Thomas Fuchs > Quotes

“his desire “to be a well-rounded individual” had closed him off from a more profound view of things: “Goethe opted for the realization of a full human life; he was not a victim like Kierkegaard or Nietzsche” (Jaspers 1951, p. 50 ff). For Jaspers, the philosophers Kierkegaard and Nietzsche stand, alongside the artists Hölderlin and van Gogh, for the productive connection between psychopathology and modernity , with Max Weber as their representative from the sciences. At”
― Thomas Fuchs, Karl Jaspers’ Philosophy and Psychopathology

“Wider society profits from the self-sacrifice of the artist, whose work transforms the truth from its devastating origins into a form that is bearable yet challenging.”
― Thomas Fuchs, Karl Jaspers’ Philosophy and Psychopathology

“Jaspers made a separate category of haphazard (also translated as incident, chance, accident, coincidence). He says the world is both at random and necessarily given, chaotic and coherent. Again religions have tried to overcome these antinomies, i.e., by the Christian belief in predestination.”
― Thomas Fuchs, Karl Jaspers’ Philosophy and Psychopathology

“Guilt is another central aporia leading to limit situations since any human being has to leave options aside while acting in any decision whatsoever. Jaspers refers here not so much to ethical problems we deal with in our ethical committees or in forensic psychiatry but to existential guilt,”
― Thomas Fuchs, Karl Jaspers’ Philosophy and Psychopathology

“writes in his late notes: “Max Weber’s illness, no coincidence? […] his philosophical understanding has deepened, broadening his view immeasurably. What would he be without the illness?” His notes place the brilliant scientist, who struggled with psychiatric problems for many years and teetered on the brink of suicide a number of times, within the context of sick thinkers and poets who were constitutive for the existential understanding of the modern age. “Is illness a prerequisite for the deepest insights? Kierkegaard, Nietzsche? Hölderlin?” (Jaspers 1981, p. 649).”
― Thomas Fuchs, Karl Jaspers’ Philosophy and Psychopathology

“According to Jaspers (1954, pp. 229–280, 416–418; 1965; 1973) limit situations are characterized by inevitable antinomies which prevent a person going on as usual. A personal solution is necessary to accustom which implies change or development. Jaspers”
― Thomas Fuchs, Karl Jaspers’ Philosophy and Psychopathology

“Death respectively finality in life and of life is another category of limit situation . It is”
― Thomas Fuchs, Karl Jaspers’ Philosophy and Psychopathology

“of self-awareness and depth of feeling in case the limit situation is mastered.”
― Thomas Fuchs, Karl Jaspers’ Philosophy and Psychopathology

“madness, whose considerable popularity at the time was largely due to Cesare Lombroso’s genio e fillia of 1887 (Lombroso 1887). The artistic avant-garde, which was pushing vehemently, subversively and provocatively for political, social and economic change, was diagnosed as degenerate, and Lombroso was regarded as its chief enemy (Nordau 1892, p. VIII). The German equivalent of the Italian psychiatrist was, Max Nordau was the leading champion of this pathologizing discourse. His standard work Degeneration from 1892 psychiatrized entire social groups which, like the modernist artists and their followers, did not conform to the moral ideals of the ruling middle classes (Nordau 1892, p. 469). “Degenerates are not always criminals, anarchists, and pronounced lunatics; they are often authors and artists”
― Thomas Fuchs, Karl Jaspers’ Philosophy and Psychopathology

“Even the advanced psychotic process could have a beneficial impact on the innovative quality of the artwork, he believed: “Just as a diseased oyster can cause the growth of pearls, by the same token schizophrenic processes can be the cause of mental creations of singular quality” (Jaspers 1977, p. 134).”
― Thomas Fuchs, Karl Jaspers’ Philosophy and Psychopathology

“alluding to Lange’s pathography , which rejected all productive influence of mental illness and only underscored its destructive effects: “Catatonia on the other hand completely diminished or destroyed his abilities; Hölderlin’s ‘madness’ has nothing to do with his genius” (Lange 1909, p. 216 f). While Lange essentially sought to apply psychiatric categories to apprehend the formally and linguistically unusual nature of Hölderlin’s art as an expression of alterity, Jaspers wanted to learn from the philologists. He was inspired not only by Hellingrath but also by Wilhelm Dilthey, whose 1906 collected volume Poetry and Experience included an essay on Hölderlin (Dilthey 1916). Jaspers describes this as the “most brilliant” interpretation of Hölderlin he had encountered”
― Thomas Fuchs, Karl Jaspers’ Philosophy and Psychopathology

“Fight is defined as the necessity to take a decision in contradictious constellations or highly ambivalent states of mind . As”
― Thomas Fuchs, Karl Jaspers’ Philosophy and Psychopathology

“for attaining deeper insights into reality: “Such experience, truly genuine, truly dangerous, is only possible among schizophrenics” (Jaspers 1977, p. 152). In Strindberg and van Gogh the chapter on “Schizophrenia and Modern Civilization” is devoted to the unique perspective which is opened up by the richly metaphysical art of the mentally ill. Never before, he wrote, had schizophrenic psychosis played such a dominant role within culture, so that “a number of high ranking people of today who became schizophrenic have impressed us with works from their years of illness” (Jaspers”
― Thomas Fuchs, Karl Jaspers’ Philosophy and Psychopathology

“Jaspers says that fight usually is disliked, misperceived as an ultimate action as though the fight for the sake of fighting should be appreciated. However, fight for the concrete existence is unavoidable. Man lives but is doomed to die, needs to select, to overcome or reconcile contentions. Since living without fight is impossible, fight lends dignity and strength to the individual.”
― Thomas Fuchs, Karl Jaspers’ Philosophy and Psychopathology