental health research.

Over the last years, 4E Cognition approaches have emerged in an attempt to overcome the limitations of neuro-reductionism about mental disorders, that is, the view that mental disorders can be fully explained as brain disorders. Instead, 4E approaches emphasize in varying degrees the situated, embodied, embedded, and enactive features of psychopathological conditions. Despite its growing popularity, the development of this alternative framework is not characterized by a distinguishable conceptual unity. This paper examines and classifies the main current 4E approaches to mental health, outlining their core commitments, differences, and implications. Two main strands are distinguished: strongly situated or extended views, comprising applications of the classical and social versions of the extended mind hypothesis, and strongly embodied and enactive views, involving applications of the so-called autopoietic enactivism. We examine the main claims of such approaches regarding two conceptual issues: i) the location problem, that is, whether mental disorders are predicable of individuals, social contexts, or the relation between them, and ii) the boundary problem, that is, how to distinguish psychopathology from non-pathological diversity such as cases of mere social deviance and the like. In the final section, we offer an overview of some of the main practical implications of the 4E turn in mental health research.

A central notion in Mad Pride activism is that “madness is a natural reaction” (Curtis et al. 2000, 22). In Madness: A Philosophical Exploration (2022), Justin Garson provides a compelling exploration and defence of this idea through the book’s central concept: madness-as-strategy, i.e., the view of madness as “a well- oiled machine, one in which all of the components work exactly as they ought” (1). This contrasts with the dominant view in 20th- and 21st-century psychiatry, madness-as-dysfunction, which understands madness as a failure of function. The paper provides a critical analysis of the notion of madness-as-strategy as a political tool, pointing out its main virtues and limitations in terms of Garson’s overarching political project: to carve out the conceptual landscape of madness in ways that pay tribute to mad people’s own perspectives. The analysis draws on two central commitments of contemporary neurodiversity theory: a) its relational-ecological model of cognitive (dis)ability; and b) its non-essentialist, sociopolitical critique of the “normalcy paradigm”. I argue that these two insights contribute to both expand the applicability of madness- as-strategy and highlight its limitations as a tool for the political struggles of mad, cognitively divergent, and mentally ill or disabled people. The paper concludes by outlining a way to move beyond both madness-as-dysfunction and madness-as-strategy, toward what I call madness-as-right.

Delusions are a heterogenous transdiagnostic phenomenon with a higher prevalence in schizophrenia. One of the most fundamental debates surrounding the philosophical understanding of delusions concerns the question about the type of mental state in which reports that we label as delusional are grounded, namely, the typology problem. The formulation of potential answers for this problem seems to have important repercussions for experimental research in clinical psychiatry and the development of psychotherapeutic tools for the treatment of delusions in clinical psychology. Problematically, such alternatives are scattered in the literature, making it difficult to follow the current development and state of the target discussion. This paper offers an updated critical examination of the alternatives to the typology problem currently available in the literature. After clarifying the two main philosophical views underlying the dominant formulation of the debate (interpretivism and functionalism), we follow the usual distinction between doxastic (the idea that delusions are a type of belief) and anti-doxastic views. We then introduce two new sub-distinctions; on the doxastic camp, we distinguish between revisionist and non-revisionist proposals; on the anti-doxastic camp, we distinguish between commonsensical and non-commonsensical anti-doxasticisms. After analyzing the main claims of each view, we conclude with some of the most fundamental challenges that remain open within the discussion. This article is categorized under: Philosophy > Foundations of Cognitive Science Philosophy > Consciousness Philosophy > Psychological Capacities Neuroscience > Cognition.

Uno de los principales problemas de la filosofía de la psicopatología contemporánea consiste en definir qué tipo de estados mentales son aquellos que denominamos delirantes. A esto se le ha denominado el “problema tipológico de los delirios”. El principal objetivo de este artículo es examinar las principales alternativas filosóficas contemporáneas a este problema: el doxasticismo—de acuerdo con el cuál los deli-rios deben ser caracterizados como creencias—y al anti-doxasticismo—el cuál niega el estatuto doxásticos de los delirios y ofrece una caracterización alternativa. Para examinar el debate, el artículo presentará las principales características de ambas posiciones y sus fundamentos. Después, examinaremos los principales argumentos esgrimidos contra el doxasticismo y las respuestas y contraargumentos por parte de las alternativas doxásticas. Finalmente, expondremos algunas cuestiones conceptua-les y desafíos abiertos relacionados con el debate y que, a nuestro juicio, deberían de marcar la hoja de ruta de los filósofos de la mente interesados en los delirios en los próximos años.

Critical psychiatry has recently echoed Szasz’s longstanding concerns about medical understandings of mental distress. According to Szaszianism, the analogy between mental and somatic disorders is illegitimate because the former presuppose psychosocial and ethical norms, whereas the latter merely involve deviations from natural ones. So-called “having-it-both-ways” views have contested that social norms and values play a role in _both_ mental and somatic healthcare, thus rejecting that the influence of socio-normative considerations in mental healthcare compromises the analogy between mental and somatic disorders. This paper has two goals. Firstly, I argue that having-it-both-ways views fail to provide a compelling answer to Szasz’s challenge. The reason is that what is essential to Szasz’s argument is not that mental disorder attributions involve value judgements, but that mental attributions _in general_ do. Mental disorders are thus doubly value-laden and, _qua_ mental, only metaphorically possible. To illustrate this, I construe Szasz’s view and Fulford’s having-it-both-ways approach as endorsing two different kinds of expressivism about mental disorders, pointing out their different implications for the analysis of delusions. Secondly, I argue, against Szaszianism, that Szasz’s rejection of the analogy is relatively irrelevant for discussions about the appropriateness of medicalizing mental distress. Specifically, I draw from socio-normative approaches to the psychopathology/social deviance distinction and mad and neurodiversity literature to argue that a) it is still possible to distinguish social deviance from psychopathology once we reject the analogy; and b) that _both_ medicalizing and normalizing attitudes to mental distress can harmfully wrong people from relevant collectives.