Schizophrenic Consciousness,Spiritual Experience,and the Borders Between Things,Images and Words

Abstract

A prototypical feature of schizophrenic consciousness is that it undergoes a solidification of the imaginary space in which mental events take place. The bipartition between images and ‘real' things is jeopardized and imagination is transformed into ‘physical' forms. Parallel to this solidification of imaginary space in schizophrenic consciousness, more generally the rigid tripartite separation of things, images and words upon which the spatial order of consciousness is founded starts to erode. I explore different spiritual and philosophical traditions which shed light on and make more understandable the schizophrenic consciousness that call into question this separatedness. I argue that these traditions indicate that our current commonsensical approach to the separatedness between things, images and words is historically and culturally determined.

Keywords

language mysticism phenomenology philosophy schizophrenia self-disorders spirituality

Get full access to this article

View all access options for this article.

References

Bernet, R. , Kern, I. , & Marbach, E. (1993). An introduction to Husserlian phenomenology. Evanston, IL: Northwestern University Press .

Blankenburg, W. (1971). Der Verlust der natürlichen Selbstverstaendlichkeit. Stuttgart: Enke Publishers.

Busi, G. (1998). La qabbalah. Bari: Laterza Editori.

Cassirer, E. (1959). Sprache und mythos. New York: Dover.

Cassirer, E. (1975). Sprache und mythos. Milan: Garzanti.

de Clérambault, G. G. (1942). Oeuvres psychiatriques. Paris: Presses Universitaire de France.

De Monticelli, R. (1995). L'ascesi filosofica. Milan: Feltrinelli.

Ey, H. (1998 [1959]). Estudios sobre los delirios. Madrid: Editorial Triacastela.

Forman, R. K. C. (1999). What does mysticism have to teach us about consciousness? In S. Gallagher & J. Shear (Eds.), Models of the self(pp. 361–377). Thorverton, UK: Imprint Academic .

10.

Foucault, M. (1966). Les mots et les choses. Paris: Gallimard.

11.

Genette, G. (1976). Mimologiques. Paris: Seuil.

12.

Heidegger, M. (1927). Sein und Zeit. Halle: Niemeyer.

13.

Husserl, E. (1977). Logical investigations. The Hague: Nijhoff .

14.

Idel, M. (1992). The mystical experience in Abraham Abulafia. New York: State University of New York Press .

15.

Katz, S. T. (1978). Language, epistemology and mysticism. In S. T. Katz (Ed.), Mysticism and philosophical analysis. Oxford: Oxford University Press .

16.

McKenna, W. R. (1997). Epoché and reduction. In L. Embree (Ed.), Encyclopedia of phenomenology(pp. 177–180). London: Springer .

17.

Plato . Cratylus. The Internet Classics Archive. Available online at http://classics.mit.edu//Plato/cratylus.html.

18.

Sass, L. A. (1992). Madness and modernism: Insanity in the light of modern art, literature, and thought. New York: Basic Books .

19.

Scanlon, J. (1997). Eidetic method. In L. Embree (Ed.), Encyclopedia of phenomenology(pp. 168–171). London: Springer .

20.

Scheler, M. (1979a). Manuscript on my theory of the cognitive and methodological aspects of metaphysics viewed as positive cognition: Distinguishing points of my philosophy from those of my opponents [unpublished English translation by J. Cutting]. In M. Scheler & M. S. Frings (Eds.), Gesammelte Werke, Vol. 11 (pp. 72–81). Berne: Francke Verlag.

21.

Scheler, M. (1979b). Towards the phenomenological reduction [unpublished English translation by J. Cutting]. In M. Scheler & M. S. Frings (Eds.), Gesammelte Werke, Vol. 11 (pp. 93–96). Berne: Francke Verlag.

22.

Scholem, G. (1957). Die juedische Mystik in ihren Hauptstroemmungen. Zurich: Rhein-Verlag.

23.

Scholem, G. (1960). Zur Kabbala und ihrer Symbolik. Zurich: Rhein-Verlag.

24.

Scholem, G. (1970). Der Name Gottes und die Sprachtheorie der Kabbala. Frankfurt: Suhrkamp.

25.

Scholem, G. (1971). Die Geheimnisse der Schoepfung. Ein Kapitel aus dem kabbalistischen Buche sohar. Frankfurt: Suhrkamp.

26.

Scholem, G. (1998). Der Name Gottes und die Sprachtheorie der Kabbala. Milan: Adelphi.

27.

Stanghellini, G. (1997). Antropologia della vulnerabilit‡. Milan: Feltrinelli.

28.

Stanghellini, G. (2004). Disembodied spirits and deanimated bodies. The psychopathology of common sense. Oxford: Oxford University Press .

29.

Stanghellini, G. , & Ballerini, M. (2004). Autism: Disembodied existence . Philosophy, Psychiatry & Psychology, 11(3), 259–268 .