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Some aspects of a medical anthropology: pathic existence and causality in Viktor von Weizsäcker

University of Zurich, hw{at}ethz.ch

‘Life is not only an "event" that happens — but also something that is suffered’; this is the core principle of what Viktor von Weizsäcker (1886—1957), the German physician and founder of a ‘Medical Anthropology’, called the ‘pathic’ dimension. The personal voice of the human being himself becomes a constitutive principle within the medium of science. Concepts of cause and effect are no longer applicable in the customary functional sense of aetiology. Even the intellect or spirit (Geist) can no longer be regarded as unscathed. In order to handle pathic ‘causality’ Weizsäcker introduced his ‘pathic pentagram’. The interplay of five modalities — must / may / want / should / can — creates a ground or reason of psychological and/or somatic explanation. Necessity and freedom of a person appear interwoven in a constitutive manner.

Key Words: causality • freedom • Geist (spirit) • medical anthropology • pathic existence • Viktor von Weizsäcker

History of Psychiatry, Vol. 20, No. 3, 360-376 (2009)
DOI: 10.1177/0957154X08337278


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