Understanding schizophrenia through Wittgenstein

empathy, explanation, and philosophical clarification

Elisabetta Lalumera

pp. 239-254

in: Inês Hipólito, Jorge Goncalves, João Pereira (eds), Schizophrenia and common sense, Berlin, Springer, 2018

Abstract

In this paper I claim that concepts taken from Wittgenstein's philosophy can shed light on the phenomenon of schizophrenia in at least three different ways: with a view to empathy, scientific explanation, or philosophical clarification. I consider two different "positive" wittgensteinian accounts—Campbell's idea that delusions involve a mechanism of which different framework propositions are parts, Sass' proposal that the schizophrenic patient can be described as a solipsist-, and a "negative" wittgensteinian account, namely Rhodes' and Gipp's, where epistemic aspects of schizophrenia are explained as failures in the ordinary background of certainties. I argue that none of them amounts to empathic-phenomenological understanding, but they provide examples of how philosophical concepts can contribute to scientific explanation, and to philosophical clarification respectively.

Cited authors

Wittgenstein Ludwig