Abstract

What are the conditions that make understanding of a disturbed person possible? It is by no means easy to restrict oneself to this question after analyzing the first three studies in psychopathology before us. But it is important for philosophers to take note of the new question that phenomenological and existential psychopathologists are asking. Should we assume, as philosophers usually do, that the understanding of disturbed persons ought to proceed by the rules that presumably apply to the experience and knowledge of bodies, minds, and values enjoyed by "normal" persons? Or should understanding of "the world" of disturbed persons lead us to reconsider some of the epistemic analyses that have been all too dominant, and prematurely so?