Madness in the discourse of the “Other” in the contemporary philosophy

Abstract

Introduction. This paper considers madness as a metahistorical category of culture as well as an excluded language in Western European culture that exists despite the language code. To determine the status of madness in the contemporary philosophy the author analyses the way it functions in the discourse of “the other”. Theoretical analysis. The exclusion of madness from the context of philosophical research occurred due to such various markers changing from era to era as a lie, delusion, nonsense, buffoonery, and finally the dysfunction of the mind completed by Pinel’s reform. The definition of madness as a forbidden language comes from two theses: 1) mental disorders result from biological, not socio-psychological problems; 2) madness and a mental disorder are not two different configurations, they have organic nature that is to be neutralized in terms of pharmacology and defined in terms of behavioral deviations, and that excludes subjective and nonphysical suffering. Conclusion. The research relevance is obvious because modern aesthetics and philosophy with the cultural model of insanity as a core concept need further elaborating. The duality of the subject of psychiatry concerning the human personality implies that this component must be taken into account apart from exclusively natural-scientific studies.