Mental Rigidity: a Psychopathology or a Chance for Attaining Transcendence (drawing on K. Jaspers’s Existential Anthropology)
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.21146/2414-3715-2021-7-2-150-158Keywords:
existentialism, Karl Jaspers, pathology, mental rigidity, metaphor of the shell, transcendence, levels of consciousness, types of psychodynamics, psychological triad, unobjectified human natureAbstract
This article discusses the idea of the German philosopher and psychiatrist Karl Jaspers about a close connection between a psychological disease and unleashing of a human potential. The very psychopathology of a modern man is interpreted as an urge for freedom, that has acquired ugly forms. The author suggests a solution to the problem of mental rigidity. Levels of consciousness development, a psychological triad and its possible manifestations within one’s worldview, as well as positive and negative types of psychodynamic are presented as a plausible paradigm for orientation in the world. The discussed approach can serve as a method of analyzing individual conditioning and a broad range of phenomena of the modern culture.