Psychiatry in an Anthropological and Biomedical Context: Philosophical Presuppositions and Implications of German Psychiatry, 1820–1870

333 Pages·1985·12.63 MB·English

by  Gerlof Verwey (auth.)

PSYCHIATRY IN AN ANTHROPOLOGICAL
AND BIOMEDICAL CONTEXT
STUDIES IN THE HISTORY
OF MODERN SCIENCE
Editors:
ROBERT S. COHEN,Boston University
ERWIN N. HIEBERT, Harvard University
EVERETT I. MENDELSOHN, Harvard University
VOLUME 15
GERLOF VERWEY
Faculty of Philosophy, University of Nijmegen, The Netherlands
PSYCHIATRY IN AN
ANTHROPOLOGICAL
AND BIOMEDICAL
CONTEXT
Philosophical Presuppositions and
Implications of German Psychiatry,
1820-1870
..
D. REIDEL PUBLISHING COMPANY
A MEMBER OF THE KLUWER ,~ ACADEMIC PUBLISHERS GROUP
DORDRECHT/BOSTON/LANCASTER
Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data ~
Verwey, Gerlof, 1939- ~
Psychiatry in an anthropological and biomedical context.
(Studies in the history of modern science; v. 15) Translation of:
Psychiatrie tussen antropologie en natuurwetenschap.
Bibliography: p.
Includes indexes.
1. Psychiatry-Germany-Philosophy-History-19th century.
2. Philosophy, German-19th century. 3. Science-Germany-Philosophy
History-19th century. 4. Anthropology-Germany-Philosophy-History-
19th century. I. Title. II. Series. [DNLM: 1. Psychiatry
history-Germany. 2. Philosophy, Medical. 3. Anthropology
history-Germany. WM 11 GG4 V5pj
RC450.G3V4713 1984 616.89'00943 84-9951
ISBN-13: 978-94-010-8806-0 e-ISBN-13: 978-94-009-5213-3
001: 10.1007/978-94-009-5213-3
Published by D. Reidel Publishing Company,
P.O. Box 17, 3300 AA Dordrecht, Holland.
Sold and distributed in the U.S.A. and Canada
by Kluwer Academic Publishers,
190 Old Derby Street, Hingham, MA 02043, U.S.A.
In all other countries, sold and distributed
by Kluwer Academic Publishers Group,
P.O. Box 322, 3300 AH Dordrecht, Holland.
Translated by Lynne Richards with Philip Hyams and lohan Staargaard.
All Rights Reserved
© 1985 by D. Reidel Publishing Company, Dordrecht, Holland
Softcover reprint of the hardcover 1s t edition 1985
No part of the material protected by this copyright notice may be reproduced or
utilized in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical,
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retrieval system, without written permission from the copyright owner
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Preface xi
Introduction xv
1: Anthropological Psychiatry in Germany during the First Half of
the Nineteenth Century
1.1. Introduction 1
1.1.1. The Terms 'Anthropology' and 'Anthropological' in
Medical and Psychiatric Literature (First Half of
the Nineteenth Century)
1.1.2. Anthropology - Philosophy or Empiricism? 4
1.1.3. A Note on the Traditional Situation 5
1.2. The Rise and Spread of the Anthropological Viewpoint in
German Psychiatry from about 1820 to about 1845 6
1.2.1. Introduction 6
1.2.2. J. C. A. Heinroth as an Exponent of 'Psychicism' 9
1.2.2.1. Anthropology 9
1.2.2.2. Psychiatry 14
1.2.2.3. Heinroth's Platonism 20
1.2.3. The Standpoint of the 'Somaticists' (Nasse, Jacobi,
Friedreich, etc.) 22
1.2.4. M. Jacobi as a Representative of Psychiatric 'So-
maticism' 27
1.2.5. Reinterpretation of the Conflict between Somat-
icists and Psychicists 30
1.2.6. Tradition in Clinical Psychiatry despite Discon-
tinuity of Philosophical Presuppositions. Some
Reflections on the Psychiatry of L. Snell 34
v
vi T ABLE OF CONTENTS
2: The Mechanistic Viewpoint in Nineteenth-Century Philosophy
and Science (psychology and Physiology) 37
2.1. Mechanism: Term and Concept 37
2.2. The Philosophical Background 39
2.3. Kant and the Problem of the Relationship between Philoso-
phy and Science 41
2.4. The Significance of Kant's Philosophy for the Mechanistic
Self-Conception of Nineteenth-Century Psychology 44
2.5. The Implications of the Natural Science Self-Concept of
Psychology 46
2.6. Kant and the Problem of the Possibility or Impossibility of
Scientific Psychology 48
2.7. Kant's Influence on the Rise and Development of Nine-
teenth-Century Scientific Psychology 50
2.8. The Role Played by Physiology in Consolidating the Me
chanistic Self-Conception in Nineteenth-Century German
Science 52
2.9. Mechanism in Physiology. The Positivist Variant 60
2.10. Critical Positivism and Kantian Critical Philosophy 61
2.11. The Mechanism of Helmholtz, Du Bois-Reymond, Briicke,
M
~~~
2.11.1. H. Helmholtz 64
2.11.2. E. Du Bois-Reymond 66
2.11.3. E. W. Briicke 69
2.11.4. C. Ludwig 70
2.12. Materialistic Mechanism (Vogt, Moleschott, and BUchner) 71
2.13. Schopenhauer's and Lotze's Criticism of Materialism and its
Relevance to the Identification of the Self-Conception of
the so-called 'Materialists' of the Eighteen-Forties 76
2.14. Schopenhauer's Criticism of Materialism (in the Proper
Sense) and Naturalism 77
2.15. Lotze's Criticism of Materialistic Methodology 83
2.16. Schopenhauer and Lotze 84
3: W. Griesinger and the Mechanicist Conception of Psychiatry
(from about 1845 to about 1868) 86
TABLE OF CONTENTS vii
3.1. Griesinger's 'Apprenticeship' (up to 1844) 88
3.2. Lotze and Griesinger 94
3.3. Griesinger's Psychiatry in the Period 1845-68 101
3.3.1. Griesinger's Psychiatric Theory and the Mechanistic
Concept of Science 102
