Double Bookkeeping and Doxasticism About Delusion

Doxasticism about delusion is the theoretical stance according to which delusion is a kind of belief. Although doxasticism is taken for granted in the psychiatric literature, it has been a point of contention in the philosophical literature, where it has met with a number of objections and alternative accounts. In this article, I aim to show how double bookkeeping, a distinctive characteristic of delusion, motivates two kinds of arguments against doxasticism, which we may call, respectively, the argument from action guidance and the argument from phenomenology. After presenting the phenomenon of double bookkeeping, I then formulate and assess the ensuing arguments, concluding with a reflection about the state of the debate about the doxastic status of delusion and offering a few methodological remarks.