On understanding madness: A paradoxical view

Abstract

ABSTRACT In this article, I will examine the question why it is so difficult to understand madness. First, I will examine what the third-person approach of psychosis or madness has to offer, and where its limitations lie with respect to its proper understanding. Next I will examine if and how the first-person perspective on madness contributes to our understanding. I will demonstrate that there is a stalemate between third- and first-person perspectives, which on the one hand hinders a free sight on madness, but which is on the other hand exemplary of the problem that is presented by madness. This turns out to be a paradox that haunts both the concept and experience of madness itself, as well as those who try to understand it. In the fourth section, I will unpack some of the operations of the paradox as it is found both in philosophy and madness, both by their producers as by their consumers. In the fifth section, I will tentatively sketch (im)possibilities of escaping paradoxes.