Since Blankenburg’s seminal work on the “basal disturbance”¹ (Grundstörung) of schizophrenia as a loss of natural self-evidence (natürlichen Selbstverstaendlichkeit) (1971/2012), investigating the structural relationship between the Husserlian notion of phenomenological epoché and the schizophrenic alienation (schizophrene Alienation) has become a classical theme of phenomenological psychopathology (cf. Naudin et al., 1999; Sass, 2001; Rulf, 2003; Schwartz et al., 2005; Wulff, 2007, 2014; Brückner and Schlimme, 2014; Thoma, 2014). Yet, in a lecture presented in Heidelberg in 1994, Tatossian, among the leading figures of French psychopathology, sketches a different interpretation of the schizophrenic consciousness. Instead of focusing on the loosening of the intersubjective anchoring (Verankerung) into the lifeworld (Lebenswelt), like Blankenburg (1971/2012, V), Tatossian proposes an intrasubjective reading of schizophrenia. Since these authors share similar phenomenological perspectives on psychopathology (cf. Thoma, 2013), how is it possible to conceive two apparently opposite interpretations of schizophrenia?

In the first part of the paper, I discuss in what sense schizophrenia can be conceptualized as a disorder of intersubjectivity by briefly reconstructing Blankenburg’s account. I show why and how Blankenburg locates the basal disturbance of schizophrenia in the rootedness of the human being into the lifeworld. By explaining the role of intersubjectivity in the constitution of natural self-evidence, I then discuss why, for Blankenburg, there is a kind of formal isomorphism between the phenomenological epoché and the schizophrenic loss of common sense. In this sense, I show that Blankenburg draws on Husserl’s idea of transcendental intersubjectivity as the constitutional basis not just for any sense of objectivity or meaning-formation, but for the genetic conditions that make possible human experience. This is because transcendental intersubjectivity refers to the underlying processes and structures that enable shared meanings and norms, making communication and social interaction possible (cf. Zahavi, 1996, 1997, 2001; Duranti, 2010; Costello, 2012; Heinämaa, 2013; Szanto, 2016). In this respect, Blankenburg’s account of schizophrenia is based on the idea that disturbances of the syntheses of intersubjectivity affect the constitution of the social and cultural world and, consequently, the formation of personal identity (cf. Parnas and Handest, 2003; Stanghellini et al., 2017; Gilardi and Stanghellini, 2021).

In the second part of the paper, I present Tatossian’s alternative proposal, that, contrarily to Blankenburg and similarly to Kimura (1992), focuses on schizophrenia as a self-disorder, which entails an originary self-alienation and self-division (cf. Sass, 2001; Motobayashi et al., 2016). As I show, drawing mainly from Fink’s reading of the phenomenological method in Sixth Cartesian Meditation (1988/1995), Tatossian proposes to consider the schizophrenic alterations of experience, and in particular schizophrenic autism, as resulting from a split in the heart of transcendental life, which is characterized by the simultaneity of the phenomenological onlooker and the constituting consciousness. In particular, I rework Tatossian’s insights through an interpretation of the Husserlian notion of Ego-Splitting (Ich-Spaltung), here used to make sense of the model of schizophrenic experience proposed by the French psychopathologist.

It is worth stressing that while Blankenburg and Tatossian both adopt a transcendental approach to psychopathology, in the sense that they conceptualize schizophrenia by considering the conditions of possibility of anomalous and distressing experience (cf. Blankenburg, 1971/2012; Tatossian, 1979/2002; Legrand, 2019), they do not use pure phenomenological ideas. As for Minkowski (1933/1970), they do not simply transpose or apply philosophical ideas to understand individual cases (cf. Zahavi, 2021).² Indeed, they do not use the epoché and the reduction to put aside theoretical psychopathological considerations. On the contrary, as I show, their use of phenomenological concepts and methods is strategic to make sense of patients’ lived experiences by drawing on clinical cases without disregarding empirical considerations. In particular, I claim that Blankenburg and Tatossian share a dialectical understanding of schizophrenia (Blankenburg, 1982, 2007; cf. Messas and Tamelini, 2018) by pointing to basal modifications of the “transcendental organization” (transzendentale Organisation) of experience.³ In this respect, their divergence originates from the attention to different constitutional poles of experience and from a diverse reading of the phenomenological epoché and reduction, which is discussed more as a performative act of the phenomenologist to draw analogies with schizophrenic consciousness rather than as a methodological presupposition of their analyses.

