Psychopathology as an Arbitrator in Subjectivity Paradigms Controversy

Abstract

The article examines the classical and non-classical paradigms of subjectivity. The subject is the origin of thought and action, this is the Self that makes decisions. Philosophy has studied the problem of the subject since Modern times. Classical paradigms include Cartesian, transcendental, phenomenological and existential ones. They do not yet question the subject's ability to think and act independently. The non-classical paradigms are subdivided into the continental branch and the analytical philosophy branch. The continental branch begins with the psychoanalysis of J. Lacan and continues in postmodern. In the analytical branch, the first non-classical paradigm was logical behaviorism, and then D. Dennett's paradigm. In non-classical paradigms, either the subject has no center, or the subject itself does not exist. In Lacan, thinking is driven by language, the play of signifiers. Lacan’s idea was accepted by the postmodern. In non-classical paradigms, there is no central instance of subjectivity, that is, an instance of decision-making. An example is D. Dennett's theory of consciousness, in which drafts of thoughts appear and are fixed if they turn out to be appropriate. However, it is demonstrated using the material of psychopathology, that consciousness without a governing instance is characteristic of a schizophrenic state. In schizophrenia, the mental ability to control one's own thoughts is lost, the feeling of belonging of thoughts to the subject is disturbed, the Kantian transcendental unity of apperception is weakened. Will is the energetic component of thinking. Without the volitional action of central control, the entropy of thinking increases. Thus, we can conclude that the subject normally has a central instance for managing thinking and its organization.