Eccentric path and schizophrenic ego splitting. Friedrich Hölderlin's philosophical writing fragments in their relation to his life and illness

Abstract

Psychopathography usually intends to point out the impact of pathological feelings and behaviour on the work of the artist. Our own approach is different from this definition. The article emphasizes that Hölderlin's philosophical manuscripts, developed in the context of German Idealismus, examine more closely the psychopathology of schizophrenic experience of the own self and the world. In these manuscripts Hölderlin discusses the relation of freedom and bonding and the relation of being a solipsistic subject versus being part of a holistic system in a fundamental way. He understands human biography as an excentric path. This means the intention to reunite subject and world, which is only possible symbolically in poetry. Thus Hölderlin's philosophical writings on poetology, human self, and personal identity can be understood as a valid contribution to the psychopathology of schizophrenia because of their anticipation of a description of the fundamental disturbances in self-awareness and self-consciousness of schizophrenics. These patients are unable to see themselves in a consistent way as both an object and a subject, which the author describes as Grundverhältnisstörung (basic proportion disturbance).