Therefore, in this paper, I show in what sense Tatossian’s account of the basal disturbance of schizophrenia simultaneously contrasts and completes Blankenburg’s approach. In particular, I claim that the point of contention between the two seems to concern the different use of the internal resources of Husserlian phenomenology. By presenting the philosophical presuppositions of their analyses, I discuss two key figures of phenomenological psychopathology by showing how their debate on the meaning of schizophrenic experience can be reframed by looking at the relationship between transcendental subjectivity and intersubjectivity in Husserl’s phenomenology. However, it is worth stressing that I am not interested in endorsing any of these two accounts. Indeed, I do not focus on the phenomenological problem of whether self-disturbances can be de facto conceived independently from impairments of the intersubjective syntheses. In this respect, as Sass, 2003, writes, “to distinguish with certainty between the core of an illness and its immediate sequelae (which may be compensatory or consequential) is an impossible task” (Sass, 2003, 169–170).

Currently, there is a growing interest in psychopathology to understand how schizophrenia impacts the relationship between an individual’s sense of self, their relationships with other persons, and their engagement with the wider socio-cultural environment (cf. Fuchs, 2015; Fuchs and Röhricht, 2017). In this respect, Blankenburg was a pioneer in conceptualizing schizophrenia as a disorder of intersubjectivity (cf. Fuchs, 2014, 2015; Van Duppen, 2017; Thoma et al., 2022). Unlike most of the classical accounts centered on the idea of self-disturbances (Ichstörungen), Blankenburg did not view social cognition and reduced empathy as a result of a primary disturbance of experience that originates from within the individual (cf. Thoma and Fuchs, 2017, 2018; Thoma et al., 2022, 2). On the contrary, he conceived schizophrenia as a psychopathology of common sense by placing emphasis on impairments in the intersubjective dimension of experience (cf. Mishara, 2001; Summa, 2012, 2014).

Rather than focusing on hallucinations and delusions, Blankenburg was interested in persons affected by paucisymptomatic forms of schizophrenia, who provide consistent phenomenological descriptions of impairments of practical understanding (cf. 1969/2001, 305–307). In the early stages of schizophrenia, individuals frequently experience a tendency to question or challenge commonly accepted practices, customs, concepts, or ideas that are typically considered self-evident or taken for granted. Arguably, the shift of attention from positive to negative symptoms of schizophrenia allowed Blankenburg to reflect on insidious modifications of lived experience that were simply neglected or overlooked at the time (cf. Maggini and Dalle, 2018, 229–230). Already in an article from 1969, Blankenburg developed the idea that schizophrenic alienation can be conceived as a consequence of an atrophy or “abdication of common sense” (1969/2001, 305).

Far from simply designating a representational kind of knowledge, common sense plays a fundamental practical role in our everyday life, for it articulates our pre-reflective engagement with others and the world. Common sense is a background understanding rooted in the “habitual structure of the lived-body” (Fuchs, 2001, 323) that allows us to navigate social situations effectively, by recognizing when to speak and when to listen, interpreting nonverbal cues such as facial expressions and gestures, without needing to be self-aware of our own behavior (cf. Green et al., 2015). In this sense, common sense is crucial in everyday situations because it allows us to act appropriately in various contexts (cf. Thoma and Fuchs, 2017, 2018; Bizzari, 2018). Therefore, when common sense is disturbed or lost, individuals may struggle to understand and interpret social cues and expectations, and, in general, to orient even in simple social contexts (cf. Stanghellini and Ballerini, 2002). This can lead to a sense of dislocation and isolation from the social and cultural world (cf. Naudin et al., 1999; Mishara, 2001; Sass et al., 2018).

For Blankenburg, the progressive impoverishment of common sense found in persons affected by early forms of schizophrenia can lead to a general loss of “familiarity-with” (vertraut sein mit) the everyday world. This, in turn, generates a basic mistrust in reality (cf. Fuchs, 2014, 81; Binswanger, 1956). Actually, Blankenburg develops the idea that schizophrenia can be conceived as a loss of common sense or of the “self-evidence of the self-evident” (die Selbstverständlichkeit des Selbstverständlichen) through the case study of Anne Rau’s schizophrenia simplex (1971/2012, 89).⁴ Indeed, the very expression “natural self-evidence,” which gives the title to Blankenburg’s seminal monographic work, is derived directly from Anne’s own descriptions: “I simply find that I still need support. In all the simplest things of every-day life I need support. What I miss is natural self-evidence […] A lot of things are foreign to me. […] Every person is something. Everyone moves in a certain way. That is not the case with me. It’s simply about life, about leading a real life, so that one is not so outside”⁵ (1971/2012, 43, my translation).

