phenomenology, psychopathology and jaspers: a conceptual history

http://hpy.sagepub.com/History of Psychiatry

http://hpy.sagepub.com/content/3/11/303The online version of this article can be found at:

DOI: 10.1177/0957154X9200301103

1992 3: 303History of PsychiatryG.E. Berrios

Phenomenology, psychopathology and Jaspers: a conceptual history

Published by:

http://www.sagepublications.com

can be found at:History of PsychiatryAdditional services and information for

http://hpy.sagepub.com/cgi/alertsEmail Alerts:

http://hpy.sagepub.com/subscriptionsSubscriptions:

http://www.sagepub.com/journalsReprints.navReprints:

http://www.sagepub.com/journalsPermissions.navPermissions:

http://hpy.sagepub.com/content/3/11/303.refs.htmlCitations:

What is This?

- Sep 1, 1992Version of Record >>

at UNIV OF SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA on April 2, 2014hpy.sagepub.comDownloaded from at UNIV OF SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA on April 2, 2014hpy.sagepub.comDownloaded from

http://hpy.sagepub.com/


http://hpy.sagepub.com/content/3/11/303

http://hpy.sagepub.com/content/3/11/303



http://hpy.sagepub.com/cgi/alerts

http://hpy.sagepub.com/cgi/alerts

http://hpy.sagepub.com/subscriptions

http://hpy.sagepub.com/subscriptions

http://www.sagepub.com/journalsReprints.nav

http://www.sagepub.com/journalsReprints.nav

http://www.sagepub.com/journalsPermissions.nav

http://www.sagepub.com/journalsPermissions.nav

http://hpy.sagepub.com/content/3/11/303.refs.html

http://hpy.sagepub.com/content/3/11/303.refs.html

http://hpy.sagepub.com/content/3/11/303.full.pdf

http://hpy.sagepub.com/content/3/11/303.full.pdf

http://online.sagepub.com/site/sphelp/vorhelp.xhtml

http://online.sagepub.com/site/sphelp/vorhelp.xhtml





303

Phenomenology, psychopathology and Jaspers:a conceptual history

G. E. BERRIOS*

Hiswry of Psychiatry, iii (1992), 303-327. Printed In England

Certain assumptions are widely made about the relationship between phenomenologyand Western psychopathology: (1) ’phenomenology’ is the method of choice forobtaining empathic, detailed and neutral descriptions of mental states; (2) theconceptual foundations for such method are to be found in a putative ’early period’of Husserl’s philosophy; and (3) Karl Jaspers imported phenomenology intodescriptive psychopathology. 1,2,3,4,5,6 Surprisingly, there is little historical evidenceto support this view. Historians of psychiatry, for example, have done little toascertain whether what Jaspers introduced into psychopathology had any connectionwith Husserlian phenomenology.7 This lack of interest is understandable: as is alsothe case with Kraepelin, insufficient time has yet elapsed to regard Jaspers as ahistorical subject. The implications of accepting the above assumptions are,however, important, particularly for psychiatric trainees: if phenomenology istruly relevant, then they must be instructed in it. The task of exploring thehistorical bases of the received view is not easy. Jaspers wrote desultorily onphenomenology and successive editions of the General Psychopathology (GP)included marked changes in emphasis and showed some ambivalence towardsHusserl. The thesis of this paper is that Jaspers’ contribution to descriptivepsychopathology (DP) is, in the main, independent of the philosophicalmovement called ’phenomenology’; in other words, that there is no need toinvoke Husserlian phenomenology to explain or legitimate Jaspers’ achievement.

What is phenomenology?The term Phenomenology names a loose set of philosophical doctrines sharing:(a) a doctrinal core of metaphysical and epistemological assumptions, and(b) instrumental strategies for describing mental entities. Its general objective isthe capturing of ’experiential essences’ (higher forms of knowledge coveted fortheir assumed eternal value) with which to reconstruct reality on firmer basis. As

* Address for correspondence: G. E. Berrios, MD, FRCPsych, FBPsS, Department of Psychiatry,University of Cambridge, Addenbrooke’s Hospital (Level 4), Hills Road, Cambridge CB2 2QQ.

at UNIV OF SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA on April 2, 2014hpy.sagepub.comDownloaded from



304

against what is usually believed in clinical circles, phenomenology does not haveas its objective the extraction of tame and neutral descriptions.The word ’phenomenology’ results from two Greek stems: phainomenon (to

appear), and logia (discourse, science).~ It was first combined into the Germanword Phdnomenologie by J. H. Lambert (1728-1777) in 1764 to refer to his own’theory of illusion or appearance’.9 Kant, Hegel, Whewell, Hamilton and Machmade use of the word to describe categories and views of their own. 10, &dquo; Thus,during the nineteenth century the term became a veritable semantic palimpsest.The earliest clinical use found by this writer was by Guislain in 1852 when, aftersubdividing dementia into 5 groups based on predominant symptoms or

’phenomenes’, he wrote: ’cette division est basee essentiellement sur la

phenomenologie’ .12The four meanings of phenomenologyFour meanings will be alluded to in this section. PI refers to its commonestclinical usage as a mere synonym for ’signs and symptoms’ (as in ’phenomenologicalpsychopathology’); this is a bastardized usage, and hence conceptually uninteresting.P2 refers to a pseudo-technical sense often used in dictionaries and whichachieves spurious unity of meaning by simply cataloguing successive usages inchronological order; this approach is misleading in that it suggests false

evolutionary lines and begs important questions relating to the history ofphenomenology. P3 refers to the idiosyncratic usage started by Karl Jaspers whodedicated his early clinical writings to the description of mental states in amanner which (according to him) was empathic and theoretically neutral.Finally, P4 refers to a complex philosophical system started by Edmund Husserland continued by writers collectively named the ’Phenomenological Movement’.13Of these, only P3 and P4 will be dealt with below; the latter only in its earlyHusserlian version for, according to most writers - and indeed Jaspers himself -it is the source of what has since been called Jaspersian phenomenology.

The basic questions of phenomenologySince the end of the nineteenth century, phenomenology has sought to answerthree questions. First, how do consciousness and its contents relate to theexternal word? (This is an epistemological question; by epistemology it is meanthere the set of rules governing the validation of knowledge.) Second, how is itpossible to differentiate mental from physical phenomena? Third, how canmental phenomena be distinguished from each other? To answer these

questions, phenomenological philosophers have tooled descriptive strategieswhich make assumptions about: (a) the reality and nature of the external world,and (b) the capacity of the individual to scrutinize his/her mental acts.

F. Brentano and W. DiltheyDuring the 1880s, the three questions reappeared in a psychological garb.Brentano and Dilthey asked whether ’analytical (or explanatory) psychology’




305

managed to create, after years of toiling, adequate conceptual machinery to dealwith the mind. More specifically, Brentano wanted to know whether psychologywas able to differentiate mental from physical objects;14 Dilthey, in turn, wantedto know whether a definition of ’personal experience’ was available that mighthelp to understand historical events. 15 Brentano believed that mental acts couldbe differentiated from physical objects in terms of their object alone: ’Everymental phenomenon is characterized by what ... we might call reference to acontent, direction toward an object, or immanent objectivity. Every mentalphenomenon includes something as object within itself ...’16 In other words,’intentionality’ was the central characteristic of mental phenomena.

This new conception of mental phenomenon required new descriptive andanalytic methods. Brentano believed that, once found, these would form thebasis for a new ’descriptive’ psychology which after 1888 he called ’phenomenological’.Dilthey, on the other hand, stated that the ’explanatory’ psychology of his timewas deeply flawed because it was based on a model borrowed from the naturalsciences, and hence was incapable of dealing with mental experiences; as asolution, he also wanted to replace it by a new ’descriptive’ psychology.17Dilthey’s proposal was attacked by Ebbinghaus who accused him of misunderstandingpsychology. g~19 Dilthey was later to find a similarity between his views andthose entertained by the earlier Husserl, who acknowledged this support .20 Atthe turn of the century, therefore, it was believed by some that it was possible todevelop a new ’descriptive psychology’ which might include a new view ofmental act and experience, and most importantly, a new methodology for theiranalysis; it was further believed that such new discipline required the

underpinning of a new metaphysics of description, and that this was provided byphenomenology.

’Intentionality’ and the mental actA core philosophical issue at the turn of the nineteenth century was the

relationship between the mental act, its content and the external world .2 Thereceived model (originally proposed by John Locke) stated that the externalworld was the only source of knowledge, and that this information, conveyed tothe subject by the windows of his senses, was to be found in his mentalexperience. Later on, Berkeley, Hume, Kant and Reid made use of the Lockeanmodel, only disagreeing on the informational (i.e. epistemological) contributionof each of its components. ’Mental acts’ mean here ’mental experiences orevents’ but not ’acts’ (in the sense of activity). In fact, during this period, andfollowing Aristotelian usage, the opposite of the word act was not passivity butpotentiality. Mental states could, thus, be of two types: actualized (or mentalacts proper) and non-actualized, but both were ’intentional’.

