Philosophy, Psychiatry, & Psychology

Having written my essay on the philosophical anthropology of Helmuth Plessner, I am very grateful for both commentaries, not only because they give additional information about Plessnerian thoughts, but they do agree on that Plessner can be useful for psychiatry and psychotherapy. Both commentators intend to open up more questions for further discussion, with two main questions coming up: is it useful to revitalize philosophical anthropology—as against critical theory, linguistic theories, or analytical philosophy—to provide a better understanding of psychiatric conditions? And if so, does psychiatric theory, being informed by philosophical anthropology, have a choice between different theory models; especially do we have an alternative to escape the rather narrow language of Heidegger’s existential phenomenology, as Siebers puts it.

Exploring the first of these questions, Mishara rightly stresses the account of the human condition as ambiguity and eccentricity. The human way of being is based in nature and thus psychopathological research can be attached to scientific results. One can as well affirm that here lies a critical potential against what he calls the “superficial business” of some kinds of philosophical anthropology. Plessner develops a categorical system in a strict Aristotelian sense to provide for his new insights into the human condition: for example, positionality as a category is somewhat akin to the older one of relation. Positionality helps us to understand the different ways in which different beings (as human beings or animals) relate to other beings, be it other persons or non-human beings. The development of categories is necessary for science in general (is there really such a difference between natural sciences and humanities?) to foster studies and gain scientific results. Moreover, the philosopher’s work of reshaping his or her categories cannot leave empirical results aside. Thus, philosophical anthropology is not constraining any insights; it rather is part of the scientific stream. Plessner’s concepts function together, and the interplay of all these concepts nurtures further development. Thus, what we learn is playful thinking and fighting the dominance of one concept over the other. Playfully we might overcome battles inside the field of psychiatric anthropology, for example the very recent debate over how to combine humanities with neuroscience and what aspect is the central one for the pathology of humans (Mishara 2007; Parnas et al. 2008). Neither the concept of ipseity (in the dialectic of myself and others) nor that of temporality (in the dialectic of becoming and passing away) can be the only key to understanding human conditions—but these productive tensions that come from different standpoints provoke understanding as long as the game is open to be played. [End Page 139]

Mishara’s commentary emphasizes the aspects of the mind–body problem, which are essential for Plessner. Human beings are experiencing themselves with an inherent dualistic approach of self-reflection: that is, being-a-body and having-a-body. We are invited to further reading and to utilize dialectical thinking, which can deal with and overcome this dualism. This is one way Plessner uses the term dialectic for his own thinking. One has to add that Plessner demonstrates his dialectical movements—to proceed with the use of oppositions—on the roots of a monistic philosophy of nature. The eccentricity of human beings derives from their nature as being part of nature. In the human development nature will—by steps—develop herself from centric to eccentric modes of being. Thus, philosophical anthropology cannot do without a theory of evolution—and human consciousness cannot be seen as a given or as different in the sense of dualism, but instead as the result of natural development. This of course leads to the rather serious problem of all philosophical anthropology: how to consider the surmount from nature to human self-consciousness and existential self-experience. This problem can only be solved by speculation. Further, as I have demonstrated in my essay, one can find rather speculative aspects in Plessner’s thought. For example, he considers nature as apprehended on a different and more intense level: human beings are free in the sense that they are not without nature (freed...