Blankenburg uses different phenomenological concepts and methods to explore Anne Rau’s lived experience and existential condition. In particular, he distinguishes a descriptive, structural or eidetic, and constitutive or transcendental stage of phenomenological investigation (Blankenburg, 1980). Indeed, Blankenburg does not only rely on phenomenology to elicit first-person descriptions of Anne Rau’s lived experience by means of an empathic understanding meant to grasp what the patient feels or is aware of Jaspers (1913/1997, 55). Actually, he also seeks to uncover: (a) the essential and invariant features that characterize schizophrenia in general by adopting an eidetic approach meant to grasp “the (modifying) process, the processes which reveal the eidos of the abnormal one, i.e., the abnormal modification of being”⁶ (Blankenburg, 1980, 56); (b) the conditions of possibility of Anne’s way of being, searching for the genetic constitution of the schizophrenic disturbances by considering Anne Rau’s family and public life.

By drawing on personal memories and some interviews, Blankenburg observes that Anne’s experience is characterized by a persistent feeling of perplexity (Ratlosigkeit) (1971/2012, 81, 134). Indeed, Anne laments about having lost “something small” (so etwas Kleines) but essential for living (Wichtigen, Grundsätzlichen). She refers to those elementary “rules of the game” (ibidem, 102) commonly shared by others in social interactions, which constitute the “basic axioms of everyday life” (cf. Straus, 1958; Summa, 2012, 194). In particular, Anne laments for lacking a standpoint (Standpunkt), a support (Halt) for understanding other persons’ behavior and their life projects. Blankenburg’s exploration of schizophrenic alienation revolves around four interrelated transformations in Anne’s field of awareness: her experience of the everyday world, temporality, self-experience, and relationships with others. However, Blankenburg places particular emphasis on the intersubjective dimension of Anne’s interactions with others, whose analysis is the lengthiest of the four.

In this regard, Blankenburg observes that Anne finds it difficult to participate in the everyday life of mutual communication. In particular, Anne laments a loss of perspective-taking and position-taking, and a general emotional fragility. For Blankenburg, Anna has lost a fundamental reciprocity (Gegenseitigkeit) that naturally characterizes our daily encounters. Rather than experiencing a sense of belonging and connection, Anne is overwhelmed with a feeling of dismay or horror (Entsetzen) when engaging with others. This is evident in her struggle to stand their gaze, which makes her feeling disconnected from herself (1971/2012, 134). For Blankenburg, Anne’s general discomfort expresses a fundamental non-familiarity with the socio-cultural dimension and discloses the problematic character of her being-in-the-world. This type of non-familiarity and questionableness (Fragwürdigkeit) encompasses any relation she has with others (ibidem, 134–135). Blankenburg notes that Anne seems to be obsessed with the others’ sense of trust, confidence, and spontaneity because she cannot be a “world-forming force” (weltbildende Kraft) (ibidem, 138), namely, an active source of natural self-evidence.

In fact, for Blankenburg, Anne’s distress is not primarily the consequence of the lack of some specific knowledge or cognitive ability, as she demonstrates a constant tendency for self-reflection. Instead, Anna seems to have lost a kind of naturality of what we consider self-evident (ibidem, 80, 143). Indeed, if, on the one hand, Anna does not know how to live her life or to engage with others, on the other hand, for her it is almost indifferent to live one way or another (ibidem, 157). Broadly, self-evidence refers to things that are immediately and intuitively clear to us, without requiring further explanation or justification (cf. Audi, 2019). Self-evidence, or what we consider obvious and immediately understandable, is hidden in everyday trivialities, so the difficulty of its analysis concerns its elusive nature. Actually, as Blankenburg acknowledges, the relationship between evidence and non-evidence constantly changes in our life (Blankenburg, 1971/2012, 76–80). Indeed, what may seem obvious to us today may not seem so tomorrow.