This latter term, in turn, did not mean ’doing something on purpose’ butreferred to the medieval sense of ’picturing or being directed to something’. Soby ’intentionality’ was meant the ability of the human mind to refer to objectsoutside itself.22,23 In the Brentanian and Husserlian versions, however,




306

’intentionality’ was considered as a structural dimension of the mental act, butno assumption was made with regard to its origins.24 Husserl, however,criticized Brentano’s views for ’he had not gone beyond an externallyclassificatory-descriptive consideration of intentional lived experiences ...&dquo;5Husserl, in turn, was to be criticized by Searle for having left out causalityaltogether.26The individuation of mental actsIn addition to the need to separate mental from physical objects and to evaluatetheir informational content, there was the question of how were mental acts to beindividuated, i.e. distinguished from one another. For example, Dilthey wantedpsychology to develop ways of ascertaining personal experiences and meaningsrather than seeking general laws to account for classes of experiences. 27 Mentalacts, however, were less amenable to the techniques used to individuate physicalobjects (e.g., detailed description or identification of spatio-temporal coordinates).In fact, at the end of the nineteenth century the individuation of mental acts wasbased on knowledge of: (1) what object the act was directed to, and (2) its

psychological mode, i.e. whether the subject entertained it as an idea, feeling orvolition.The question, however, remained: where does the information on which the

individuation process is based come from? The solution, until the end of thenineteenth century, had been the so-called ’object theory’, according to whichinformation came from the object pictured by the mental act. 28 This view came togrief when applied to objectless mental contents such as hallucinations or unicorns.Brentano, who has so often been mentioned as the father of phenomenology,upheld, in fact, a variant of ’object theory’ ’29 and Husserl also criticized himfor it.30,31,32

In 1892, the great logician Gottlob Frege offered a solution to the problem of’objectless’ mental contents.33 Frege was not, of course, concerned with mental actsbut with the issue of linguistic reference,34 and distinguished between an

expression, its sense and its referent (i.e. the mental act, its content and the object).Frege’s model was imported into phenomenology as the ’content theory ofintentionality’. 35 According to this theory, the mental act was to be individuated inrelation to its content, not its object; the mental act itself, however, was directed tothe referent or object. Frege’s emphasis on ’sense’ as something which many people(indeed everyone) might hold in common was not lost to phenonlenology: it

provided the epistemological terra firma on which the stand against ’psychologism’was taken.36

Psychologism: origins and problems

’Psychologism’, a popular philosophical view during the nineteenth century, statedthat there could only be individual minds and ideas but not universally sharedmeanings; and that mathematics and logic (like all other forms of thinking) were




307

subjected, in the final analysis, to the laws and processes of psychology; in otherwords, their epistemological foundations were to be found, not in some a priori’given’, but in the empirical study of cognition.During the seventeenth century, Descartes and Locke had temporarily solved

the problem of the relationship between psychology and epistemology,respectively by using a divine rule, and by the development of a native form ofpsychology. 37 Both solution were challenged during the Enlightenment, andnew solutions were offered by Condillac and Kant. 38 Psychologism reappearedin Germany early in the nineteenth century, sponsored by J. F. Fries 9 andF. E. Benecke4° and somewhat later in England under the auspices of J. S. Mill.It occurred as a reaction against Hegel and Kant, particularly against the latter’sclassification of judgements into empirical, analytical and synthetic a priori.Empirical statements depended for their truth on the external world, andanalytic statements for theirs on the clarity of their definitions. The nature of thesynthetic a priori statements was, however, less clear, for these were supposed tocontain information about the world which had been obtained by means otherthan direct experience (e.g., intuition). In the end the entire Kantianclassification was challenged by J. S. Mi1141 who reduced all analytical andsynthetic a priori judgements to empirical statements, i.e. he claimed that thetruth of logic and mathematics depended upon the experiencing of suchrelationships in the real wor1d.42 In the late nineteenth century a further step wastaken: if the truth of all statements depended upon empirical testing, then logicaldemonstration no longer sufficed. Psychology, the only science of the mind, wascharged with testing all principles. But since (by definition) all empiricalstatements could be true or false, then there was the possibility that logicalprinciples and mathematical relationships could be false. It was thus incumbentupon psychology to uncover the way in which the mind operated.

This reduction of logic and mathematics to psychology was resisted by many.One of the first to do so was Frege.43 Brought up in this intellectualenvironment, it is not surprising that Husserl hesitated between the two

positions. Indeed, his earliest writings defended a version of ’psychologism’; forexample, he defended the so-called ’theory of abstraction’ which was an

empiricist attempt to explain how the concept of ’general term’ is acquired.44For this he received a severe rebuke from Frege. 45Husserl

Husserl’s work can be divided into three stages. During the earliest or

’psychological’ period he attempted to provide a psychological foundation for theeternal truth of numbers. This period was brought to an end by Frege’s savagereview of The Foundations of Arithmetic. The second or middle period containedthe full development of his phenomenological views, as stated in LogicalInvestigations (1901-1903) and Ideas (1913): this period came to an end with thewriting of Formal and Trascendental Logic in 1929. The third period culminatesin 1936 with the almost mystical book on The Crisis of European Science... Of




308

these three periods only the first two might be of relevance to the history ofpsychopathology; the third, perhaps, to some aspects of psychoanalysis.To understand Husserl’s flirtation with ’psychologism’ it is essential to know

the problem he was reacting against. As has been briefly mentioned, thenineteenth century inherited from Kant a classification of statements intoanalytical (e.g., mathematical and logical), empirical (i.e. scientific) andsynthetic a priori. J. S. Mill called into question the meaning of analyticalstatements and classified them as synthetic; in practice, this meant that allstatements, including mathematical and logical statements were ’empirical’, andhence, subject to correction. By the time Husserl was at university the claim wasbeing made that, since logic was but the expression of thinking processes,psychology should be called upon to decide on the final value of logicalstatements. This view influenced Husserl’s doctoral thesis. There has beendisagreement as to the extent of Husserl’s psychologism. Frege thought it wasclear, as did Osborn: ’It was a time in which he attempted to solve logical andmathematical problems through the instrumentality of psychology... ,46,47Spiegelberg, on the other hand, saw Husserl’s psychologism as an earlyaberration and still refers to his ’pre-phenomenological period; 48 more recentlySchmitt has seen the Philosophy of Arithmetic as an attempt at ’a psychologicalanalysis of certain basic logical and mathematical notions’. 9 On the other hand,de Boer, 50 Kelkel and Scherer,51 and Dartigues52 believed that Husserl took ananti-psychologism stance from the beginning. It seems clear, however, that whatSpiegelberg has called Husserl’s ’striking shift 53 marks the moment in whichhe moved away from psychologism. During this first period, however, there isno talk on the ’phenomenological’ method, and hence it is unlikely to be ofrelevance to psychopathology. Indeed, Jaspers did not refer at all to this firstperiod of Husserl’s writings.The second period may, however, be more important. It is then that Husserl

developed to the full his ’content’ theory and expanded upon the phenomenologicalmethod. In regard to the former he wrote in the Fifth Investigation: ’Anexperience may be present in consciousness although the object does not exist atall, and is perhaps incapable of existence ...’54 Husserl’s content theory wasbased upon the view that: (a) all intentional acts have content; (b) contentdetermines to which object the acts refer; (c) there are objectless acts, i.e. thecontent of an act may fail to determine an object for the act in question.55 Inregard to method Husserl wrote: ’method means goal-directed activity in anintelligible, insightful manner, which is fit to lead to the goal. Still better, weshould say goal-directed doing which, with its stage points, these products,presents the way the doer goes, goes by doing and seeing.’ And in regards to thephenomenological method: ’we can exercise phenomenological reduction onevery perception belonging here, therefore on every external, trascendentalperception, precisely as a methodical operation of reduction to the purelyimmanent, to pure subjectivity.’

Husserl went on developing ever more refined distinctions; at the end of his




309

life he left unfinished a complicated and sometimes confusing conceptual edifice.Husserlian philosophy encompassed solutions to problems in areas as diverse asmetaphysics, referential logic, epistemology and the philosophy of mind; all ofthese, at the beginning, seemed hidden under the almost innocent problem ofthe scope of psychology. Since those early days phenomenologists havewandered further afield, to rehearse their method in sociology, 56,57 PolitiCS,11,59philosophical anthropology, 60,61 and psychoanalysis.62

Unless the word ’description’ is used in a strange fashion, it is difficult,therefore, to accept that phenomenology was, is, or ever will be, just a

sophisticated method of ’description’. From a technical point of view, the issueis whether it is possible to extricate, from what admittedly is a complextheoretical whole, anything that can meaningfully be said to stand on its own, asa ’phenomenological method’. It is closer to the historical facts to consider

phenomenology, first and foremost, as a metaphysical and epistemologicaldoctrine into which instrumental strategies were built for describing mentalentities. Its raison d’itre was not to obtain tame and neutral descriptions; it wasto capture ’experiential essences’, coveted for their eternal value. Thus thephenomenological method promises epistemological gains which far exceed

anything that the conventional observational strategies of clinical psychopathologyare able or purport to offer.

