The paradoxes of delusion : Wittgenstein, Schreber and the schizophrenic mind

195 Pages·1995·13.888 MB·English

by  Louis A. Sass, Ludwig Wittgenstein, Daniel Paul Schreber

THE
PARADOXES
OF
DELUSION
Wittgenstein,
Schreber,
and the
Schizophrenic
Mind
ALSO BY LOUIS A. SASS
MADNESS
AND
MODERNISM:
Insanity
in the
Light of
Modern Art,
Literature, and Thought
THE
PARADOXES
OF
DELUSION
Wittgenstein,
Schreber,
and the
Schizophrenic
Mind
LOUIS A. SASS
CORNELL UNIVERSITY PRESS ITHACA AND LONDON
Copyright© 1994 by Cornell University
All rights reserved. Except for brief quotations in a review, this book, or
parts thereof, must not be reproduced in any form without permission in
writing from the publisher. For information, address Cornell University
Press, Sage House, 512 East State Street, Ithaca, New York 14850.
First published 1994 by Cornell University Press
First printing, Cornell Paperbacks, 1995
Printed in the United States of America
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Sass, Louis Arnorsson.
The paradoxes of delusion : Wittgenstein, Schreber, and the schizophrenic
mind / Louis A. Sass.
p. em.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN-r3: 978-o-8014-9899·2ipbk. : alk. paper)
r. Schizophrenia. 2. Wittgenstein, Ludwig, 1889-1951. 3· Schreber,
Daniel Paul, 1842-191 r. 4. Psychiatry-Philosophy. 5· Delusions. I. Title.
RC514.S3163 1993
616.89'oo1-de2o 93-24931
Quotations from Memoirs of My Nervous Illness
by Daniel Paul Schreber, translated and edited by
Ida Macalpine and Richard A. Hunter !Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press),
Copyright© 1955, and Introduction to the 1988 edition© 1988,
by the President and Fellows of Harvard College are reprinted
by permission of the publisher.
Cornell University Press strives to use environmentally responsible suppliers and
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Paperback printing ro 9 8 7 6 5
TO
SHIRA

CONTENTS
Preface ix
Abbreviations xiii
Introduction I
I A Mind's Eye World I7
2 Enslaved Sovereign, Observed Spectator 5I
A Vast Museum of Strangeness 86
3
Conclusion 118
Notes I3I
Index I7I

PREFACE
You must always be puzzled by mental illness. The
thing I would dread most, if I became mentally ill,
would be your adopting a common sense attitude;
that you could take it for granted that I was de
luded.
-Ludwig Wittgenstein, quoted in
Recollections of Wittgenstein
This is an essay on philosophy and madness-on madness as akin to
philosophy, on philosophy as a kind of madness. There are two prin
cipal characters: Daniel Paul Schreber, a jurist in the kingdom of
Saxony who became insane in midlife and spent thirteen years in
mental asylums between I884 and his death in I9I I; and Ludwig
Wittgenstein, the philosopher from Vienna and then Cambridge
who has been such a central figure in the development of twentieth
century thought. This may seem an odd or even outlandish pairing,
but it is by no means an arbitrary one.
Schreber has been described as the most famous madman in the
history of psychiatry. He is the author of Memoirs of My Nervous
Illness, an intricately detailed, lucid, yet bizarre volume that was
read by Sigmund Freud, Eugen Bleuler, Karl Jaspers, and other psy
chiatric writers of the early twentieth century and used by them as a
key example of paranoia and especially of schizophrenia. Through
his autobiographical book, Schreber's example has exerted a singu
larly powerful influence on images and conceptualizations of insan
ity in modem psychiatry; to consider his account is to investigate
what is perhaps the paradigm case of madness in our time.
Wittgenstein I I 889-I 9 5 I) is widely acknowledged as the greatest
ix