Die Grenzen des Wahnwissens

The Boundaries of Delusional Knowledge The present study aims at defining an essential of delusional thinking. The diagnosis of the psychiatric phenomenon “delusion” is based on certain criteria like the objective ascertainment of falsity by the examiner and the high intensity of subjective assuredness in insisting on the erroneous conviction by the patient. Perceiving that these criteria are not enough for a qualitative differentiation from normal aberrant thinking, the boundaries of “genetic understanding” of delusional contents has been discussed as one additional criterion to classify a certain kind of pathological thinking as delusional idea. The study shows, that the impossibility of “genetic understanding” as a hermeneutic concept is no qualitative advantage for the diagnostically differentiation, but therefore it points out, that delusion in its interpersonal reference shows a very special kind of interhuman structure. The disconcerting element of delusion is not the content by itself but the kind of conviction about other persons: All over the kinds of delusion, every delusional content is presented as a “sure knowledge” about psychic intentions of other persons – like a scientific know-how about an impersonal thing. Thereby the