Phenomenology and English philosophy

Up to the 1920s, phenomenology made little impact on English philosophy. In1922, Husserl gave four lectures in German during a visit to London, and althoughthe organizers (University College) secured the help of great chairmen (DawesHicks, James Ward, Wildon Carr and George E. Moore), the lectures caused littlestir and certainly far less that Husserl’s Paris lectures of 1925, eventually publishedas the Cartesian Meditations.63 Metz has suggested, however, that Bosanquet,Hicks, and probably Stout, came under the influence of Husserl. 64

In 1924, a young Gilbert Ryle seems to have felt some sympathy for the’Logical Investigations’, and consequently was asked to deliver ’an unwantedcourse of lectures entitled ’Logical Objectivism: Bolzano, Brentano, Husserl,and Meinong’. These characters were soon known in Oxford as ’Ryle’s threeAustrian railway stations and one Chinese game of chance’. 65 In a more seriousvein, Ryle did not fail to notice the hiatus separating the earlier and later periodsof Husserl’s philosophy: ’I realized pretty soon that Husserl’s intentionalist,anti-psychologistic theory of meaning/non-sense, which was what interested me,owed nothing to his posterior phenomenology, and bequeathed too little to it ...’66

The meanings of ’description’It would seem that it is important to distinguish between the phenomenologicaland conventional meaning of ’description’, for confusing the two has generated




310

much misunderstanding. Descriptions in phenomenology are characterized byfour important features. Firstly, they are not meant to collect itemizedinformation on the world, or to form the basis for empirical statements of thekind that might be considered as relevant to science in general or DPin particular; indeed, one of the most determined efforts to produce a

’phenomenological philosophy of science’ turned into a failure.67 Secondly,phenomenological descriptions apply only to subjective experiences; thus

objective signs such as psychomotor retardation, tremor, catatonia, or soft

neurological signs are left out altogether. Thirdly, for the capturing of

experiential essences the phenomenological method of description relies on theexercise of extra-ordinary human faculties such as intuition and empathy;indeed, observational strategies based on the conventional sense modalities arenot encouraged. Fourthly, as mentioned above, phenomenological descriptionsendeavour to capture ’immutable essences’. These can be understood in two

ways: as tantamount to operational definitions (i.e. as the first stage in the

development of any scientific programme) or as quasi-metaphysical entities. Theformer interpretation is flawed in that it adds nothing to the description andhence is insufficient to justify the sobriquet ’phenomenological’; the latter,probably the correct one, forces upon the psychiatrist unacceptable philosophicalcommitments; but it also does away with the myth of neutral descriptions.

’Theory-free’ descriptionsBut, are ’theory-free’ or ’neutral’ descriptions possible in psychopathology? Theview taken in this section is that they are not. The argument goes like this: alldescriptive activity is subject to two levels of theoretical control. There is, first ofall, an overt, first-order, theoretical framework governing the way in whichdescriptive categories are applied, and at the same time, providing rules for theunderstanding of the items or contents captured by the said descriptivecategories. But there is also a covert, second order, hidden theoreticalframework, a sort of meta-theory about the domain to be described, which is notat all times (or necessarily) within the purview of the subject undertaking thedescription; this meta-theory controls the way in which the domain is parsedout, the way in which that particular region of reality is broken up.

Efforts by Jaspersian phenomenologists to achieve theory-free descriptionsonly affect the first of these theoretical controls. It is possible to set aside first-order theories because these can be changed at will, but doing so may create theillusion that the ensuing descriptive activity has become theory-free. This is onlya mirage; there is still the control of the second-order theory, which cannot bethus set aside, particularly in the case of the psychopathological description ofexperiences and subjective events. In other words, descriptions of this nature,whether phenomenological or not, are ex-hypothesis theoretical activities. Forexample, if I describe a visual hallucination as a ’coloured patch’ and make noassumptions whatsoever regarding its mechanisms, causes and meaning, Icannot conclude that I have just achieved a neutral description, or captured a




311

pure fact. I cannot do so because I have not bracketed out the meta-theory whichcontrols the deeper grammar of my description: the theory that warrants mysegregating the coloured patch from its background and my considering it as aexperience with certain boundaries in time and space. This theoretical level iscertainly resistant to the Jaspersian method.

The historical context and Ph. Chaslin

As has already been said, since the middle of the nineteenth century there was inEurope (particularly in France) a great descriptive tradition in psychopathology.By the turn of the century this had been distilled in a series of majorworks, 68,69,70 culminating with a great book on psychopathology published byPhilippe Chaslin,71,72,73, 4 a year before Jaspers’ own book. Indeed, Jaspersseems to have incorporated many of Chaslin’s descriptions in his work.An important point about these descriptions is that they were often

accompanied by searching theoretical analyses of the descriptive activity.Starting with Moreau’s call for the incorporation of subjective states into the

symptomatolo~y of madness,75 writers like Baillarger, Brierre de Boismontand Despine 6 began to distinguish between description and theoreticalexplanation. Kolle acknowledged that ’the French, in particular, developed thissymptomatological approach into a fine art, although the practice of psychiatryprofited little from these investigations ...’77 According to Kolle, Jaspers’ maincontribution was the ’construction of a psychiatric system of methods’. Kollewas right in not insisting on the claim that Jaspers’ contribution had been in thearea of description. His view is supported by Tellenbach, an acknowledgedphenomenologist: ’Jaspers has the merit of having enriched psychiatry byintroducing Dilthey’s spiritual psychology and his theory of understandableconnections ...’7g~79 If it is the case that there was already a strong Europeantradition in descriptive psychopathology, why is it often claimed that Jaspersstarted it? Did he perhaps start ’phenomenological psychopathology?

Psychiatry and phenomenology around Jaspers’ timeJaspers was not the only psychiatrist of his generation to believe that

’phenomenology’ might be of use to psychiatry. In 1912, for example, WilhelmSpecht founded the Zeitschrift für Pathopsychologie which included Bergson,Münsterberg and Kflpe amongst its editors; the avowed intention of this groupwas to develop a ’descriptive psychology’ in which ’phenomenological description’took precedence over experimental explanation. Influenced by Husserl, Brentano,Reinach and Schapp, Specht was, however, soon to show his real colours: theZeitschrift took an anti-organicist stance sponsoring the view that phenomenologyshould reclaim for psychopathology the realm of the ’subjective’; which Specht(wrongly) believed had been neglected during the nineteenth century.The assumptions underlying Specht’s ’subjectivist’ view were that mental

illness was purely psychological in nature, and that ’empathy’ and ’intuition’




312

were the right methods to understand it. As Specht put it (in a way that mighthave interested his Freudian rivals), understanding consisted in the ’lovingpenetration of the patient He also believed that clinical observation as

practiced in conventional medicine was inappropriate for this task. Theory-ladenas these views are, they are a truer reflection of the uses and limitations ofphenomenology, and of the way it was perceived by his generation than Jaspers’claim that phenomenology supported a theory-free method of description.

’Empathy’ and ’intuitive understanding’ played a crucial role in Jaspers’ earlythinking. They were methods of experiential appraisal, characterized by a sortof epistemological directness that penetrated the theoretical veneer shroudingthe object to be appraised. Both methods, however, have historically andconceptually little to do with the spirit and preoccupations of Husserlianphenomenology, and find origin in the work of Dilthey and others 1

Jaspers and phenomenology before 1913

Jaspers wrote on Phenomenology, and mentioned Husserl (whose workapparently he only read in 1909) in two papers, both published before 1913.Writing on intentionality in Disorders of Perception 82 he stated: ’I personallybelieve that this old notion has found its clearest expression in Husserl, whoseresearch is the source of my own conceptualizations here ...’; Jaspers sent areprint of this article to Husserl.g3 He also dealt with Husserl’s ideas in his’Phenomenological approach in psychopathology’ . g4 This article reads like anintroduction to clinical propaedeutics (as applied to mental states) and containslittle explicitly philosophical material. Jaspers wrote it, in fact, to justify beforeH. W. Grfhle (a psychiatrist in the Heidelberg Clinic, and himself interested in’Phenomenology’) his own views on how to take a psychiatric history andorganize case-conferences. He first offers a division (known since Moreau in the1850s) of ’psychic events’ into objective and subjective. Then, well into thepaper, he makes the oft-quoted claim that it is ’this preliminary work ofrepresenting, defining and classifying psychic phenomena, pursued as

an independent activity, (that) constitutes phenomenology’ ... ’so long as

such independent, systematic investigations had not been undertaken, thisphenomenological approach remained limited to a number of unconnectedopinions’ ... ’within the sphere of psychological research E. Husserl has takenthe first decisive step towards a systematic phenomenology, his predecessors inthis having been Brentano and his school ... in psychopathology there havebeen a number of attempts to create a phenomenology ...’. To illustrate whathe meant, Jaspers quotes, rather revealingly, the writings of Kandinsky, 85Oesterreich,g6 and Heckler. 87 The choice of these works is odd: Kandinsky’sbook is little more than a conventional description of his own hallucinatoryexperiences; Oesterreich’s is heavy with obscure theorizing, and shows little inthe way of clear, empathic descriptions of anything; and Hecker’s paper is

equally laden with philosophical disquisition. Why did Jaspers choose these




313

examples? Were there not others, particularly in the French clinical literature,nearer to what he was trying to describe? This is surprising, for there isevidence that by 1908 he had already scanned the French literature. 88

