Brain Fiction: Self-Deception And The Riddle Of Confabulation (Philosophical Psychopathology: Disorders in Mind) - Hardcover

Hirstein, William

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0262083388 ISBN 13: 9780262083386

Publisher: Bradford Books, 2004

Synopsis

CHOICE Outstanding Academic Title for 2005

Some neurological patients exhibit a striking tendency to confabulate—to construct false answers to a question while genuinely believing that they are telling the truth. A stroke victim, for example, will describe in detail a conference he attended over the weekend when in fact he has not left the hospital. Normal people, too, sometimes have a tendency to confabulate; rather than admitting "I don't know," some people will make up an answer or an explanation and express it with complete conviction. In Brain Fiction, William Hirstein examines confabulation and argues that its causes are not merely technical issues in neurology or cognitive science but deeply revealing about the structure of the human intellect.

Hirstein describes confabulation as the failure of a normal checking or censoring process in the brain—the failure to recognize that a false answer is fantasy, not reality. Thus, he argues, the creative ability to construct a plausible-sounding response and some ability to check that response are separate in the human brain. Hirstein sees the dialectic between the creative and checking processes—"the inner dialogue"—as an important part of our mental life. In constructing a theory of confabulation, Hirstein integrates perspectives from different fields, including philosophy, neuroscience, and psychology to achieve a natural mix of conceptual issues usually treated by philosophers with purely empirical issues; information about the distribution of certain blood vessels in the prefrontal lobes of the brain, for example, or the behavior of split-brain patients can shed light on the classic questions of philosophy of mind, including questions about the function of consciousness. This first book-length study of confabulation breaks ground in both philosophy and cognitive science.

About this title

About the Author

William Hirstein is Associate Professor of Philosophy at Elmhurst College.

From the Inside Flap

"The most comprehensive treatment of the subject of confabulation ever written, Hirstein's *Brain Fiction* represents a pathbreaking and bold synthesis of philosophy and neuroscience. I expect it will prove to be a major resource for scholars and students of this fascinating and important subject for years to come."
--Todd E. Feinberg, M. D., Professor of Clincal Psychiatry and Neurology, Albert Einstein College of Medicine, author of *Altered Egos: How the Brain Creates the Self*

"Both a neuroscientist and a philosopher, William Hirstein writes from his unique vantage point with great scholarship, precision, and clarity to tackle some of the deeper mysteries of the human mind. *Brain Fiction* is full of profound insights, and I recommend it to all who wish to better understand our human nature."
--Fredric Schiffer, M. D., Harvard Medical School, author of *Of Two Minds*

Edition details

• Publisher: Bradford Books
• Publication date: 2004
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0262083388
• ISBN 13: 9780262083386
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 289