Madness and spiritualist philosophy of mind: Maine de Biran and A. A. Royer-Collard on a ‘true dualism’

ABSTRACT

The exchange between the philosopher Pierre Maine de Biran and the psychiatrist Antoine-Athanase Royer-Collard has been read either as an exemplary case of the influence of philosophy on medicine or as a “dialogue of the deaf” (Braunstein, Broussais et le matérialisme, 47). However, these two readings imply a clear distribution of roles between the philosopher and the doctor. This article instead examines the metaphysical nature of the discussion between the two spiritualists in their aim to establish a ‘true spiritualism’ from a common problem: the nature of madness. Based on a constellation analysis of Biran’s Nouvelles considérations sur les rapports du Physique et du Moral and Royer-Collard’s 1821 lecture on this manuscript, the article shows that both thinkers are concerned with the most appropriate form of dualism, and how it is possible to establish a relationship between the two fundamental aspects of man – the physical and moral – without denaturing each of them. Paradoxically, the analysis makes manifest a reversal of roles: whereas Biran has a static conception of dualism leading to an organic conception of madness, Royer-Collard demands a dynamic dualism that makes it possible to conceive a causal role for the mind in madness.

KEYWORDS:

• French spiritualism
• philosophy of mind
• dualism
• causality
• alienism

Acknowledgements

I am very grateful to Delphine Antoine-Mahut, Sacha Golob, Marco Piazza, Denise Vicenti and the two anonymous reviewers for their relevant and stimulating comments on the successive versions of the manuscript. Mark Sinclair’s invaluable work has helped me with English language editing and proofreading as well as clarifying my arguments.

Notes

1 See Dubois d’Amiens, “Folie”, 548; Delacroix, “Maine de Biran et l’école médico-psychologique”; Madinier, Conscience et mouvement, 212–20; Canguilhem, “What is Psychology?”; Babini, “Maine de Biran e Antoine Athanase Royer-Collard”.

2 The members of the Auteuil circle make a counter-intuitive use of the term ‘experimentation’ given that it does not develop a laboratory ‘experimental method’ (in the sense of, say, Claude Bernard at the end of the nineteenth century). For all that, developing an experimental philosophy means to establish a psychological foundation of metaphysics with a specific method: the observation of variations in experience or concrete ‘relationships’ between the physical and the moral (Antoine-Mahut, “Experimental Method and the Spiritualist Soul”).

Additional information

Funding

This study was supported by “The Battle for the Science of Man” Research Program (BATTMAN) funded by the LabEx COMOD, Lyon University (2017–2020) [grant number ANR-16-IDEX-0005].