When Blankenburg discusses natural self-evidence, he does not refer to a specific knowledge or understanding, which is determined by culture or societal norms. Rather, he considers natural self-evidence as a basal quality of our existence that constitutes the condition of possibility of an original sense of trust and confidence that we have in our ability to perceive, understand, and act in the world around us (ibidem, 83, 142;). Beyond our explicit awareness, natural self-evidence belongs to the pre-predicative and pre-reflective dimensions of our experience. Indeed, prior to any conscious reflection or linguistic articulation of our experiences, we have an intuitive and spontaneous way of apprehending and relating to the world that operates almost underneath our explicit awareness through our bodily existence (cf. De Haan and Fuchs, 2010; Maiese, 2016). In this regard, as I show in the next section, Blankenburg uses Husserl’s concept of the lifeworld and the phenomenological epoché to conceptualize and understand Anne’s distressing and anomalous experiences.

In his lecture “Délire: sujet et subjectivité” presented in Heidelberg in 1994, Tatossian criticizes the idea that schizophrenic alienation derives from a disorder of our intersubjective anchoring in the social and cultural world. Instead, he contends that schizophrenic autism originates from a “plus profonde” disturbance that can be found within the sphere of transcendental subjectivity. Namely, in the deeper structures of consciousness involved in the constitution of our experience and do not strictly depend on our relationship with others. Tatossian considers the atrophy of common sense and the loss of natural self-evidence characterizing schizophrenic existence as an effect or the “écho et la conséquence d’une disproportion antérieure et plus profonde de la sphère intrasubjective” (Tatossian, 2014, 288). In this sense, contrary to Blankenburg, he does not conceive schizophrenic autism as resulting from a loss of our originary sociality or primary intersubjectivity.

Since Tatossian conceptualizes schizophrenic existence by drawing on some ideas found in Fink’s Sixth Cartesian Meditation, it is essential to first clarify the conceptual presuppositions of his account before understanding this conception of schizophrenia. This is important, especially considering that Tatossian does not elaborate on his idea of schizophrenia by discussing a case study like Blankenburg. Indeed, although Tatossian does mention clinical examples, in the lecture he draws almost exclusively on theoretical considerations, so his account remains highly speculative. For these reasons, I further expand on his ideas to make sense of this intrasubjective account of schizophrenia.

Broadly, Blankenburg draws on the notion of phenomenological epoché, as it is presented by Husserl in Ideas I, to characterize schizophrenic alienation as a loss of natural self-evidence. Yet, by suspending our natural attitude, the phenomenological method does not only disclose the distinction between the transcendental, constituting consciousness and the constituted world. As Fink makes clear, on the one side, by bracketing all assumptions about the existence and reality of any object of experience, the phenomenologist finds himself as a phenomenologizing onlooker. In particular, the temporary suspension of the existence of any other subject compels the phenomenologist as an onlooker to adopt a somewhat “solipsistic” stance. Indeed, even if the “‘Others are transcendentally existent as constituting monads with whom the ego stands in a community of constitution,” this does not phenomenologically imply that they stand “in a community of transcendental self-knowledge” (Fink, 1988/1995, 123).

On the other side, by performing the intersubjective reduction, the phenomenologist acknowledges that, as constituting consciousness, it is essentially communitarian in its intentional performances. Indeed, by belonging to an ego-community, which includes individual ego-subjects, the phenomenologist recognizes the participation in a web of intersubjective meanings and practices that shape his or her experiences and understanding of the world. Therefore, while the egological reduction seems to emphasize the solipsistic character of the transcendental life, on the contrary, the intersubjective reduction seems to underscore its communitarian aspect. As Bernet writes, while “the constituting consciousness constitutes, orders and enriches the world, […] the spectator unfolds a phenomenological analysis of this uninterrupted work of constitution” (Bernet, 1994, 17). In this respect, while the phenomenologizing onlooker “acts in solitude […] different constituent subjects quite naturally associate and collaborate in shaping a world that is common to them” (Fink, 1988/1995, 17, my translation).

