Ten Great Philosophers Who Suffered From Mental Illness

Those who ask difficult questions, such as "why are we here?", "where do we get our morals from?" and "what does it really mean, when we are on earth?", have given mankind amazing philosophical insights as well as ethical guidance. Unfortunately, over-reflection on these matters can sometimes lead philosophers' brains to dazzle, bringing out the pressure too much! Then again, maybe it's a little bit of madness that drives great philosophers to try to answer these questions.

William James

The physician, psychologist, and philosopher William James is well known for his work on the philosophy of religion and pragmatism, seeking to discover how one should act when one has no knowledge of ultimate truth. Like his siblings (one of whom was the great novelist Henry James), he suffered from various ailments in his youth, both physical and mental. His mental illness, known at the time as a "nervous breakdown", included distinct and severe periods of depression that lasted for months, during which he contemplated suicide. Despite these concerns, James published throughout his life and died of a heart attack in his sixties.

John Stuart Mill

One of the key figures of the current of utilitarianism, John Stuart Mill was a child predestined to become someone, so his father deliberately sought to educate him from a young age with philosophy. His father's intense lessons eventually took their toll, and at the age of 20 he was struck by a nervous breakdown and depression, which he later explained was due to being deprived of a real childhood. Mill recovered and continued his university studies on a scholarship, which included the publication of his On Liberty - a profoundly important philosophical work, and one of the foundational texts of liberalism.

Soren Kierkegaard

Considered the grandfather of existentialism, or perhaps the first existentialist, Soren Kierkegaard was deeply critical of the idealist philosophers of his time such as Hegel and Schelling. He focused on life as a "single individual", emphasizing personal choices and human reality. He described depression as a failure, stating that the depressed person always had "an equal or perhaps greater possibility of the opposite state". This view is all the more poignant when you realize that Kierkegaard himself, and many of his family members, suffered from symptoms of deep depression. Kierkegaard is quoted as saying: "My depression is the most faithful teacher I have ever known..."!

Michel Foucault

Michel Foucault engaged in critical studies of such social institutions as psychiatry and prisons, while his writings on discourse and power were profoundly influential throughout the second half of the 20th century and beyond. His importance in philosophy and across a variety of academic disciplines is marked by the fact that he is one of the most frequently cited scholars in the humanities. The author of such texts as Madness and Civilization, his prominent influence on the anti-psychiatry movement is evident – ​​especially given the fact that he received a degree in psychology and, perhaps most importantly, suffered the throes of acute depression, that even led him to try to kill himself.

Paul Feyerabend

Paul Feyerabend worked for over 30 years at the University of California, working in the field of philosophy of science. He took an anarchic approach to science, rejecting the common wisdom that there can be universal methodological rules. His most famous work, "Against Method", provoked strong reactions and he was involved in controversy, while also facing his great depression, which was mainly due to the great intensity of his work. In fact, in his autobiography he referred to it as "faithful depression", comparing his illness to a pet.

Socrates

Commonly recognized as the founder of the Western philosophical tradition, Socrates was not reticent to talk about what today we might now describe as his mental illness. This sincerity no doubt stemmed from his open belief that madness, when inspired by the gods, can bestow upon man his greatest blessings—like love, poetry, and philosophy itself. Socrates relied on his "demonic sign," or the independent voice in his head, to warn him when he was making a mistake. It was this voice that kept him away from entering politics.

David Hume

David Hume was an important member of the Scottish Enlightenment, seeking to establish a "science of man" that investigates human nature and motivations. He is one of the most important figures in Western philosophy, known for his influence on Adam Smith, Kant and William James. While still a teenager and studying at the University of Edinburgh, he discovered "a new Scene of Thought" and completed a total of 10 years of higher studies, where the heavy workload brought him to the brink of nervous exhaustion. Sensitive as he was, he realized that continuing on this path would prevent him from achieving the enlightenment he wanted to achieve, so he began an active life to maintain his mental health.

Martin Heidegger

Martin Heidegger focused his philosophy on the concept of "being" with his book "Being and Time", which is considered one of the most influential philosophical works of the 1945th century. His membership of the Nazi Party and support for Hitler make his work and life controversial. He was banned from teaching after a denazification session in XNUMX. He suffered a nervous breakdown, and while it may be polite to believe that this was due to his guilt over collaborating with the Nazis, it is more likely that the confusion his inner self, to have been fueled by the prospect of losing the university career he had tried to build.

Adam Smith

Author of The Wealth of Nations, the first work of modern economics, Adam Smith was an important figure in the Scottish Enlightenment, and is known as the father of capitalism. However, his existence does not consist only of dedication to scientific work. He began to suffer from mental disorders while studying at Oxford, which are now thought to be symptoms of a nervous breakdown. During his lifetime he was known to talk to himself and suffered from imaginary illnesses, as well as chronic attention deficit disorder, which led to incidents such as walking 15 miles out of town wearing only his nightgown.

Friedrich Nietzsche

As he himself once declared, if you stare long enough into the abyss, the abyss will stare back at you. Friedrich Nietzsche's preoccupation with the will to power and the death of God may have been what drove him to madness. An oft-repeated story tells of him kneeling in front of a horse being whipped by his master, and in the late 19th century, he began sending strange letters detailing imaginary suffering. While the idea of ​​an inquisitive mind destroyed by his own studies is appealing, doctors at the time diagnosed him with tertiary syphilis, and later diagnoses included manic-depressive illness with periodic psychosis and frontotemporal dementia. His influence is still strong in the postmodernist nihilistic and existentialist school of philosophy.