The rationality of madness: Did Plato, Cusanus and Kierkegaard get it right?

Abstract

SummaryModern psychiatry has arguably been taken captive by the philosophical presuppositions of modernity to the extent that its descriptions of mental illness appear unstable and susceptible to misuse. Foucault pointed to Nicholas Cusanus as a possible alternative, and this suggestion is here taken as the point of departure for an investigation of how the understanding of the human as informed by the encounter with the eternal points us in the direction of a different understanding of reality. Kierkegaard stands in the same Neoplatonic tradition as Cusanus, but takes his approach one step further by investigating the psychopathology of disbelief through his work with anxiety and despair. The article argues that psychiatry has much to learn from a deeper engagement with this tradition.