Métaphysique Et Philosophie De La Connaissance

Claudine TiercelinMétaphysique et philosophie de la connaissanceAnnée 2022-2023Colloque - Virtual and Augmented Realities: Epistemological and Metaphysical Issues : The Psychopathology of Everyday Metaphysics: Depersonalization, Structuralism, and the Problem of RealityIntervenant(s)Alexandre Billon, Université de LilleRésuméAt the turn of the 19th century, French psychiatrists discovered a couple of intriguingly philosophical disorders. Patients suffering from these disorders were characterized as "metaphysician doubters" or "pathological metaphysicians". They relentlessly questioned their existence, the nature of the self, the reality of things around them, or the very identity of their relatives. "When one has seen many of these pathological doubters, Janet lamented, one comes to sadly wonder whether philosophical speculation is a disease of the human mind (Janet, 1909, 302)". Janet was half-joking. Yet, I would like to suggest that he was half-right. More precisely, I argue that the study of such patholog