Habit and mental pathology in Hegel

Authors

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.34024/prometeica.2025.32.19583

Keywords:

Psychiatry, mechanism, madness, habit, German idealism

Abstract

The relation between mental pathology (madness) and habit has a systematic place in Hegel's philosophy of psychiatry. The spirit, in anthropology, is still a subjective substance, for it is not yet a subject. This means that the relations between sensations, feelings, impulses and desires with the world are deposited in the unconscious in the sense of self. The mechanism of the self-feeling is habit. Thus, habituating ourselves to the determinations from our preconscious stage is for Hegel the criterion that allows us not to fall into madness.  This being so, then mental pathology is an error of mechanisms of the self-feeling.

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Author Biography

  • Andrés Ortigosa Peña, Universidad de Sevilla

    Andrés Ortigosa es profesor en la Universidad de Sevilla en el Departamento de Filosofía y Lógica y Filosofía de la ciencia. Sus líneas de investigación son la metafísica y la filosofía de la psiquiatría en el idealismo alemán. Es miembro del grupo de investigación «El idealismo alemán y sus consecuencias actuales» (HUM 172). Últimas publicaciones:

     

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Prometeica v.32

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2025-03-17

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Vol. 32 (2025): Prometeica - v 32 (03/2025 - 12/2025)

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How to Cite

Ortigosa Peña, A. (2025). Habit and mental pathology in Hegel. Prometeica - Journal of Philosophy and Science, 32, e19583 (1-12). https://doi.org/10.34024/prometeica.2025.32.19583
Received 2024-10-08
Accepted 2025-02-26
Published 2025-03-17