Abstract
Too little attention has been paid by philosophers to the cognitive and epistemic dimensions of emotional disturbances such as depression, grief, and anxiety and to the possibility of justification or warrant for such conditions. The chief aim of the present paper is to help to remedy that deficiency with respect to depression. Taxonomy of depression reveals two distinct forms: depression (1) with intentionality and (2) without intentionality. Depression with intentionality can be justified or unjustified, warranted or unwarranted. I argue that the effort of Aaron Beck to show that depressive reasoning is necessarily illogical and distorted is flawed. I identify an essential characteristic of that depression which is a mental illness. Finally, I describe the potential of depression to provide credal contact with important truths.
I wake and feel the fell of dark, not day. What hours, O what black hours we have spent This night! what sights you, heart, saw; ways you went! And more must, in yet longer light’s delay. Gerard Manley Hopkins, Poems
Many persons helped in writing this paper. Special thanks are owed to my wife, Patricia Sedgeman Graham, as well as to Richard Garrett and Hugh LaFollette.
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Graham, G. (1991). Melancholic Epistemology. In: Fetzer, J.H. (eds) Epistemology and Cognition. Studies in Cognitive Systems, vol 6. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-011-3716-4_10
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-011-3716-4_10
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