In the 1912 paper, Jaspers felt he had identified two steps in phenomenologicaldescription: the gaining of a clear representation of what is actually going on in thepatient’s mind; and the isolation and formulation of the psychic phenomena.There are three methods of phenomenological analysis: immerse oneself in thepatients behaviour; question him carefully; and, examine written self-descriptions.By means of these methods three types of information are obtained: (1) phenomenaknown to us from our own experience (e.g., falsifications of memory);(2) phenomena which are to be understood as exaggerations or combinations ofphenomena we experience (e.g., pseudo-hallucinations), and (3) phenomenainaccessible to empathic understanding to which we can only get close byanalogy or metaphor (e.g., passivity experiences). Jaspers counsels restraint withregard to theories: ’numerous phenomenological approaches have been smotheredalmost at once by theoretical endeavours’. 89

But the 1912 paper leaves unresolved the issue of how the objective ofphenomenology can be achieved without using a theory, particularly when ’itmust be borne in mind that the experiences of individual patients are infinitelymanifold; that phenomenology only extracts from them some general featureswhich can be found equally in some other case and therefore can be called thesame feature, whereas the infinity of individual experience continues to

change ...’ Even a mythical, ’early’ Husserl would have disagreed with this.For, what controls the process of feature-extraction? Is the selection procedurenot already theory-laden?9° These pre-1913 works show already an unwillingnessof Jaspers to become involved in issues worrying Husserl at the time, and leaveone with the impression that he was half-hearted about what Husserl was thencalling phenomenology. They are, however, historically informative for theyescaped the periodic editing that distorts so much the conceptual chronology ofGeneral Psychopathology (GP) (carried out both by Jaspers himself and later onby Kurt Schneider). Thus, in regards to observation, description and classification,there is in these early papers little that was not already in the psychiatricliterature around Jaspers’ time. Two further questions arise: what is the extentof the contribution of Husserlian phenomenology to Jaspers’ early work? Couldthe pre-1913 papers, and indeed the first edition of GP have been written if hehad not been aware of the writings of Husserl?Of this early stage Jaspers 91 wrote: ’My own investigations as well as my

reflections about what was being said and done in psychiatry had led me ontracks which were new at the time. Philosophers gave the impetus for twoessential steps. As method I adopted Husserl’s phenomenology, which, in itsbeginning, he called descriptive psychology; I retained it although I rejected itsfurther development to insight into essences (Wesensschau). It proved to bepossible and fruitful to describe the inner experiences of patients as phenomenaof consciousness. Not only hallucinations, but also delusions, modes of




314

ego-consciousness, and emotions could, on the basis of the patients’ owndescriptions, be described so clearly that they became recognizable withcertainty in other cases. Phenomenology became a method for research.’

The General Psychopathology (GP)In GP, Jaspers does not often refer to either Husserl or phenomenology (it is theseventh edition of this book, a veritable palimpsest enshrining almost 50 years ofediting, that is available in English).92 GP is based on ideas which bear onlypartial relation to Jaspers’ later philosophical interests. The book was repeatedlymodified and added to after 1921, particularly by Kurt Schneider, up to theedition that Jaspers is said to have re-written during the Second World V~lar.93,94The origins of the book are of some interest. Jaspers tells us that in 1911 hereceived an invitation from Wilmanns, the deputy clinical chief at Heidelberg(the Head being Nissl) and from Ferdinand Springer, the publisher, to write ashort textbook on general psychopathology: ’I was seized by enthusiasm andbuoyancy to bring order at least into the factual data and to further themethodical consciousness ... I felt supported by the spirit of the hospital andthe knowledge we all shared. In this circle it was not too difficult to write a

general psychopathology ... Thus I presented in my Psychopathology, a

systematic arrangement of theories ... what mattered was to survey all possiblepictures without lapsing into any ...395

Interestingly, footnotes where reference to Husserl and phenomenology ismade, were edited either from edition to edition, or from original to Englishtranslation. Thus, only up to the 1920 (second) edition96 did Jaspers refer inNote 1 to Husserl’s ’logischen Untersuchungen, Vol II’: why did he delete it inlater editions? In regard to the content of the note itself, it is difficult to acceptJaspers’ claim that the main thrust of Logical Investigations was ’methodological’or that it was about ’psychological enquiry’! This runs counter to the fact that by1911, when Jaspers began to write GP, Husserl had long abandoned worryingabout descriptive methods; indeed, it is difficult to identify a period in Husserlphilosophy when he was just concerned with descriptive methodology. At anyrate, Husserl explicitly repudiated the term ’descriptive psychology’ as early as1903: ’I myself felt its deficiency soon after the publication of the first volume(1900) and soon found occasion (in a review in the Archiv für systematischePhilosophie, ix, 397) to rectify the name I had given to phenomenology(descriptive psychology) which was liable to misinterpretation ...’9~ But thetranslators of the English edition also took the occasional licence. For example,the relevant part of Footnote 1 in the seventh edition was translated thus: ’Nonew principle but a new thoroughness in the old method is offered by Husserl inhis phenomenological basis for psychological inquiry. 98 The word ’old’ is notpresent in the German edition. Such liberties were not, however, taken by theFrench translators - a youthful J. P. Sartre being one of them99 - or in theSpanish version. looEven more interesting is the history of the second footnote mentioning




315

Husserl and phenomenology. In its final version it states: ’The term phenomenologywas used by Hegel for the whole field of mental phenomena as revealed inconsciousness, history and conceptual thought. We use it only for the muchnarrower field of individual psychic experience. Husserl used the term initiallyin the sense of a ’descriptive psychology’ in connection with the phenomenon ofconsciousness; in this sense it holds for our own investigations also, but later onhe used it in the sense of the &dquo;appearance of things&dquo; (Wesensschau) which is not aterm we use in this book. Phenomenology is for us purely an empirical method ofinquiry maintained solely by the fact of patients’ communications. It is obviousthat in these psychological investigations descriptive efforts are quite differentfrom those in the natural sciences. The object of study is non-existent for thesenses and we can experience only a representation of it. Yet the same logicalprinciples are in operation. Description demands the creation of systematiccategories, as well as a demonstration of relationships and orderly sequences onthe one hand and of sporadic appearances, unheralded and unforeseen, on theother.,101 This footnote underwent major metamorphosis in the successiveeditions of GP. In the first, it is very short and refers to phenomenologyproviding a handle for the analysis of experiences and only quotes Jaspers’ 1912paper. In the second edition, the text remains the same but includes a newreference (’Baade 1915’). The reference to Hegel, together with the incursioninto the philosophy of science, only appear after the fourth edition. So, the finalversion of this footnote seems to have been written as a justification. Here,Jaspers grants that descriptions are theoretically committed, and that clusters andrelationships must be taken into account. His only concession to the past is thatthe object of study (one assumes he is referring to patients’ subjectiveexperiences) is ’non-existent for the senses’. This confirms the view that, even aslate as this edition, Jaspers did not consider that signs (e.g., retardation orcatatonic posturing) could be meaningfully described in a ’phenomenological’manner, and that this term must be limited to the description of subjectiveexperiences as contained in the ’patients’ communications’. Signs had to bestudied by a different methodology, and he dealt with this in a paper entitled the’Doctor and his Patient’ where once again he differentiated between psychological’understanding’ and causal explanation. l02

Jaspers deals with the practical aspects of the phenomenological method inChapter 1 of GP, where he goes beyond what he had said in the 1912 paper: ’weconfine description solely to the things that are present to the patient’sconsciousness. Anything which is not a conscious datum is for the present non-existent... close contemplation of an individual case often teaches us thephenomena common to countless others. What we have grasped in this way isusually encountered again. It is not so much the number of cases seen thatmatters in phenomenology but the extent of the inner exploration of theindividual case, which needs to be carried to the furthest possible limit. Inhistology, when we examine the cerebral cortex, we expect to account for everyfibre and every cell. So in phenomenology we expect to account for every psychic




316

phenomenon, every experience met with in our investigation of the patient andin his own self-description ...&dquo;03 This aspiration to comprehensiveness ofdescription and of understanding (more in keeping with his later philosophicalviews) contrasts with his 1912 claim that phenomenology did not need to analyseall the mental contents of the patient (for they were infinite in number) but onlyconcentrate on those which were recognizable as symptoms (i.e. common) to aclass of patients.

