THE PHILOSOPHY OF PSYCHIATRY - WHO NEEDS IT

Many a psychiatrist has said that he did not want to burden himself wi th a philosophy and that; this science had nothing to do with philosop hy. But the exclusion of philosophy would nevertheless be disastrous f or psychiatry: firstly, if we are not clearly conscious of our philoso phy we shall mix it up with our scientific thinking quite unawares and bring about a scientific and philosophic confusion. Secondly, since i n psychopathology in particular the scientific knowledge is not all of one kind, we have to distinguish the different modes of knowing and c larify our methods, the meaning and validity of our statements and the criteria of tests-and all this calls for philosophic logic... To sum up: If anyone thinks he can exclude philosophy and leave it aside as u seless, he will be eventually defeated by it in some obsure form or an other (Karl Jaspers, 1963, pp. 769-770).