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This article delves into the philosophical understanding of madness, examining the perspectives of various philosophers including Locke, Kant, Wigan, and Heinroth. The author proposes a more nuanced view of mental health, highlighting the concepts of sanity, madness, and idiocy as interconnected rather than as a simple absence of reason. They argue that madness should be seen as a distortion or alteration of reason, rather than a complete lack thereof. The article emphasizes the importance of recognizing and empathizing with individuals experiencing mental health conditions, and suggests that a positive perspective on madness can be achieved by moving beyond explanations based on deficiency or weakness. Additionally, the text analyzes a fragment from Kant's Anthropology, focusing on the concept of madness and its different forms. The author explores the idea of "deranged reason" as a distinct type of madness, and discusses the need to consider diverse perspectives and embodiments of reason. They also highlight the limitations of psychologizing philosophy within the field of psychiatry, and propose a historical-philosophical approach as an alternative philosophy of psychiatry that can empower individuals with personal experiences of madness. [Extracted from the article]

In this paper, we criticize what we dub the "pruning view" of self-constitution, championed widely by philosophers, mainly though not exclusively in the Kantian tradition, and instead defend an alternative view inspired by psychoanalysis. We argue that normative assessment comes much too early on the pruning view, so early that it interferes with achieving deeper self-understanding that can produce lasting change. On the proposal we advocate, self-constitution must begin with a non-moralizing attempt to truly understand why one has undesirable and unwanted propensities. We call this the "understanding first" principle. Only after deeper self-understanding has been achieved are attempts to liberate oneself from unwanted elements likely to succeed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

When we were working with this patient, whom we named Damien, we were working in a psychiatric clinic where patients are hospitalized for several months or even years. Binswanger ran a sanatorium in Switzerland (the Bellevue Clinic) and took in patients suffering from this type of psychological pathology. The aim of the article was to present how the encounter in psychodrama can act, how it is constitutive of the self for a psychotic patient, and how it is essential to relaunch a blocked existence. [Extracted from the article]

Current research on psychological trauma has provided key insight into the ways that individuals process and store traumatic experiences. Results coming out of psychology and neuroscience tell us that traumatic stress has a profound impact on our sensorimotor reactions--reactions that are best understood as non-cognitive. This contrast between a somatic or non-cognitive response to trauma, as distinct from a doxastic or cognitive one, has important clinical implications (hence the turn to sensorimotor psychotherapy). It also offers a clear path to dissolving some persistent philosophical puzzles. In this paper I look at one such puzzle, namely, the problem of epistemic akrasia. I argue that if philosophers were to help themselves to the literature on psychological trauma, in particular to the distinction between a somatic response and a doxastic one, we would have a robust explanation of the phenomenon in question and the problem of epistemic akrasia would fade away. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The recent publication of the latest edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-5) was accompanied by heated debate. I argue that part of the reason for these recent controversies is that the process of DSM revision involves making certain value judgments, yet requires a better means for explicitly and expertly addressing these issues. It is important to do so because a) there are certain value-laden questions that science cannot answer but nevertheless need to be addressed in psychiatric classification, and b) the effects of psychiatric classification stretch far and wide. I suggest a means by which the value judgments involved in psychiatric classification can be more systematically and comprehensively examined-- by including an independent ethics review panel in the revision process. An ethics review panel could include bioethicists, sociologists, and philosophers of psychiatry who would be in a better position to address these issues. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Philosophers typically rely on empirical data when they comment on psychopaths' moral responsibility. Many argue that psychopaths, as per the data, suffer from significant impairments in the precursors of moral reasoning and behavior, and therefore they should not be held morally responsible for their actions. However, careful analysis of these studies shows that this view is mistaken. We discuss how several philosophers--perhaps following the lead of social scientists--have systematically misinterpreted or simplified psychological data to support their conclusions about psychopaths' responsibility. We discuss four data sources: Case studies, the moral/conventional distinction task, fear conditioning, and facial affect recognition experiments. We examine how errors in the interpretation of these data have influenced, for the worse, the moral responsibility discourse. We recommend that philosophers exercise more caution in drawing conclusions from the psychological data on psychopaths. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An interview with philosopher Marcel Gauchet is presented. Gauchet discusses the history of modern subjectivity by outlining the key aspect of the modern condition dealing on topics such as psychiatry and clinical psychology. He describes the role of Freudian psychoanalysis in fostering the enrichment and self-alienation of the modern subject.

The author discusses the argument of author David Lumsden that is titled "Whole Life Narratives and the Self" which explains the narrative bundle of a personal identity in psychopathology. He examines the opposition of Lumsden to neo-Lockean perspectives and defense of the role of narratives in the identity of a person. He explores a debate on the importance of a narrative dimension, the challenges of theorists in psychopathology and the psychiatric lessons of philosophers.

The author presents her responses to commentaries by George Graham and Tim Bayne on her paper on impractical delusions in philosophy and psychiatry. She cites the efforts of Graham and Bayne to characterize the difference between the psychiatrically and philosophically deluded. She discusses the similarities between the psychiatrically and philosophically deluded by focusing on a dogmatic philosophical delusion, Theism.

The article presents the author's insights on the responses of James Phillips and Louis Sass with regards to a Lacanian approach to the conceptions of Hegel and Kierkegaard on madness. He says that the framing of Phillips' own response is very helpful in the distinction between the madness of the philosophers and the madness of the clinic. He states that Sass views Hegel's volarization of language as implicating a similar failure to recognize the value of the ineffable.

ABSTRACT: This article considers the relationship between phenomenology and behaviorism in a new perspective. First, we present the phenomenological approach of the Spanish philosopher Ortega y Gasset (1883-1953). Ortega's perspective involves a transformation of classical phenomenology in a direction that emphasizes `life as action' and `historical reason' as a form of explanation. These aspects of Ortega's approach are of interest to contemporary phenomenology, and enable phenomenology's relationship with behaviorism to be reconsidered. Second, we present Skinner's radical behaviorism, the variant of behaviorism most relevant to phenomenology. Of particular importance here is radical behaviorism's emphasis on final causality and its approach to `private events' in terms of the interpersonal functions served by these events. Third, we propose a mutual correction, both of behaviorism by phenomenology and of phenomenology by behaviorism, in which behaviorism's notion of the environment may better be conceptualized through the phenomenological notion of the 'lived-world,' and phenomenology could adopt radical behaviorism's dialectical and constructivist perspective. Finally, we discuss several implications for understanding psychopathology. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses Marga Reimer's paper on impractical delusions in philosophy and psychiatry. It states the author's aim not to classify delusions as beliefs. It cites the effort of Reimer to carve a defensible niche for the thesis associating delusions with beliefs. It commends Reimer for exploring whether philosophers are deluded when making bizarre or odd metaphysical claims. It links Reimer's comparison and contrast between delusional beliefs and odd philosophical beliefs with the premise suggesting delusions as beliefs.