Esperienza affettiva e patologie dello spirito nell'Anthropologie hegeliana

The essay aims to outline Hegel’s conception of mental disorder, as it emerges from the Anthropology. Secondly, it will investigate how Hegel associates different forms of mental disorder with specific feelings. Hegel describes what he defines as derangement (Verrücktheit) as a fixation of the subject upon a particular feeling or sensation. However, sensations and feelings are not per se threats to mental health. On the contrary, they represent the immediate content of the mental functions which enable the subject to relate with the external world. Accordingly, for Hegel, mental disorder arises from a disjunction between rational consciousness and feelings. In conclusion, the paper intends to show that Hegel does not consider mental derangement as the characteristic of the artistic genius, or as a loss of reason. In Hegel’s perspective, the subject suffering from mental disorder – while being affected by an illness – still remains a rational being, in agreement with Philippe Pinel’s approach.