Abstract
Schizophrenia is well-known among mental illnesses for the severity of the thought disorders disorders it involves, and for their widespread and spectacular manifestations ranging from deviant social behavior to delusion, not to mention affective and sensory distortions. The goal of this paper is twofold: (i) to discuss how the concepts of rationality and logicality may apply to conversational contexts in which one of the speakers is schizophrenic, and (ii) to present the initial steps of a scientific research project on one specific manifestation, namely disorders in conversational speech. The theoretical background of the paper relies both on psycholinguistics and on formal semantics !formal . The chapter provides two examples of analyses. I also offers a discussion of the philosophical and epistemological implications of the work.
This paper aims to present an overview of ongoing interdisciplinary research that started with the DiaRaFor project at the MSH Lorraine in Nancy. Certain materials have already been collected in Rebuschi et al. (2013). We are grateful to the audiences at JSM 2010 and CAuLD (Nancy, 2010), MSH-Alpes (Grenoble, 2011), and TALN 2011 (Montpellier, 2011), where versions of this paper were presented. We wish to thank Bruno Ambroise, Valérie Aucoututier, Denis Bonnay, and Eric Grillo for their critical comments and helpful suggestions.
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Notes
- 1.
Of course, it is not required that subjects reason as through deductions within some logical calculus , but that their reasoning tend to conform to the standards of classical logic.
- 2.
Most non-classical logics (relevance logic, intuitionistic logic, etc.) nonetheless retain the principle of contradiction .
- 3.
We provide no precise definition of rationality here, but merely rely on usual mutual attributions of rationality by subjects in interaction . Such attributions are generally based on the observation of behavioral coherence, the defeasible assumption of a minimal amount of shared background beliefs and ways of reasoning , or other implicit criteria.
- 4.
This is not the place to discuss the positions that Quine might have defended, but rather to see what positions are consistent with his strong conception of charity .
- 5.
It is noteworthy that this point converges with formal approaches to contradiction by paraconsistent !paraconsistent logicians. E.g. Villadsen proposes an analysis of paraconsistent !paraconsistent assertions whose principle is to suspend judgment on a claim (by assigning them an indeterminate truth value). This strategy makes it possible for contradictory assertions to coexist (see Villadsen 2004, 106).
- 6.
The idea that understanding requires empathy underlies the alternative to the principle of charity proposed by Bonnay and Cozik (2011). They argue that cognitive science suggests that our understanding of others is mainly based on simulation mechanisms. However, in the case of schizophrenia , the subject’s strangeness is such that simulation can not work. So here we defend a conception of the first-person perspective which does not require empathy or simulation.
- 7.
That is to say neither more nor less than for non-schizophrenics. A general discussion on the status of logic is obviously not our purpose in this paper.
- 8.
It may be questionable to use the categories from DSM while claiming to account for a first-person perspective on pathological reasoning through conversations. However, our purpose is not to define schizophrenia , but rather to offer a fine-grained conception of what is going on in conversations with schizophrenic people. Reference to the DSM classification provides us with the starting point for our research, not the final destination.
- 9.
SDRT also introduces variables representing the conjunction of elaborations. The right-frontier constraint thus provides access to the statement containing salmon, though not to the salmon itself.
- 10.
The fact that many ruptures take place around underspecified expressions reinforces our choice to represent the thematic element in the formalization.
- 11.
Since it pertains to semantics , the thematic criterion could in principle be represented by a marker inside the SDRS . As it is the only semantic element expected to appear in our simplified representations, we have chosen to waive SDRS , leaving only the pragmatic tree and a mere pictorial thematic marker.
- 12.
This conventional attachment grants that the closest preceding node will remain available for further attachment. Another possibility would be to leave the subtree with no attachment, since it corresponds to a subdialogue with no connection to the current conversation.
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Rebuschi, M., Amblard, M., Musiol, M. (2014). Using SDRT to Analyze Pathological Conversations: Logicality, Rationality, and Pragmatic Deviances. In: Rebuschi, M., Batt, M., Heinzmann, G., Lihoreau, F., Musiol, M., Trognon, A. (eds) Interdisciplinary Works in Logic, Epistemology, Psychology and Linguistics. Logic, Argumentation & Reasoning, vol 3. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-03044-9_15
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