Abstract
Max Scheler’s Formalism—and other of his essays on the philosophy of psychology, such as The Idols of Self-Knowledge and Ressentiment—continues to be in dialogue with contemporary philosophers of mind, psychiatrists and neuroscientists. Moving essentially from Formalism and essays from the same period, this paper provides an outline of a genuine Schelerian philosophy of psychopathology, investigating the close connection between ‘identity’ and ‘freedom.’ Not only did Scheler contribute to phenomenological psychology, but he also took an original approach to psychopathology. From this point of view, it is possible to shed further light on his fruitful cooperation with Kurt Schneider and to understand so-called “emotional blindness” from a new perspective. Within this framework, what emerges is the crucial role, in the formation of certain affective disorders, of the modification of pulsions and tendencies. Insofar as it allows for the development of a Schelerian model of delusion and (self)-deception, this approach also has implications for the debate on delusion in the context of contemporary philosophy of psychiatry.
It seems to me that the predominant direction of illusion is reversed in all the psychoses involving an increased excitability, mostly when the sick person continues to focus on the conditions of the body-self. The entire environment, together with the events in it, is “given” here only as the sum of changing stimulants of the feelings, especially the sensory, living bodily feelings of the sick person. The “world” is here actually, not in the perverted, epistemological sense of a soi-disant “idealistic philosophy” given to him as his “representation.” (M. Scheler, The Idols of Self-Knowledge)
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Notes
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Scheler (2009a, p. 171); Scheler (1973a, p. 158) I have slightly modified the standard English translation of certain terms. For example, the term Trieb is here translated as “pulsion” rather than “drive” insofar as it is associated with a sense of the rhythm of life and avoids confusion with the notion of an instinct. Similarly, I have translated Triebeinstellungen as “pulse attitudes” or “pulsional attitudes” rather than “drive-constellation.” Nevertheless, it is important to remember that Schelerian “pulsion” (Trieb), as a noun, and “pulsional” (trieb-), as an adjective, do not refer univocally to the sexual sphere or to the instinct of self-preservation.
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(Scheler 2009a, 209; Scheler 1973a, 201). I have used “axiological perception” or “value-perception” rather than “value-ception” because it picks out a specific modality of perception (Wahrnehmung): the axiological. Perception can in fact be understood as sensory perception as well, without necessarily multiplying or alluding to a mysterious faculty.
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Guccinelli (2016).
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Broome and Bortolotti (2009, p. 1).
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On delusion from a phenomenological perspective, see, for example, Sass (1994).
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Rümke (1941).
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Schneider (1920, p. 284).
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Schneider (1920, p. 284).
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Cf. Schneider (1920, p. 284).
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On pulsions, see Schneider (1932).
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See Schneider (2004, p. 106).
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Schneider (1920, p. 285).
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Schneider (2004, p. 75).
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Schneider (1921).
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Scheler (1972d).
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Cutting (2009).
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Scheler (2008).
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See, for example, the Official Organ of the Italian Society for the Phenomenological Psychopathology, Comprendre. Archive International pour l’Anthropologie et la Psychopathologie Phénoménologiques, the journal founded in 1988 by Lorenzo Calvi.
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Cutting (2009).
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See, for example, Scheler (1972a, p. 221). [English translation: Scheler (1973b, p. 11)]: “The brain and nervous system have an unambiguous causal relation, not to the content, but to what we perceive of it, to the way in which we perceive it, in short to the coming-into-play of the functions through which we grasp the facts of our mental life.” My italics (italics in the original German version, but not in the English translation).
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On the eidetic connection, from a Schelerian perspective, between the living body and the environment, see Guccinelli (2016, pp. 67–153).
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Scheler (2009a, p. 53; Scheler (1973a, p. 32).
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On the unitariness and the unicity of the living body, see Guccinelli (2016, pp. 113–125).
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Fuchs (2005a).
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Kennett and Matthews (2009, p. 333).
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Fuchs (2005a, p. 105).
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Scheler (2009a, p. 151); Scheler (1973a, p. 136). I have slightly modified the English translation. On the pathological phenomenon of “hesitation,” see also Scheler (2009a, p. 241). [English translation: Scheler (1973a, p. 234)]; Scheler (1972a, pp. 258–259) [English translation: Scheler (1973b, 56–57)].
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Guccinelli, R. (2022). The World as “Representation”: Scheler’s Philosophy of Psychopathology. In: Gottlöber, S. (eds) Max Scheler in Dialogue. Contributions to Phenomenology, vol 118. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-94854-2_4
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