00100	         A THEORY OF THE PARANOID MODE OF THOUGHT
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00500	   The theory , a conjunction of hypotheses and auxiliary assumptions,                                            
00600	centers around several major processess which will first be described informally.
00700	The whole story encompasses many auxiliary  assumptions and presuppositions           
00800	as will be apparent as the story unfolds.
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01000	
01100	   We presuppose a schema of human action in the form of a practical syllogism: 
01200	     An agent A wants situation S to obtain                        
01300	     A believes that in order to obtain S , A must do X                                           
01400	     Therefore A proceeds to do X.                                                     
01500	The term `do' here means to produce, prevent or allow something to happen and    
01510	includes mental as well as physical action. It is also presupposed in this
01520	action-schema that in doing X ,A receives feedback as to whether S is coming
01530	about, i.e. whether doing X is successful or not.
01600	   It is well known clinically that the phenomena which serve as empirical indicators
01700	of the paranoid mode of thought  can be found associated with a variety
01800	of physical disorders. For example, paranoid 
01900	thinking can be found in patients with head injuries, hyperthyroidism
02000	hypothyroidism, uremia, pernicious anemia, cerebral arteriosclerosis,
02100	congestive heart failure, malaria and epilepsy. Also drug intoxications due to 
02200	alcohol, amphetamines, marihuana and LSD can be accompanied by paranoid
02300	signs. To account for the association of paranoid thought with these physical
02400	states of wrongness, we could  hypothesize that the agent attempts to explain
02500	his illness  state to himself by constructing malevolence beliefs about
02600	other human agents. But before making such a move, we must consider arguments about
02700	the elusive distinction between reasons and causes in explanations of human behavior.
02800	   When human action is to be explained, confusion easily arises between
02900	offering reasons and causes as Toulmin [ ] has discussed at length. One view
03000	of the association of the paranoid mode with physical disorders might be
03100	that the physical illness simply causes the paranoia ,through some unknown mechanism, at a hardware level beyond
03200	the  intentional control of the agent. That is, the resultant paranoid
03300	state represents something that happens to him as patient, not something that he does
03400	as an active agent.The cause serves as a necessary but not sufficient condition.
03500	Another view is that the paranoid mode is to be explained in terms of reasons, justifications
03600	intentionally constructed by the agent to achieve a purpose.
03700	But does the agent recognize that this is what he is doing or does it
03800	just `come to him'automatically without deliberation? This question raises a third view, namely that
03900	unrecognized reasons can function like causes in operating outside of
04000	consciousnes. Once regognized as a reason by the agent it           
04100	can be put under voluntary control ,by the agent talking to himself, like any other reason but unlike  
04200	a cause which lies beyond intentionalistic regulation. Timeworn conundrums
04300	about concepts of free-will, determinism, responsibility, consciousness and the powers of mental action
04400	here plague us. In modern terms how much of the disorder is due to harware and how much revisable program?
04600	            Each of these three views is   defendable depending on
04700	the situation to be explained. When paranoia occurs in amphetamine
04800	intoxication it can be said to be caused and beyond the agent's control to reject tha malevolence beliefs 
04900	through internal reprogramming dialogues with the self.
05000	When a paranoid moment occurs in a normal person it can be said to have a reason or justification
05100	If the paranoid belief is recognized as such,the agent has the power to `change-his mirevise or reject  it.             
05200	Between these extremes of drug-induced paranoid states and the self-correctible
05300	paranoid moments of the normal person, lie cases of paranoid personalities
05400	and paranoia associated with the major psychoses . Current opinion has it
05500	that the major psychoses are consequences of unknown causes and beyond extensive voluntary control.
05600	But what are we to conclude about paranoid personalities in whom no
05700	physical disorder can be detected? Are they to be considered patients to 
05800	whom something is happening or are they agents whose behavior is a consequence
05900	of what they do ? (Doing here includes mental action such as construction
06000	of credibility judgements). We shall take the position that the paranoid
06100	mode represents something that happens to a man as a consequence of something
06200	he does, namely belief-construction. Thus he is both agent and patient having powers to do and capacities to undergo.
06300	   From this standpoint there exists a duality between reasons and causes.
06400	That is, just as in an algorithm a procedure can serve as an input argument
06500	to another procedure, a reason can function as a cause in one context and
06600	as a justification in another. When a final cause, such as a conceptualized
06700	goal, guides efficient causes we can say that human action is non-determinate
06800	and the power to make decisions freely is non-illusory. When a reason is
06900	recognized to function as a cause, it can be changed by another procedure
07000	which takes it as an argument. In this sense the system is self-changeable
07100	and self-correcting, within limits.
07200	   The major processes  we postulate to govern the paranoid mode
07300	operate as follows. First a self-censoring process constructs a belief, a
07400	condemnatory credibility judgement, that the self is responsible for wrongdoing or wrongbeing.
07600	Self-esteem falls and threatens to fall further if the self accepts the blame for the wrongness.   
07700	and  undergoes shame-humiliation.
07800	To prevent this painful negative affect-state of humiliation,and to maintain self-esteem, procedures
07900	for denial and attribution of blame to others are called into play. They operate
08000	to deny that the self is to blame for wrongs    and to attribute 
08100	wrongs to other agents. Now it is not the self who is wrong but the self
08200	is being wronged by others. Since others are believed to be malevolent ,processes for the detection of malevolence
08300	in the input become the predominant strategies.  If these input strategies succed in
08400	detecting malevolence, output strategies are called to reduce the
08500	other's malevolence. Finally a judgement is made as to the success or failure of the output strategies.
08700	   The above paragraph attempts to summarize in somewhat vague prose a complex
08800	interaction of several symbol-processing procedures. The details of
08900	these procedures and their interactions will be make explicit when
09000	the algorithm is described (see p  ). The theory is circumscribed in that it
09100	attempts to explain only certain phenomena.It does not attempt to explain, for
09200	example, why the self-censoring process condemns  particular actions  or states
09300	as wrongs nor how any of these procedures develop over time  
09400	in the enculturation experience. Thus it does not provide an ontogenetic
09500	explanation of how a structure of processes came to be the way it is .
09600	The model offers an explanation  only of how the structure now can be viewed to operate in symbol-processing terms.