Philosophical Anthropology: Basic Science of Psychiatry

The basic question in philosophical anthropology concerning the nature, the characteristic features, of human beings is, in a sense, the starting-point of all science, because the acquisition of knowledge, the understanding of “what in actual fact is” (Hegel 1807; see Spaemann and Low 1981), cannot completely disregard the essence that acquires this knowledge. In this respect at least, all scientifically sound and lasting cultural epochs of humanity were epochs with questions of philosophical anthropology. However, anthropology has an additional, an even more specific significance for psychiatry, because anthropology is irrefutably a fundamental science for psychiatry inasmuch as psychiatric illnesses, viewed as departures from healthy psychological life, always both refer to and are counterpoint to what it means to be human.