Abstract
Kant’s conception of mental illness is unlikely to satisfy contemporary readers. His classifications of mental illness are often fluid and ambiguous, and he seems to attribute to human beings at least some responsibility for preventing mental illness. In spite of these apparent disadvantages, Thomason argues that Kant’s account of mental illness can be illuminating to his views about the normative dimensions of human cognition. In contrast to current understandings of mental illness, Kant’s account is “non-pathological.” That is, most mental illnesses are for Kant continuous with normally functioning cognition. Someone with a healthy reason can easily fall into mental illness and someone with mental illness can (perhaps not as easily) re-establish healthy reason. By accepting a non-pathological definition of mental illness, it follows for Kant that humans have more agency and responsibility regarding their mental health than current views allow, which explains why several of his writings aim to prescribe a “diet of the mind” (2, 271). Contrary to popular readings of Kant as a champion of reason’s power, Kant’s conception of mental illness shows that he recognizes how fragile human reason can be.
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Notes
- 1.
- 2.
Kant usually uses the terms Krankheit des Gemüths or Gemüthskrankheit for “mental illness.” The term Gemüt is translated into English as “mind,” but it has a wider connation that may not be properly captured in the English translation. For a helpful explanation, see Rohden (2012). As Rohden argues, the nuances of the term seem to cause the most confusion in Kant’s aesthetics, but elsewhere Kant uses it to denote a wide and neutral word for thinking. In the discussion of mental illness, I think Kant intends this wider connation. Thanks to Ansgar Lyssy for asking about this.
- 3.
I take the term “clinical” from Frierson (2009b, 293).
- 4.
I take this term from Jacobs (2003, 114).
- 5.
- 6.
See Munsche and Harry (2012, 226).
- 7.
“To be subject to affects and passions is probably always and illness of the mind because both affect and passion shut out the sovereignty of reason” (Anth 7: 251, emphasis original).
- 8.
- 9.
Louden suggests that Kant’s views about the purity of morality shifted over time (Louden 2011, 66). Cohen points out this challenge, but agrees with Louden that if anthropology is used to help apply morality in practice, it does not threaten the purity of Kant’s moral theory (Cohen 2017, 257). Schmidt argues that the tension is resolved because once we realize that Kant means two different things when he talks about anthropology being an “application” of morality (Schmidt 2005, 70–73).
- 10.
“In this section, we should also deal with affects as feelings of pleasure and displeasure. … But since these are often confused with the passions […]. I shall undertake a discussion of them when the occasion arises in the third section” (Anth 7: 235).
- 11.
- 12.
- 13.
See also Maladies 2: 260.
- 14.
Also, on the dangers of the imagination, see Medicine 15: 944.
- 15.
See also CpR A820/B848, Blomberg 24: 188, and Vienna 24: 874–876.
- 16.
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Thomason, K.K. (2021). The Philosopher’s Medicine of the Mind: Kant’s Account of Mental Illness and the Normativity of Thinking. In: Lyssy, A., Yeomans, C. (eds) Kant on Morality, Humanity, and Legality. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-54050-0_10
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