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The Dao of Madness

Mental Illness and Self-Cultivation in Early Chinese Philosophy and Medicine

McLeod, Alexus (Professor of Philosophy and Asian/Asian-American Studies, Associate Professor of Philosophy and Asian/Asian-American Studies, University of Connecticut)

The Dao of Madness

The Dao of Madness

Mental Illness and Self-Cultivation in Early Chinese Philosophy and Medicine

The Dao of Madness

 

In The Dao of Madness, Alexus McLeod discuss three different accounts of the concept of "madness" (kuang) in early Chinese thought, and the origins of the conception of mental illness in early China.


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Beschrijving The Dao of Madness

Mental illness complicates views of agency and moral responsibility in ethics. Particularly for traditions and theories focused on self-cultivation, such as Aristotelian virtue ethics and many systems of ethics in early Chinese philosophy, mental illness offers powerful challenges. Can the mentally ill person cultivate herself and achieve a level of virtue, character, or thriving similar to the mentally healthy? Does mental illness result from failures in self-cultivation, failure in social institutions or rulership, or other features of human activity? Can a life complicated by struggles with mental illness be a good one?

The Dao of Madness investigates the role of mental illness, specifically "madness" (kuang), in discussions of self-cultivation and ideal personhood in early Chinese philosophical and medical thought, and the ways in which early Chinese thinkers probed difficult questions surrounding mental health. Alexus McLeod explores three central accounts: the early "traditional" views of those, including Confucians, taking madness to be the result of character flaw; the challenge from Zhuangists celebrating madness as a freedom from standard norms connected to knowledge; and the "medicalization" of madness within the naturalistic shift of Han Dynasty thought. Understanding views on madness in the ancient world helps reveal key features of Chinese thinkers' conceptions of personhood and agency, as well as their accounts of ideal activity. Further, it exposes the motivations behind the origins of the medical tradition, and of the key links between philosophy and medicine in early Chinese thought. The early Chinese medical tradition has crucial and understudied connections to early philosophy, connections which this volume works to uncover.


ISBN
9780197505915
Pagina's
272
Verschenen
NUR
730
Druk
1
Uitvoering
Hardback
Taal
Engels
Uitgever
OUP USA

Filosofie