In GP, Jaspers justifies the role of theory and taxonomy by suggesting adivision of all phenomena into direct and indirect: ’Every phenomenon has thecharacter of direct experience but for analytical and purposive thought it isessential for the psyche to stand outside this immediate experience. The basicphenomenon that renders such thinking and purpose possible may be calledreflection, the turning back of experience on itself and on its content. Henceindirect phenomena come into being and indeed all human psychic life shows thepervasiveness of this reflective activityTo summarize Jaspers’ views so far: psychological analysis is to be carried out

at an elementary level, i.e. at the level of isolated units of analysis (whichincluded subjective and objective elementary events), and at the level ofcombinations of these elements, in which case links are to be sought betweenthem and mental states, duly explained and understood. The elementarybuilding bricks are dealt with by phenomenology; the links by the techniquesavailable in the observational and quantificatory realm of science. The combinedstates, on the other hand, constituted the proper field of understanding(Verstehen) psychology. According to Jaspers, phenomenology and understandingwere different strands of his thought, and had been instilled in him by Husserland Dilthey, respectively.

Jaspers, Husserl and Husserlian phenomenologyAs mentioned before, there is little agreement on the extent of Husserl’sinfluence on Jaspers. Kolle emphasized his contribution to the ’biographicalmethod in psychiatry’. 105 James Collins suggested that Jaspers had only aqualified admiration for Husserl.lo6 Kaufmann identified a ’radical differencebetween Husserl’s and Jaspers’ positions’.’07 Lefevre claimed (contradictingKolle) that before Jaspers there was no ’clearly circumscribed method for thedescription of subjective experiences’ but conceded that Husserl and Kiilpemight have started something: ’in Jaspers’ usage &dquo;phenomenology&dquo; meansillustrative representation of individual experience; it is an empirical methoddesigned to define experienced mental states, i.e. subjective mental phenomenawithin the narrowest possible confines; to distinguish between them; and toseparate them terminologically ...’1°g More recent writers are equally unhelpful.Stierlin, in his important paper on the philosophical basis of Jaspers’ psychiatry,makes the suggestion that the ghost haunting GP is Kant’s and not Husserl’s,and adds that the later Jaspers came under the spell of Max Weber.109,1l0Müller-Hegemann also remarked that Jaspers tried to separate, as Kant had done, the




317

’ideological from the experienced reality’ .11 Lanteri Laura, in his classical paperon the concept of process in Jaspers does not mention Husserl once, butemphasizes the influence of Dilthey. 112 Jeanne Hersch also mentions Diltheyand states that Jaspers ’wanted to encompass all images (of madness) withoutallowing himself to be trapped in any’ .113 Kremer-Marietti agreed that Diltheyplayed an important role and states that Husserl’s descriptive phenomenologyallowed Jaspers to ’describe the intimate experiences of patients to understandillusions and delusions ...’.114 Pichot suggestively stated that ‘Jaspers’ personaldevelopment is almost a mirror image of that of Ribot’s’, and after summarizinghis work, goes on to say ’his position was later to be severely criticized even by amember of the Heidelberg School in the person of Mayer-Gross, who pointedout that the concept of ’psychological comprehension’ was so flexible that it lentitself too readily to infinite extensions and hence, in practice to the contentionthat all psychopathological manifestations were psychogenic WolframSchmitt, in a paper on the question of method, pointed out that ’Jaspers is, withhis method of phenomenological comprehension, near the early Husserl’.116 Inthe 1983 Heidelberg meeting to celebrate the centenary of Jaspers’ birth,Blakenburg commented upon what he calls the ’static’ aspects of Jaspers’phenomenological descriptions, 117 and Glatzel upon his limited definition ofsymptom. 118 Gerd Huber, in turn, felt that Jaspers had introduced somethingfundamentally new as compared to Kraepelinian psychiatry, and deserved to bedefended against widespread misunderstanding.

19 As against this Beauchesnehas stated that ’Jaspers stayed very close to Kraepelinian psychopathology andclassification’.12o Salamun also expressed a lukewarm view: ’Jaspers borrowedfrom Husserl’s phenomenology the method of description this author hadoutlined in an initial stage stage as a sort of descriptive psychopathology, butnever incorporated into his ideas proper Husserlian phenomenology . 121and similar feelings have been expressed by Heimann.12

It would seem, therefore, justified to cast doubt on the view that Husserl’sideas (early or late) were of real influence on the method that Jaspers chose to call’phenomenological’. It is more likely that Jaspers used Husserl’s name tolegitimate his own youthful ideas on psychopathological description. Even theview that there was an ’early’ Husserl has been challenged.123 Internal evidenceis also compatible with the hypothesis that the influence of Husserl was

negligible, for there is little radically new in Jaspers’ method of description,when compared, say, with that practised by alienists during the latter part of thenineteenth century. The central question is whether a putative ’phenomenologicalmethod’ can stand on its own, i.e. be made independent from the ontological andepistemological assumptions characterizing phenomenology in all its forms; theanswer is that it cannot. 124’125 Jaspers himself rarely or ever mentioned Husserlin his later philosophical work.126 Furthermore, when he was asked to compile alist of classic philosophical books he did not include any by Husser1.12~ In hisexcellent analysis of Jaspers’ thought, Koestenbaum stated: ’the influence ofHusserl is also apparent, although it is perhaps unconscious, since it is mostly




318

unacknowledged ...’ ’... Husserl’s ideas of the transcendental ego andtranscendental consciousness conform to Jaspers’ descriptions of the inner self(Existenz) and the outermost boundaries of the world (das Umgreifende)’ .128 So,according to this author, if there is any influence, it relates to the metaphysicalaspect of phenomenology, the very aspect that Jaspers was at pains to disown.Years later, whilst reminiscing on the publication of Husserl’s important bookon Philosophy as a Strict Science, Jaspers rather brutally wrote: ’Insofar asHusserl was a professor of philosophy he seemed to me to have committed abetrayal of philosophy in the most naive and pretentious manner ...’. 129Deshaies was correct in claiming that Jaspers’ notion of ’comprehension’ was notphenomenological: This ’method is intuitive’ ... ’it is a psychologism that hasnot much to do with Husserl’s phenomenology; this latter method was grounded onthe Cartesian ’cogito’, and the bracketing of the world, and attempted to captureessences and develop a transcendental philosophy’.13o Of all writers, Spiegelberghas been the one who has analysed in more detail the problems posed by Jaspers’phenomenological claims. He quoted a conversation with Jaspers in his lateryears that almost settles this issue: ’He minimized the role of Husserlian

phenomenology to such an extent that he no longer assigned to it a decisive rolefor his own development, even in his psychopathology’ .13 Spiegelberg concludedthat Jaspers may be said to have founded ’phenomenological psychopathology’,but that whatever this means it was a ’phenomenology [that] might have indeeddeveloped without Brentano and Husserl’. 132

Phenomenology and private mental statesIt would seem. therefore, that Jaspers entertained an idiosyncratic view of

phenomenology. To analyse mental contents the philosopher must use, accordingto Husserl, a ’phenomenological’ method which is as much a thought strategy as amental attitude. The method, however, was not meant to apply to the analysis of otherminds, for, as he wrote: ’phenomenological descriptions do not refer to experiencesor classes of experiences of empirical individuals; phenomenology knows nothingand assumes nothing about personalized experiences, yours or mine’.133 Jaspers’suggestion that psychiatrists might apply the phenomenological method to theanalysis of someone else’s experience (i.e. the patient’s) is not consistent withthis view and it is strange that he also felt that it was possible to practisephenomenological analysis on the written descriptions of mental states. Onecannot help thinking, therefore, that his insistence on ’empathy’, on puttingoneself in the patient’s shoes, was an attempt to cope with his anomalous use ofthe phenomenological method. Nor it is difficult to conclude that, during theearly stages of his career (when he still had no personal philosophical system),Jaspers needed to legitimate his own brand of nineteenth century descriptivism, andthat ’phenomenological description’ was the appropriate term for this purpose.

Jaspers, Dilthey, and the concept of ’comprehension’An alternative explanation for the origin of his ideas, and one which is not based




319

on the red herring of phenomenology, seems required. In his classic book,Martin-Santos interpreted Jaspersian phenomenology as an ’empirical psychology’,i.e. ’as a pure description of the mental states’.134 In this task, Martin-Santoscontinues, ’Jaspers pays little attention to the theoretical difficulties involved ...he simply says that such a task is hard and that there is no innate human abilityto undertake it ...’ The Spanish writer also notices that in marked constrast toDilthey, Jaspers does not use the term ’experience’ (Erlebnis) as his unit ofanalysis, instead he talks (in a rather old fashioned and very medical way) of’psychological phenomena’ or ’elements’. These terms are left obscure, but theyseem characterized by: ’instantaneity’, ’intentionality’ and ’primitiveness’; ofthese three features, the first (and perhaps the most restrictive), makes

impossible any attempt at longitudinal observation. This rigidity in Jaspers’concepts is not mentioned by those who consider GP as the fountainhead for allempirical research in psychiatry.Even more worrying is Jaspers’ exaggerated reliance on the powers of the

observer and on the use of his/her cognitive and social context to decide onwhether or not a given mental state is ’comprehensible’. This has been correctlycastigated by Castilla del Pino: ’Jaspers’ criteria lead to an over-valuation of theposition of the observer ...’ 135