However, to provide more clarity on how the phenomenologist can detach himself from the world and, in doing so, adopt an objective perspective on their consciousness for intentional analyses, Husserl offers further insights in his lecture course First Philosophy from 1923/1924. For Husserl, our ability to distance ourselves from the natural attitude relies on a particular type of self-alienation, also known as Ego-splitting or doubling (cf. Cavallaro, 2020), that we experience in different kinds of acts. For instance, in natural self-reflection, we can direct our thematizing attention to some activity we perform by means of a “perception of a higher type” (Husserl, 2019, 291). Following Husserl’s example, in natural self-reflection, our perception of a house becomes the awareness of perceiving a house. In this respect, self-reflection is characterized by the simultaneous presence of two Egos, the Ego of perception and the Ego of reflection. Indeed, even though, at the onset of self-reflection, the “emerging” Ego of reflection takes the act of perceiving the house as its content in the form of the past, the positing of the reflecting Ego actually implies a “coexistence [of] the doubled I and the doubled I-actus” (ibidem, 292).

Arguably, in natural self-reflection, by participating in the interests of the lower I, the reflecting I is almost “identical to it in the manner of the interested position-taking, co-believing, co-assuming, co-doubting, and so on” (Husserl, 2019, 299–300). In contrast, as Husserl makes clear, since the phenomenologist needs to suspend the doxastic validity of the lower-level I to perform the phenomenological epoché, the simultaneous presence of two Is assumes a new meaning. Indeed, the renunciation of the “co-belief” between the two Is that characterizes our natural self-reflection suspends the very identity of the two Is. According to Husserl, this suspension is possible due to an originary freedom, which allows us to remain detached from the existence and the manner in which the perceived objects of perception manifest, even in relation to “the existence of the world as such” (ibidem, 295).

In this regard, Zahavi writes: “Becoming a theme to oneself is a matter of becoming divided from oneself. Reflective self-awareness involves a form of alienation. It is characterized by a type of self-fragmentation that we do not encounter on the level of pre-reflective self-awareness”⁷ (Zahavi, 2005, 91). Indeed, in performing the phenomenological epoché, the disinterestedness of the reflecting I cannot be reducible to a “mere privation, a mere passivity” (Husserl, 2019, 296). As Husserl argues, to become an “unparticipating observer” a “special motivation” is, in effect, necessary to “free” the phenomenologist from the “sympathy” of the interested Ego of perception. Hence, the phenomenologizing onlooker, as reflecting I, can practice the epoché because of the possibility to “distance” from the reality claims that belong to the lower-level I. In other words, it is only because it can be “alone,” in an originary sense, that the phenomenologist can suspend every natural position-taking.

In this respect, the phenomenological bracketing is a non-participating kind of self-reflection meant to become “active in a complete disinterestedness with respect to the intentional objectivity as existing” (Husserl, 2019, 311). It is precisely the possibility of breaking the co-believing of the two Egos, stacked upon each other, which allows the phenomenologist to reduce all experiences to transcendental consciousness.⁸ As I show in the following section, Tatossian characterizes schizophrenic alienation by reflecting on the implications of the loss of this ability, which, in a certain sense, constitutes the originary condition of the possibility of “being-alone” in the sense of being detached from one’s experience.⁹

In this paper, I have presented two distinct perspectives on schizophrenia. I have shown that the difference between Blankenburg’s and Tatossian’s interpretations of schizophrenia stems from their respective phenomenological assumptions. For Blankenburg, the basal disturbance of schizophrenia is a transformation of the anchoring (Verankerung) of the human being into the lifeworld. Blankenburg’s attention on the intersubjective sphere to frame schizophrenic disturbances is already evident in the article of 1969, where he rejects the idea that schizophrenia could be understood as a disturbance of cognition or affectivity and writes that “Affectivity and the ability to judge, as we find it in common sense, refer back to an original unity of thinking, feeling, and willing in human existence, which is primarily related to an intersubjective world (mitweltbezogen)” (1969/2001, 307).

Blankenburg conceives schizophrenia as a psychopathology of common sense by placing emphasis on impairments in the intersubjective dimension of experience (cf. Mishara, 2001; Summa, 2012, 2014). Indeed, for him, “Seen in terms of transcendental phenomenology, the peculiar ability of common sense has its basis in the intersubjective constitution of the life-world” (Blankenburg, 1969/2001, 310). In this model, schizophrenic autism derives from a loss of natural self-evidence, which refers to our typical understanding of the practical and social world. This primary phenomenon consequently leads to alienation from the world of social interactions (secondary autism) (Blankenburg, 1969/2001, 1986; Pienkos, 2015; Sass and Pienkos, 2015). Indeed, it is not by chance that the analysis of Anne’s intersubjectivity is the lengthiest of his monography. In this respect, Blankenburg draws on the later Husserlian works on genetic and generative phenomenology, even though he does not elaborate on a genetic understanding of Anne Rau’s schizophrenic experience.

