In this paper I make a distinction between some characteristic features of human activity which not only challenge the possibility of being explained (reduced) in terms of cause and effect relationship, or by universal regularities, but which assign an element of interpretation and understanding to every human activity. My aim is to demonstrate that it is not the understanding that is submitted to scientific explanation but that every scientific explanation contains the component of interpretation and is evaluated from the viewpoint (...) of our everyday, pre-reflexive being in the world and commonly (often implicite) accepted contexts and assumptions. In other words, we have to constantly refer to the existing background—a network of unspecifiable beliefs and practices. I would like to point out, after Charles Taylor and Hubert Dreyfus, that the responsible epistemology of the humanities must overcome a series of assumptions of modern and contemporarycognitive theory which appeared to be surprisingly congruent with the classic thinking paradigm concerning natural sciences. Last but not least, I would like to prove, relying upon involved epistemology or hermeneutic proto-epistemology, the possibility of mutual symbiotic relationship between the perspective of natural sciences and the humanities. (shrink)

The article deals with relational aspects of mental disorders. The author takes into account the influence of mental illness on intersubjectivity and interpersonal relations in three aspects: “attitude to the illness,” that is, changes in the functioning of the subject and difficulties in dealing with the experience of mental illness; “dialogical relationship” in the form of difficulties in maintaining social cognition and entering into relationships with others; “social consensus,” that is, difficulties in adapting to the social world and a common (...) sense deficit. The analysis is made with reference to phenomenological research in contemporary philosophy of psychiatry. The result of this study is a reconstruction of a “different existence,” in other words, presentation of the transformation of the life-world and the specific way of inhabiting the world of a person in a mental crisis. Symptoms and experience of the illness are presented in the light of human possibilities of transformation. The analysis emphasizes the role of patients’ subjectivity and their efforts to find the meaning of a painful situation. The study of subjective aspects of disorders aims to reveal their consequences for understanding how to deal with mental crisis and to understand the positive aspects of the recovery process. (shrink)

The emergence of new technologies has had a significant impact on the development of modern psychiatry. Brain scanning, biochemical analysis, the search for genetic markers, and the development of psychopharmacology have had a great influence on the way we understand the nature of mental disorders and the role and place of mental health specialists. The article aims at presenting the consequences of a technical approach in psychiatry, giving examples of such an approach and proposing a critical attitude to this approach (...) and the role of technical expertise in psychiatry. (shrink)

Celem artykułu jest omówienie koncepcji praktyki i psychiatrii opartej na wartościach Billa Fulforda. Autor przedstawia założenia VBP w świetle koncepcji bioetycznych, kodeksów medycznych oraz medycyny opartej na dowodach. Koncepcja VBP ukazana jest jako rodzaj praktyki mającej przyczynić się do poprawy decyzji terapeutycznych skoncentrowanych na osobie pacjenta. W tekście pojawiają się pytania o teoretyczne założenia VBP oraz jej rzeczywistą efektywność w podejmowaniu decyzji klinicznych. Autor wyjaśnia również dlaczego Fulford nie widzi w swojej koncepcji potrzeby budowania własnej teorii metafizycznej czy antropologicznej, lecz (...) dostrzega konieczność wsłuchiwania się w złożoność i konfliktowość decyzji klinicznych oraz wartość namysłu nad doskonaleniem codziennej praktyki. (shrink)

Artykuł porusza problem rozumienia w filozofii psychiatrii. Autor koncentruje się na klasycznym już podziale w naukach humanistycznych – na rozumienie/wyjaśnianie oraz nomotetyczne/idiograficzne - i próbuje nakreślić jego konsekwencje dla psychiatrii i problematyki zaburzeń psychicznych. Przegląd wybranych zagadnie metodologicznych filozofii psychiatrii ujawnia antropologiczne aspekty nowożytnej psychiatrii oraz ograniczenia modelu biomedycznego. Ostatnia część artykułu omawia wybrany przypadek kliniczny, aby wskazać na praktyczne konsekwencje indywidualnego i idiograficznego podejścia do psychiatrii.

In the article the author tries to find some similarities and differences between phenomenological tradition and Srzednicki’s project of the new epistemology. He mostly refers to the thought of a French philosopher, Merleau-Ponty. Especially representative to the arguments is his late turn to metaphysical perspective presented in the work, Visible and Invisible, where he made an attempt to express a kind of logic which may reveal the world and ourselves in its mutual interconnections.