Psychiatrie a filosofie – Straus Erwin (2023)

The study Psychiatry and Philosophy (1963) is among the important texts of Erwin Straus. Its main theme is both the practical and theoretical problems of modern psychiatry, highlighting the limits imposed by its historical ties to medicine and the natural sciences. In contrast, Straus proposes to connect psychiatry and medicine with the humanities and philosophy. This was meant to create an entirely new discipline, known as medical anthropology, which would address the fundamental issues of medicine and psychiatry, namely the problems of physical and mental health, in direct relation to the fundamental questions of philosophy, among which Straus includes the question of human nature and the position of man in the whole of the world. ***** E. Straus built upon selected ideas and motifs from the phenomenological philosophy of Edmund Husserl and Martin Heidegger. While both Husserl's and Heidegger's phenomenological philosophy is relatively well-received in the Czech context, the phenomenological psychology and psychiatry of Straus and his contemporaries are still awaiting such reception. So far, only a few selected excerpts from Straus's extensive work have been translated into Czech. ***** Meanwhile, the first steps towards a more detailed and broader reception...