By considering the impairment of the second- and first-person plural awareness as the most important alterations of lived experience characterizing early schizophrenia (cf. Stanghellini and Lysaker, 2007), Blankenburg actually broadens the limits of psychopathological investigation. In this sense, as Thoma et al. (2022) have recently stressed, Blankenburg’s late works call “for an analysis not only of the self but even more of the social and cultural context, i.e., the different lifeworlds in which the constitution of everydayness is inhibited” (2022, 5). Indeed, since he became increasingly interested in understanding how the familial context may constitute a risk factor in the development of schizophrenia (Blankenburg et al., 1983), Blankenburg has de facto expanded the classical phenomenological accounts of schizophrenia by including sociological and etno-psychiatric considerations. As Thoma et al. (2022) show, Blankenburg’s later works consider schizophrenia as an “attempted solution to a problem in social structures, more specifically to the problem and challenge of emancipation from a specific family milieu” (2022, 10; cf. Blankenburg, 2007). However, in his account, Blankenburg leaves open the problem of the relationship between the factual becoming and the genetic constitution (faktischem Werden und konstitutiver Genesis) of Anne Rau’s experience. In this regard, at the end of section IX of his monography, Blankenburg seems to acknowledge the lack of antepredicative analyses in genetic phenomenology (Blankenburg, 1971/2012, 150, 170–179).¹²

Tatossian, on the contrary, grounding his intrasubjective reading of the basal disturbance of schizophrenia on Fink’s idea of a duality of the transcendental life, interprets schizophrenic subjectivity in the sense of a split between two Is normally coexistent in a healthy subjectivity. To be clear, on the basis of a reading of the “transcendental theory of reduction,” Tatossian develops a comparison between the fragmented nature of schizophrenic subjectivity and the split between the constituting consciousness and the phenomenologizing onlooker. I have further developed Tatossian’s by relying on the idea of Ego-splitting, which can be found in Husserl’s phenomenological-psychological theory of epoché and reduction. Typically, the self-alteration produced by the splitting or doubling of our experience is non-pathologic, since it is a necessary condition for our acts of reflection, representation, and imagination (cf. Cavallaro, 2020). However, the splitting assumes a new meaning in schizophrenia because self-duplication loses its dynamic character and becomes a pathological type of self-fragmentation. As Sass (2007), self-fragmentation encompasses thoughts, perception, and actions, with “popping-out” experiences, such as emerging inner speech or kinesthetic sensations, and a general disorganization and weakening of the field of awareness (cf. Sass, 2018b, 601).

In this sense, I have shown that for Tatossian schizophrenic autism primarily derives from a disturbance of self-awareness, and, in particular, from a type of self-division that leads to a pathological form of self-alienation. Indeed, in his account, Tatossian draws on Nagai (Motobayashi et al., 2016) and Kimura’s (1992) analyses of the split between the noetic and noematic self or individual and collective subjectivity in schizophrenia. From this perspective, Tatossian’s interpretation is close to the ipseity-disturbance model. Sass and Parnas (2007, 63) argue that the basal disturbance of schizophrenic experience can be characterized by (a) hyper-reflexivity, which designates second-order mental states such as self-monitoring (cf. Sass, 2018a), and (b) diminished self-affection, which characterizes a decreased self-awareness and sense of agency. According to this account, schizophrenia involves a disorder of the minimal self, that is, our pre-reflective first-person presence that characterizes our experiential life in general and constitutes the mineness of our experience (cf. Parnas, 2000; Sass and Parnas, 2003; Zahavi, 2005; Henriksen et al., 2019). In particular, Henriksen et al. (2019) argue that what is lacking or transformed in schizophrenia is the “warmth and intimacy” of the lived experience. However, even if Tatossian seems to believe in a sort of ontological priority of the intrasubjective transformations of subjectivity in schizophrenia, he does not provide any genetic explanation of the reason why, for instance, our ability to distance from the world does not strictly depend on the constitution of the others or on we-syntheses.

