[PEN-L:28205] Re: Re: query

[Carrol Cox <cbcox@xxxxxxxxx>]

Ian Murray wrote:
>

> Idealism [metaphysical], solipsism......

I've been poring through various sources for an answer. "Solipsism" was
my first guess for a "generic" to look up in an old Roget's -- the word
wasn't included. Neither was "autism" nor "autistic." I tried "inward"
(some version of which might still be the best), which was in the Roget
index, but none of the categories it referenced contained any thing
useful. Then I tried the OED under "autism" -- the people who introduced
that word a century or so ago used "self-sufficient" -- but that carries
a moral tone which I don't think Jim wants. "Self-centered" won't do for
the same reason; ditto "self-obsessed." Idealism is off the screen -- it
both denotes and connotes a conscious decision. "Self-trapped"?
"Self-imprisoned"? "Living in a mirror world"?

Carrol

P.S. Some interesting history. What we now call autism was once included
under "schizophrenia." That's the history of neuropsychiatry. Some one
label gets later split into a number of different groupings. I believe
I.A. Richards once argued that the route to a better medicine led
through medical semantics: i.e., understaning (diagnosis) of illnesses
was blocked by terms which closed off thought rather than opened it up.
I'm reasonably confident that the term "depression" (and even unipolar
affective disorder) will eventually disappear to be replaced by three or
four or more terms naming quite different syndromes. But the differences
can't be recognized now -- just as at one time no one could recognize
that schizophrenia, bipolar, and schizoid affective were quite
different.