The rationality of eating disorders

Mind and Language 38 (3):732-749 (2023)
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Abstract

Sufferers of eating disorders often hold false beliefs about their own body size. Such beliefs appear to violate norms of rationality, being neither grounded by nor responsive to appropriate forms of evidence. I defend the rationality of these beliefs. I argue that they are in fact supported by appropriate evidence, emanating from proprioceptive misperception of bodily boundaries. This argument has far‐reaching implications for the explanation and treatment of eating disorders, as well as debates over the relationship between rationality and human psychology.

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Stephen Gadsby
University of Antwerp

References found in this work

Thinking, Fast and Slow.Daniel Kahneman - 2011 - New York: New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux.
The Conflict of Evidence and Coherence.Alex Worsnip - 2018 - Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 96 (1):3-44.
Delusions and Other Irrational Beliefs.Lisa Bortolotti - 2009 - Oxford University Press. Edited by K. W. M. Fulford, John Sadler, Stanghellini Z., Morris Giovanni, Bortolotti Katherine, Broome Lisa & Matthew.

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