The Unreason and the Systematic Reason: Remarks on Psychopathology in Kantian Code

Abstract

Kant says that madness is not a disruption of reason. The mad person doesn’t reason improperly, but his reason proceeds from different assumptions and applies to other data; nevertheless its principles keep being the same. The Kantian objection to every form of innatism drives him, among other things, to speak of uses more tan contents of reason. Among these uses there are a scientific use, the revolutionary enthusiasm, the fanatism and also the madness. Modern Psychology has focused in Kant’s constructivist epistemology and overshadowed his thought about psychopathology. But even if Kant’s approach to this matter is fragmentary and non systematic, I think we can draw from it some interesting conclussions. We aim to analyse some aspects of the use of reason called in general madness, that become specially relevant from the critics that a certain medicalization of the psychology has received in the last 50 years. This analysis will drive us to the problem of subjectivity and we will confront the new concept of subject Kant proposes, which in my opinion, after two and a half centuries, we have not yet quite understood. These considerations could also be a humble contribution to this understanding.