Grice and Goffman on irrationality

Soeranza

Goffman writes: "Every ex-mental patient must face having formed in the hospital some acquaintances who may have to be greeted socially on the outside, leading a third person to ask, 'Who was that?' More importantly, perhaps, he must face the UNKNOWN-ABOUT-KNOWING, that is, persons who can personally identify him and will know, when he does not know they know, that he is "really" an ex-mental patient."

"For one case study," Goffman writes, "in the control of information about self, see J. Henry, "The Formal structure of a psychiatric hopsital," Psychiatry, XVII, 1954, pp. 139-152, esp. 149-150.