In regards to ’understanding’ Jaspers wrote: ’Phenomenology presents us witha series of isolated fragments broken out from a person’s total psychicexperience ... how are these various data to be related? In some cases themeaning is clear and we understand directly how one psychic event emergesfrom another. This mode of understanding is only possible with psychicevents ... In phenomenology we scrutinize a number of qualities or states andthe understanding that accompanies this has a static quality’ ... ’Broadlyspeaking, however, &dquo;understanding&dquo; has two different meanings, according towhether it is termed static or genetic. The static mode denotes the presentation tooneself of psychic states, the objectifying to oneself of psychic qualities ... thegenetic mode [is] that of empathy, of perceiving the meaning of psychicconnections and the emergence of one psychic phenomenon from another’.136Commenting upon this distinction, which is once again theory-laden, Lagachewrote: ’If one takes into account the period in which Jaspers was writing and hisphilosophical orientation, it is difficult not to see that there was something elsehidden behind his claim that static and phenomenological understanding werethe same ... [namely] a dynamic component’. 137 Lagache was here making acase for psychoanalysis. Debate on the usefulness of Jaspers’ view on

’understanding’continues. ~~’~~~

Summary

Jaspers was, of course, entitled to call his descriptive strategy whatever he liked.The rules of the game, however, dictate that he provide operational criteria bymeans of which his ’phenomenological’ method could be meaningfully distinguished




320

from that associated with nineteenth-century descriptivism.1 ~3 For the methodto be worth adopting, he needed to show that psychiatrists could gain extra-information (or understanding) by re-labelling observational methods as

’phenomenological’. If this was so, then young psychiatrists should be taughtphenomenology. If not, then there is little point in complicating matters byintroducing terms like phenomenology. Related to this question is that ofJaspers’ real influence on descriptive psychopathology. Granting that alldepends on how ’influence’ is defined and measured, it can safely be said thatthis seems to vary according to country and to psychiatric school. For example,leading American psychiatrists’ 44, 145 seem to give these concepts a differentmeaning from that employed by European specialists. 146,147 In general,however, there are those who feel that Jaspers has not been very influential; oneof these, surprisingly, was Kurt Schneider himself, who on the occasion of the25th anniversary of GP, complained that its influence had been ’scanty’. 141 It isoften repeated that Jaspers was right in castigating the aetiological manicheismof his time, i.e. the fact that young psychiatrists had then to follow either Freudor the ’brain mythologists’. Apart from the fact that this is an oversimplifiedaccount of the state of psychiatry at the beginning of the twentieth century, thepoint is irrelevant to the question of symptom description. Indeed, holdingeither ideological position does not condemn clinicians to being bad descriptivists,or to being unable to exercise empathy or understanding. During the 1910s, theaetiological and descriptive languages were, so to speak, orthogonal to eachother; this is why alienists of different persuasion such as Freud, Janet,Meynert, Magnan, Ball and Luys (inter alia), were able to produce classicaldescriptions of mental states, and for all one knows, some may have been,regardless of their theoretical view, very empathic clinicians!

It would seem, therefore, that there is little evidence that Husserlianphenomenology had a major influence on Jaspers; the only evidence for this, sofar, being his early but lukewarm statements to this effect. Needless to say, thedazzling scholarship of GP is not proof of such association; indeed, the bookis crystal-clear and shows none of the obscurities affecting contemporaryphenomenological works. So, both contextual evidence (and Jaspers’ lateravowal) suggest that: (1) Husserlian phenomenology played no significant role inGP: (2) Jaspers wanted to retain the word phenomenology to describe aparticular style and method of information-gathering and understanding(description via empathy); (3) Kant, Dilthey and Weber seem to have been moreimportant to Jaspers’ ideas than Husserl, particularly in dichotomies such asform/content, and explanation/understanding. Jaspers’ definitions of symptom’description’ and of ’psychological element’ are no different from what was goingon before his time; and in the areas where Jaspers seems to have offered a newcombination of strategies such as understanding, comprehension, intuition andempathy in the specific field of psychiatry, one finds that these remain generaland abstract, and peripheral to the scientific approach. At best, they aresupposed to capture only narrow regions of the patients’ symptomatology.




321

Originated in Dilthey’s work, these categories carry the faint echoes of problemswhich are no more, and cannot support the current descriptive and psychometricneeds of psychiatry.The more likely historical scenario is that soon after 1900, nineteenth-century

descriptive psychopathology encountered phenomenology; this much talked-about alliance was just a marriage of convenience. Around this period, and as aresult of the decline of classical nineteenth-century psychology, the conceptualfoundation of DP had become suspect and required buttressing. Phenomenology,with its emphasis on subjectivity and descriptivism, became the ideal partner.But phenomenology itself needed empirical anchoring; this resulted from thefact that, for all its anti-psychologism and demands for neutrality, phenomenologywas rapidly developing into yet another variety of armchair psychology. Jaspers’youthful eloquence made it appear as if phenomenology had been put to work, atleast on the concrete problem of describing and understanding symptoms. Acomparison of the clinical meaning and usage of these symptoms before and after1913 shows, however, that the ’phenomenological’ treatment did not alter themat all.

NOTES and REFERENCES

1. Heimann, H., ’Der Einfluss von Karl Jaspers auf die Psychopathologie’.Psychiatrie und Neurologie, cxx (1950), 1-20.

2. Taylor, F. K., ’The role of phenomenology in psychiatry’. British Journal ofPsychiatry, cxiii (1967), 765-770.

3. Berner, P. and Küfferle B., ’British phenomenology and psychopathologicalconcepts: a comparative review’. British Journal of Psychiatry, cxl (1982), 558-565.

4. Shepherd, M., ’Karl Jaspers: General Psychopathology’. British Journal of Psychiatry,cxli (1982), 310-312.

5. Shepherd, M., ’Introduction: The sciences and general psychopathology’. InM. Shepherd and O. L. Zangwill (eds), General Psychopathology (London:Cambridge University Press, 1983), 1-8.

6. Spiegelberg, H., Phenomenology in Psychology and Psychiatry (Evanston, IL.:Northwestern University Press, 1972).

7. Walker, C., ’Philosophical concepts and practice: the legacy of Karl Jaspers’psychopathology’. Current Opinion in Psychiatry, i (1988), 624-629.

8. Klein, E., A Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the English Language, Vol. 2(Amsterdam: Elsevier, 1967).

9. Cassirer, E., El problema del conocimiento en la filosofía y las ciencias modernas(translated from the original German edition of 1907 by W. Roces), Vol. 2 (México:Fondo de Cultura Económica, 1956), 487-498.

10. Dartigués, A., Qu’est-ce que la phénoménologie? (Paris: Privat, 1972).11. Lyotard, J. F., La phénoménologie (Paris: Presses Universitaires de France, 1959).12. Guislain J., Leçons orales sur les phrénopathies, ou traité théorique et pratique des

maladies mentales, Vol. 1 (Gand: L. Hebbalyinck, 1852), 309.13. Spiegelberg, H., The Phenomenological Movement (The Hague: Nijhoff, 1982).




322

14. Rancurello, A. C., A Study of Franz Brentano (New York: Academic Press, 1967).15. Hodges, H. A., The Philosophy of Wilhelm Dilthey (Westport, Conn.: Greenwood

Press, 1952).16. Brentano, F., Psychology from an Empirical Point of View. First edition 1874.

Version consulted was translated by A. C. Rancurello, D. B. Terrell andL. L. McAllister (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1973), 88.

17. Dilthey, W., Ideen über eine beschreibende und zergliedernde Psychologie. GesammelteSchriften, Vol. 5 (Stuttgart: Teubner), 1957.

18. Ebbinghaus, H., ’Über erklärende und beschreibende Psychologie’. Zeitschrift fürPsychologie und Physiologie der Sinnesorgane, vii (1896), 161-205.