3.3.2. The Basic Pattern of Griesinger's 'Philosophy':
Naturalism on the Basis of Identity Theory 107
3.4. Griesinger's Thesis of the Identity of Mental Diseases and
Diseases of the Brain 109
3.5. Griesinger and Herbart 117
3.6. Herbart's Metaphysics and Griesinger's 'Empirical Stand-
point' 118
3.7. Griesinger's 'Ego Psychology': Assimilation of Herbartian
Elements 122
3.7.1. The Ego Concept in Herbart 123
3.7.2. From Mathematical Psychology (Herbart) to
Medical Psychology (Griesinger) 130
3.7.2.1. Herbart's Interpretation of the Mind-
Body Relationship 132
3.7.3. The Ego in Griesinger's Psychology. Mechanism or
(principle of) Teleology? 135
3.8. Griesinger's Relationship to Institutional Psychiatry 138
3.8.1. GrieSinger and Zeller 140
3.8.2. Zeller's Position in Somaticist Institutional Psy-
chiatry 143
3.8.3. Zeller and Griesinger: Opposition and Unity 148
3.9. Binswanger's Relation to (the Tradition of) Institutional
Psychiatry in General and to Griesinger in Particular 151
4: Schopenhauer, Rokitansky and Lange: Towards an Explicit
Philosophical Justification of German 'Materialism' (from about
1840) 156
viii TABLE OF CONTENTS
4.1. Schopenhauer and Physiology 157
4.1.1. The Position of Physiology in Schopenhauer's
Classification of the Sciences 157
4.1.2. The Role of Physiology in Schopenhauer's Phi-
losophy 159
4.2. Some Aspects ofSchopenhauer's Theory of Knowledge 164
4.3. Rokitansky as an Exponent of Idealistic Naturalism 168
4.4. F. A. Lange (1828-75), Philosopher of Methodological
Materialism 175
4.4.1. Lange's Relationship to Psychology 176
4.4.2. Lange's Philosophical Position 184
4.4.2.1. The 'Standpoint of the Ideal' 184
4.4.2.2. Methodological Materialism 190
4.4.2.3. Lange's Interpretation of Kant's Theory
of Knowledge and the Impact of Scho-
penhauer's Philosophy on it 192
4.5. Conclusion 198
Appendix: Main lines in the History of Philosophy and Science
Leading to 'Classical' Medical Anthropology and Anthro
pological Medicine (psychiatry) in Germany from about
1780 to about 1820. A Philosophical and Historical
Outline 201
AI. The Scope of this Outline 201
A2. Aristotle and the Beginnings of Anthropology 202
A3. The 'Bio-Logical' Viewpoint in Aristotle's Anthro-
pology and Psychology 202
A4. The Foundation of 'Modem' Anthropology in the
Italian Renaissance 207
A4.1. The Beginning of the 'Renewal' in Christian
Humanism and Platonism 207
T ABLE OF CONTENTS ix
A4.2. Aristotelian Naturalism and so-called Italian
Natural Philosophy 209
AS. Anthropology as the Empirical Study of Man in the
Period from about 1500 to about 1660 212
AS.I. The Medical School of Thought (Anatomy,
Physiology) 212
AS.2. The 'Psychological' Variant in (Medical)
Anthropology in Germany (Sixteenth to
Seventeenth Centuries). Descartes as 'Trou-
blemaker' 214
A6. Summa Ignorantiae 218
Notes 220
Text Notes 220
Appendix Notes 266
Bibliography 273
Name Index 289
Subject Index 295
PREFACE
In the period between about 1820 and about 1870 German psychiatry was
born and reborn: fust as anthropologically orientated psychiatry and then
as biomedical psychiatry. There has, to date, been virtually no systematic
examination of the philosophical motives which determined these two
conceptions of psychiatry. The aim of our study is to make up for this
omission to the best of our ability.
The work is aimed at a very diverse readership: in the first place historians
of science (psychiatry, medicine, psychology, physiology) and psychiatrists
(psychologists, physicians) with an interest in the philosophical and historical
aspects of their discipline, and in the second place philosophers working in
the fields of the history of philosophy, philosophy of science, philosophical
anthropology and philosophy of medicine.
The structure and content of our study have been determined by an
attempt to balance two different approaches to the historical material. One
approach emphasises the philosophical literature and looks at the question
of the way in which official philosophy determined the self-conception
(Selbstverstiindnis) of the science of the day (Chapters 2 and 4). The other
stresses the scientific literature and is concerned with throwing light on its
philosophical implications (Chapters 1 and 3).
It is our claim that, having proceeded in this way, we have avoided over
Simplification and have laid the foundation of a balanced account of the
relationship between philosophy and science, doing justice to the historical
complexity of the ways in which philosophical and scientific thought have
contributed to the rise of the anthropological and biomedical conceptions
of psychiatry .
The content of the four chapters can be summarised as follows.
Chapter 1 deals with the origins of the anthropological conception of
psychiatry. Within anthropological psychiatry (from about 1820 to about
1845) two dominant trends can be distinguished: that of the so-called psy
chicists (Pgychiker) and that of the so-called somaticists (Somatiker). The
analysis of the work of the two most typical representatives of these trends,
the psychicist Heinroth and the somaticist Jacobi, makes it clear, that,
contrary to current opinion, the great controversy between psychicists and
xi