As I have shown, the difference in their interpretation of schizophrenic disproportion can be attributed to their reading of the meaning of phenomenological epoché and reduction. Not because they purely apply the epoché and reduction, but because they rely on these notions to actually understand the functioning of schizophrenic subjectivity. Blankenburg uses the phenomenological epoché to conceptualize, by means of some important distinctions, schizophrenic alienation as a loss - and not simply a bracketing - of natural self-evidence, which is, ultimately, intersubjectivity constituted in our everyday engagement within the lifeworld. In contrast, in Tatossian’s account, the phenomenological epoché is used to characterize the transformations of schizophrenic alienation as a modification of the relationship between the phenomenologizing onlooker and the constituting consciousness.

While Blankenburg and Tatossian seem to present two apparently opposite accounts of schizophrenia, actually there are some fundamental similarities. Tatossian’s approach to schizophrenia is dialectic like that of Blankenburg (1982, 2007) but it differs for the object of this dialectic. Blankenburg conceives schizophrenia as deriving from a disturbance in the balance between what we naturally take as self-evident and what is problematic or non-evident. Indeed, it is an open question establishing to what extent the loss of natural evidence becomes de facto pathological. Instead, Tatossian proposes to consider schizophrenia as a disturbance in the balance between our ability to distance ourselves from the world and from our own position-takings and our ability to immerse ourselves in the world with others and to actively engage with it. In this sense, he suggests that schizophrenic existence is characterized by a deficit of self-intimacy because, from this perspective, it is “the incapability to be alone which best characterizes and founds the incapability to meet Others”¹³ (2014, 290, my translation).

In my account, these perspectives are mutually complementary in a methodological sense because they reflect on the psychopathological disturbances by considering two co-originary poles of Husserl’s transcendental phenomenology as a priori conditions of experience in general, altogether with the world (cf. Zahavi, 2003; Taipale, 2014; Zhang, 2021). Indeed, as Husserl acknowledges, our intentional relation to the world already implies an implicit “reference to other subjects prior to any concrete experience of them” because “my perceptual intentionality contains a reference to Others, regardless of whether or not I experience these Others, and, indeed, regardless of whether they actually exist or not” (cf. Zahavi, 2003, 118–119). As Husserl also argues, if “one interprets transcendental subjectivity as an isolated ego and in the spirit of the Kantian tradition ignores the whole task of establishing a transcendental community of subjects, then every chance of reaching a transcendental self- and world-knowledge is lost” (cf. Zahavi, 1996, 1; Husserl, 1993, 120). In this sense, these two perspectives on schizophrenia are mutually enriching since they shed light on different but interrelated disturbances of experience. Arguably, before solving the problem of the explanatory relationship between levels or dimensions of psychopathological alterations of lived experience (cf. Sass, 2014), a pluralistic approach to the basal disturbances of schizophrenia is epistemologically justified because it does not favor particular ontological presuppositions to avoid oversimplifications (cf. Sass et al., 2018, 722).

Indeed, the debate on the explanatory relationship between different psychopathological phenomena in schizophrenia is still open. Actually, one of the main problems in the philosophy of psychiatry is understanding the relevance and contribution of each level of explanation to the conceptualization of psychiatric illness (cf. Kendler, 2005; Murphy, 2008). This is due to the inherent complexity of “distinguishing between more fundamental, enduring, trait-like features that are largely automatic or passively experienced […] and more consequential or compensatory features that develop largely in response” (Sass et al., 2018, 722).¹⁴ Similarly, in transcendental phenomenology, as Zahavi, 2017, writes, “to argue that self, world, and others are all involved in the constitutive process is not to say that they are all involved in the same way, or all involved on all levels” (Zahavi, 2017, 128). In this regard, because of the lack of a proper explanation of the “zone d’insertion du processus psychotique” in schizophrenia (Tatossian, 2014, 288), I have avoided a one-sided view of schizophrenia. Instead, I have taken a pluralistic approach in examining two classical accounts of schizophrenic existence, with the aim of investigating how classical phenomenological concepts can contribute to our understanding of psychopathological conditions.

The author confirms being the sole contributor of this work and has approved it for publication.

The research conducted in this publication was funded by the Irish Research Council under grant number “GOIPG/2021/606.”

The author declares that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest.

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