19. Caparrós, A., Ebbinghaus (Barcelona: Edicions de la Universitat de Barcelona, 1986).20. Husserl, E., Phenomenological Psychology, translated by J. Scanlon (The Hague:

Nijhoff, 1977), 25.21. Arens, K., Structures of Knowing (Dordrecht: Kluwer, 1989).22. Spiegelberg, H., ’Der Begriff der Intentionalität in der Scholastik, bei Brentano,

und bei Husserl’. Philosophische Hefte, v, 75-9121.23. Chisholm, R. M., ’Intentionality’. In P. Edwards (ed.), The Encyclopedia of

Philosophy, Vol. 4 (New York: MacMillan, 1967), 201-204.24. Morrison, J. C., ’Husserl and Brentano on intentionality’. Philosophy and

Phenomenological Research, xxxi (1970), 27-46.25. Husserl, E., Phenomenological Psychology, trans. by J. Scanlon (The Hague:

Nijhoff, 1977), 25.26. Searle, J., Intentionality. An Essay in the Philosophy of Mind (Cambridge:

Cambridge University Press, 1983), 65.27. Hodges, H. A., The Philosophy of Wilhelm Dilthey (Westport, Conn.: Greenwood

Press, 1952).28. Sajama, S. and Kamppinen, M., A Historical Introduction to Phenomenology

(London: Croom Helm, 1987).29. Rancurello, A. C., A Study of Franz Brentano (New York: Academic Press, 1968).30. de Boer, T., The Development of Husserl’s Thought, trans. by T. Plantinga (The

Hague: Nijhoff, 1978).31. Rouse, J., ’Husserlian phenomenology and scientific realism’. Philosophy of

Science, liv (1987), 222-232.32. Jennings, J. L., ’Husserl revisited’. American Psychologist, xli (1986), 1231-1240.33. Frege, G., ’On sense and reference’. In P. Geach and M. Black (eds),

Philosophical Writings of Gottlob Frege (Oxford: Blackwells, 1966), 56-78.34. Dummett, M., Frege. Philosophy of Language (London: Duckworth, 1973).35. Sajama, S. and Kamppinen, M., A Historical Introduction to Phenomenology

(London: Croom Helm, 1987).36. The influence of Frege on Husserl has been well explored by J. N. Mohanty,

Husserl and Frege (Bloomington, IN.: Indiana University Press, 1982).37. Cassirer, E., Filosofía de la ilustración (México: Fondo de Cultura Económica,

1950), chapter iii, 112-154.38. Cassirer, E., Filosofía de la ilustración (México: Fondo de Cultura Económica,

1950), chapter iii, 112-154.39. Cassirer, E., El problema del conocimiento en la filosofía y en las ciencias modernas,

Vol. III, Los sistemas post-kantianos (México: Fondo de Cultura Económica, 1957),532-572.




323

40. Windelband, W., Historia de la Filosofia Moderna, Vol. 2 (Buenos Aires: Nova,1948),318-328.

41. Mill, J. S., A System of Logic, 8th Edition (London: Longmans, Green & Co, 1898(first edition 1843)).

42. Mill, J. S., A System of Logic, 8th Edition (London, Longmans, Green & Co, 1898(first edition 1843)), 370.

43. Frege, G., The Foundations of Arithmetic. A Logico-mathematical Inquiry into theConcept of Number, trans. by J. L. Austin (Oxford: Blackwell, 1968; first edition1884).

44. Husserl, E., Philosophie der Arithmetic. Psychologische und logische Untersuchungen(Halle: Saale, 1891).

45. Frege, G., ’Review of Husserl’s Philosophie der Arithmetik’. In P. Geach andM. Black (eds), Philosophical Writings of Gottlob Frege (Oxford: Blackwells, 1966),79-85.

46. Osborn, A. D., Husserl and his Logical Investigations (2nd edition) (Cambridge,MA: MIT Press, 1949), 33.

47. Scherer, R., La phénoménologie des ’Recherches Logiques’ de Husserl (Paris: PressesUniversitaires de France, 1967).

48. Spiegelberg, H., The Phenomenological Movement (The Hague: Nijhoff, 1982).49. Schmitt, R., ’Edmond Husserl’. In P. Edwards (ed.), The Encyclopedia of

Philosophy, Vol. 4 (New York: Macmillan, 1967), 96-99.50. de Boer, T., The Development of Husserl’s Thought, trans. by T. Plantinga (The

Hague: Nijhoff, 1978).51. Kelkel, L., and Schérer, R. Husserl (Paris: Presses Universitaires de France, 1964).52. Dartigués, A., Qu’est-ce que phénoménologie? (Paris: Privat, 1972).53. Spiegelberg, H., The Phenomenological Movement (The Hague: Nijhoff, 1982), 85.54. Husserl, E., Investigaciones Lógicas (Madrid: Revista de Occidente, 1929).55. Sajama, S. and Kamppinen, M., A Historical Introduction to Phenomenology

(London: Croom Helm, 1987).56. Gorman, R. A., The Dual Vision. Alfred Schutz and the Myth of Phenomenological

Social Sciences (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1977).57. Roche, M., Phenomenology, Language and the Social Science (London: Routledge &

Kegan Paul, 1973).58. Tran-duc-Thao., Fenomenología y materialismo dialéctico (Buenos Aires: Lautaro,

1959).59. Mays, W., ’Phenomenology and Marxism’. In E. Pivcevic (ed.), Phenomenology

and Philosophical Understanding (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1975),231-250.

60. Zutt, J., Auf dem Wege zu einer anthropologischen Psychiatrie (Berlin: Springer,1963).

61. Blankenburg, W., ’A dialectical conception of anthropological proportions’. InA. J. J. de Koning and F. A. Jenner (eds), Phenomenology and Psychiatry (London:Academic Press, 1982), 35-50.

62. May, R., Angel, E. and Ellenberger, H. F. (eds), Existence (New York: BasicBooks, 1958).

63. Husserl, E., Meditaciones Cartesianas (México: Fondo de Cultura Económica,1985; first published in German in 1950 and in Spanish in 1942).

64. Metz, R., A Hundred Years of British Philosophy (London: Allen & Unwin, 1950).




324

65. Ryle, G., ’Autobiographical’. In O. P. Wood and G. Pitcher (eds), Ryle (London:Macmillan, 1970), 1-15.

66. Ibid., 1-15.67. Szilasi, W., Wissenschaft als Philosophie (Zürich: Europa, 1945).68. Séglas, J., Leçons cliniques sur les maladies mentales et nerveuses (Salpêtrière 1887-

1894) (Recueillés et publiés by H. Meige) (Paris: Asselin et Houzeau, 1895).69. Ballet, G. (ed.), Traité de pathologie mentale (Paris: Doin, 1903).70. Marie, A. (ed.), Traité international de psychologie pathologique. 2nd Volume.

Psychopathologie Clinique (Paris: Alcan, 1911).71. Chaslin, Ph., Eléments de sémiologie et clinique mentales (Paris: Asselin, 1912).72. Ritti, A., ’Review of Eléments’. Annales Médico-Psychologiques, lxxi (1913),

284-289.73. Daumézon, G., ’Ph. Chaslin’. Confrontations Psychiatriques, xi (1973), 27-39.74. Chaslin, Ph., ’La "psychiatrie" est-elle une langue bien faite?’ Revue Neurologique,

xxii (1914), 16-23.75. Moreau (de Tours), J., La Psychologie morbide dans ses rapports avec la philosophie de

l’histoire ou de l’influence des névropathies sur le dynamisme intellectuel (Paris: Masson,1859).

76. Despine, P., De la folie au point de vue philosophique ou plus spécialementpsychologique étudiée chez le malade et chez l’homme en santé (Paris: F. Savy, 1875).

77. Kolle, K., ’Karl Jaspers as psychopathologist’. In P. A. Schilpp (ed.), The

Philosophy of Karl Jaspers (Peru, IL: Open Court Publishing Company, 1957),437-466.

78. Tellenbach, H., Estudios sobre la patogénesis de las perturbaciones psíquicas (México,Fondo de Cultura Económica, 1969), 14.

79. Rickman, H. P., ’The Philosophical basis of psychiatry. Jaspers and Dilthey’.Philosophy of the Social Sciences, xvii (1987), 173-196.

80. Spiegelberg, H., Phenomenology in Psychology and Psychiatry (Evanston, IL:Northwestern University Press, 1972).

81. Martin-Santos, L., Dilthey, Jaspers y la comprensión del enfermo mental (Madrid:Paz Montalvo, 1955. Doctoral dissertation by a brilliant Spanish author who diedyoung; it remains the best account of the historical origins of the concept of’understanding’ and of the influence of Dilthey on Jaspers).

82. Jaspers, K., ’Zur Analyse der Trugwahrnehmungen (Leibhaftigkeit und Realität-surteil)’, Zeitschrift für die gesamte Neurologie und Psychiatrie, vi (1911), 460-535.

83. Spiegelberg, H., Phenomenology in Psychology and Psychiatry (Evanston, IL:Northwestern University Press, 1972).

84. Jaspers, K., ’Die phänomenologische Forschungsrichtung in der Psychopathologie’.Zeitschrift für die gesamte Neurologie und Psychiatrie, ix (1912), 391-408 (translatedas: ’The phenomenological approach in psychopathology’. British Journal ofPsychiatry, cxiv (1968), 1313-1323).

85. Kandinsky, V., Kritische und klinische Betrachtungen im gebiete der Sinnestauschungen(Berlin, Von Friedlander & Sohn, 1885).

86. Oesterreich, D., Die Phänomenologie des Ichs in ihren Grundproblemen (Leipzig,1910).

87. Hacker, L., ’Systematischen Traumbeobachtungen’. Archiv für Psychologie, xxi(1911), 345-359.

88. Jaspers, K., Heimweh und Verbrechen (Heidelberg: Vogel, 1909). There Jaspers




325

quotes Dagonet, H., Nouveau traité élementaire et pratique des maladies mentales(Paris: Baillière, 1876).

89. Jaspers, K., ’Die phänomenologische Forschungsrichtung in der Psychopathologie’.Zeitschrift für die gesamte Neurologie und Psychiatrie, ix (1912), 391-408.

90. Lanteri-Laura, G., ’Phenomenology and a critique of the foundations ofpsychiatry’. In A. J. J. de Koning and F. A. Jenner (eds), Phenomenology andPsychiatry (London, Academic Press, 1982), 51-62.

