Helmuth Plessner’s Philosophical Anthropology

Anthropological ideas can effectively provide basic concepts for psychiatric understanding. However, the kind of anthropology used greatly determines the form psychopathology and psychiatric practice then assume. The use of certain phenomenological theories in so-called Anthropological Psychiatry runs the risk of overlooking the realm of human sociality. It furnishes an approach that tends to be reductionistic because it focuses on human beings as individuals. Helmuth Plessner’s more dialectically shaped anthropology with its central concept of the “eccentric positionality” can provide an alternative to this reductionism. More adequate anthropological descriptions can be developed, in my judgment, by adopting Plessner’s framework. In this paper, Plessner’s most important ideas about a dialectical anthropology are discussed. As a conclusion, a connection with psychiatric understanding and practice is established.