An introduction to Philosophy of Psychopathology

Philosophy of Psychopathology is not intended to be a new specialized discipline, but rather a “meeting point” conceived to answer to an undelayable need for the sciences dealing with mental phenomena. Its major aims are to enhance the dialogue from different points of view on this topic, and to put in contact scientists that work on it from the inside of their disciplines.
The starting point is to be found in Karl Jaspers’ General Psychopathology: it is intrinsic to psychopathology that it needs a rigorous philosophical basis that must allow at the same time:
a) The emergence of implicit prejudices, since “If anyone thinks he can exclude philosophy and leave it aside as useless he will eventually be defeated by it in some obscure form or other. From this springs the mass of bad philosophy in psychopathological studies. Only he who knows and is in possession of his facts can keep science pure and at the same time in touch with individual human life which finds its expression in philosophy” (Jaspers, 1963, p.770).
b) The clear and explicit foundation of the unavoidable and necessary philosophical premises of psychopathological practice with philosophy intended in its proper methodological role: “In psychology as in psychopathology there are very few, perhaps no, assertions which are not somewhere and at some time under dispute. If we wish to raise our statements and discoveries to firm ground, above the daily flood of psychological notions, we shall almost always be forced to reflect on our methodology” (Jaspers, 1963, p.5).
Psychopathology is psycho(patho)logy. In Minkowski’s sense, it is both “pathology of the psychological” and “psychology of the pathological”, and it is also the overcoming of these points of view. Indeed it is an area that traditionally links psychology and psychiatry, and that nowadays it is opening to the contribution of cognitive sciences, philosophy of mind, neurosciences and so on.
At the same time, due to its methodological role and its heuristic contribution, the philosophy involved herein is, above all, philosophy of science and epistemology. Yet, psychopathology is the science that studies mental phenomena, therefore the cooperation with a rigorously scientific form of phenomenology is essential. Moreover, language is one of the privileged instruments of the psychopathological work, and comprehension and interpretation are incorporated as essential parts of psychopathological activities; therefore, philosophy of language and semiotics are essential too.
Finally, mental phenomena under study in psychopathology are inherent to the human being that express them, and in turn the person constructs his/her identity from the inside of a larger system that is familiar, social, and cultural. Systemic theory, sociology and anthropology are thus main parts of the psychopathological frame.
Philosophy of Psychopathology refers to all these knowledge contexts establishing connections between them and putting all these contributions in a common framework that aims to be coherently scientific.

Massimiliano Aragona
Chair of Philosophy of Psychopathology
Sapienza University, Rome, Italy

Please, cite this paper as follows:
Aragona M. (2008) An introduction to Philosophy of Psychopathology. http://philosophicalpsychopathology.blogspot.com