91. Jaspers, K., ’Philosophical autobiography’. In P. A. Schilpp (ed.), The Philosophyof Karl Jaspers (Peru, IL: Open Court Publishing Company, 1957), 5-94.

92. Jaspers, K., General Psychopathology trans. by J. Hoenig and M. Hamilton(Manchester, Manchester University Press, 1963; being a translation of the 7thGerman Edition).

93. Baeyer, Von W., ’Symposium on psychopathology to mark the centenary ofJaspers’ birthday (Heidelberg, 1983)’. Psychological Medicine, xiv (1984), 457-460.

94. Schmitt, W., ’Grundlinien psychiatrischer praxis bei Karl Jaspers’. In E. Seidlerand H. Schott (eds), Bausteine zur Medizingeschichte (Stuttgart: Steiner, 1984),99-104.

95. Jaspers, K., ’Philosophical autobiography’. In P. A. Schilpp (ed.), The Philosophyof Karl Jaspers (Peru, IL: Open Court Publishing Company, 1957), 17-19.

96. Jaspers, K., Allgemeine Psychopathologie für Studieren, Ärtze und Psychologen, 2ndedition (Berlin: Springer, 1920).

97. Husserl, E., ’Prólogo a la segunda edición’. Investigaciones lógicas. Vol 1.Traducción de G. M. Morente y J. Gaos (Madrid: Revista de Occidente, 1929), 17.

98. Jaspers, K., General Psychopathology, trans. by J. Hoenig and M. Hamilton(Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1963), 3.

99. Jaspers, K., Psychopathologie Générale. Translation of the 3rd German edition by A.Kastler and J. Medousse; proof-read by J. P. Sartre and P. Nizan (Paris: Alcan, 1928).

100. Jaspers, K., Psicopatología General. Translation of the 5th German edition byA. Vela (Buenos Aires: Aguilar, 1950).


102. Jaspers, K., ’Arzt und Patient’. Studium Generale, vi (1953), 435-443.103. Jaspers, K., General Psychopathology, trans. by J. Hoenig and M. Hamilton

(Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1963), 56-77.104. Ibid., 58.105. Kolle, K., ’Karl Jaspers as psychopathologist’. In P. A. Schilpp (ed.), The

Philosophy of Karl Jaspers (Peru, IL: Open Court Publishing Company, 1957).106. Collins, J., ’Jaspers on science and philosophy’. In P. A. Schilpp (ed.), The

Philosophy of Karl Jaspers (Peru, IL: Open Court Publishing Company, 1957),115-140.

107. Kaufmann, F., ’Karl Jaspers and a philosophy of communication’. InP. A. Schilpp (ed.), The Philosophy of Karl Jaspers (Peru, IL: Open CourtPublishing Company, 1957), 211-295.

108. Lefevre, L. B., ’The psychology of Karl Jaspers’. In P. A. Schilpp (ed.), ThePhilosophy of Karl Jaspers (Peru, IL: Open Court Publishing Company, 1957),467-497.

109. Stierlin, H., ’Karl Jaspers’ psychiatry in the light of his basic philosophicalposition’. Journal for the History of the Behavioural Sciences, x (1974), 213-226. On




326

the influence of Max Weber on Jaspers and his General Psychopathology see alsoHenrich, D., ’Karl Jaspers: thinking with Max Weber in mind’. In W. J Mommsenand J. Osterhammer (eds), Max Weber and his Contemporaries (London: UnwinHyman, 1987), 528-544.

110. Schwartz, M. A. and Wiggins. O. P., ’Diagnosis and ideal types: a contribution topsychiatric classification’. Comprehensive Psychiatry, xxviii (1987), 277-291.

111. Müller-Hegemann, D., ’Jaspers and the Heidelberg Psychiatric School’. InternationalJournal of Psychiatry, vi (1968), 50-62.

112. Lanteri-Laura, G., ’La notion de processus dans la penseé psychopathologique deK. Jaspers’. L’Evolution psychiatrique, xxvii (1962), 459-499.

113. Hersch, J., Karl Jaspers (Lausanne: L’Âge d’Homme, 1978), 15.114. Kremer-Marietti, A., Jaspers (Madrid: Edaf, 1974), 29.115. Pichot, P., A Century of Psychiatry (Paris: Dacosta, 1984), 82.116. Schmitt, W., ’Karl Jaspers und die Methodenfrage in der Psychiatrie’. In

W. Janzarik (ed.), Psychopathologie als Grundenlagenwissenschaft (Stuttgart: Enke,1979), 74-82.

117. Blankenburg, W., ’Unausgeschopftes in der Psychopathologie von Karl Jaspers’.Nervenarzt, Iv (1984), 447-460.

118. Baeyer, Von W. ’Symposium on psychopathology to mark the centenary ofJaspers’ birthday (Heidelberg 1983)’. Psychological Medicine, xiv (1984), 458.

119. Ibid., 459.120. Beauchesne, H., Histoire de la psychopathologie (Paris: Presses Universitaires de

France, 1986), 180.121. Salamun, K., Karl Jaspers (Munich: C. H. Beck, 1985), 15.122. Heimann, H., ’Der Einfluss von Karl Jaspers auf die Psychopathologie’.

Psychiatrie und Neurologie, cxx (1950), 1-20.123. Dartigués, A., Qu’est-ce que la phénoménologie? (Paris: Privat, 1972).124. Salamun, K. Karl Jaspers (Munich: C. H. Beck, 1985).125. Sajama, S. and Kamppinen, M. A Historical Introduction to Phenomenology

(London: Croom Helm, 1987).126. Jaspers, K., Philosophie, 3 Vols (Berlin: Springer, 1932).127. Jaspers, K., Einführung in die Philosophie (Zurich: Artemis, 1949).128. Koestembaum, P., ’Karl Jaspers’. In P. Edwards (ed.), The Encyclopedia of

Philosophy. Vol 4 (New York: Macmillan, 1967), 254-258.129. Jaspers, K., Rechenschaft und Ausblick. Reden und Aufsatze (München: Piper,

1951),386.130. Deshaies, G., Psychopathologie Générale (Paris: Presses Universitaires de France,

1967), 20.131. Spiegelberg, H., Phenomenology in Psychology and Psychiatry (Evanston, IL:

Northwestern University Press, 1972), 178.132. Ibid., 191.133. Husserl, E., ’Prólogo a la segunda edición’. Investigaciones lógicas. Vol 1.

Traducción de G. M. Morente y J. Gaos (Madrid: Revista de Occidente, 1929),17.

134. Martin-Santos, L. Dilthey, Jaspers y la comprensión del enfermo mental (Madrid: PazMontalvo, 1955), 181.

135. Castilla del Pino, C., Introducción a la psiquiatría. 1. Problemas generales. Psico(pato)logía(Madrid: Alianza Editorial, 1978), 96.




327


137. Lagache, D., ’Jaspers y la inteligibilidad de lo psíquico’. In Obra, II (1939-1946)(Buenos Aires: Paidós, 1982), 51-62 (first published in French in 1941), 54.

138. Embmeier, K. P. ’Explaining and understanding in psychopathology’. BritishJournal of Psychiatry, cli (1987), 800-804.

139. Jenner, F. A., Monteiro, A. C. and Vlissides, D., ’The negative effects on

psychiatry of Karl Jaspers’ development of Verstehen’. Journal of the British Societyfor Phenomenology, xvii (1986), 52-70.

140. Harrison, P. J., ’General Psychopathology: Karl Jaspers’. British Journal ofPsychiatry, clix (1991), 300-302.

141. Appel, K. O., ’Dilthey’s distinction between "explanation" and "understanding"and the possibility of its mediation’. Journal of the History of Philosophy, xxv (1987),131-149.

142. Rickman, H. P., ’The philosophical basis of psychiatry’. Philosophy of SocialSciences, xvii (1987), 173-196.

143. Daumézon, G. and Lanteri-Laura, G., ’Signification d’une sémiologie phéno-ménologique’. L’Encéphale, xxiii (1961), 478-511.

144. Rotov, M., ’Phenomenology or physicalism?’ Schizophrenia Bulletin, xvii (1991),183-186.

145. Andreasen, N. C., ’Reply to "phenomenology or physicalism?"’ SchizophreniaBulletin, xvii (1991), 187-189. (This author manages to quote Hegel’s Phenomenologyof Mind, about the only book which does not need to be quoted in terms of the topicunder discussion!)

146. Blankenburg, W., ’Phänomenologie als Grundlagendisziplin der Psychiatrie’.Fundamenta Psychiatrica, v (1991), 92-101.

147. Blankenburg, W., ’Karl Jaspers (1883-1969)’. In D. Engelhardt and F. Hartmann(eds), KlassikerderMedizin. Vol. 2 (München: C. H. Beck, 1991), 351-453.

148. López Ibor, J. J., ’Karl Jaspers en su centenario’. Actas Luso-españolas deNeurología y Psiquiatría, x (1982), 321-326.




phenomenology, psychopathology and jaspers: a conceptual history

Documents