blankenburg 2001 toward a psychopathology of common sense

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Philosophy, Psychiatry, & Psychology, Volume 8, Number 4, December2001, pp. 303-315 (Article)

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BLANKENBURG / FIRST STEPS TOWARD A PSYCHOPATHOLOGY OF COMMON SENSE 303

2002 by The Johns Hopkins University Press

Wolfgang Blankenburg(Translated by Aaron L. Mishara)

First Steps Toward aPsychopathology of

Common Sense1

ABSTRACT: In addition to discussing some philosophi-cal accounts of common sense, this article considersseveral ways in which common sense can be altered ordisturbed in psychopathology. Common sense can bedefined as practical understanding, capacity to seeand take things in their right light, sound judgment,or ordinary mental capacity. The philosopher Vicodescribed it as the ability to distinguish the probablefrom the improbable. Goethe understood commonsense as an organ that is formed in communication forthe purpose of communication. Common sense is root-ed in the intersubjective constitution of the life-world.

Obsessive-compulsive patients show relatively milddisturbances of common sense. Patients with majoraffective psychoses, in their premorbid personalitystructure, are overly attached to common sense. Inschizophrenia, however, there seems to be a true abdi-cation of common sense involving a loss of naturalself-evidence. Even in premorbid states, such per-sons often lose both the sense of tact and the ability totake things in their right light. Although logic, andthe ability to engage in theoretical discussion, may bepreserved, there is a loss of interpretive skills and thefaculty of judgment; this results in an inability tocope with everyday practical and social activity. Thereis also a characteristic sense of perplexity, a sense ofamazement before that which would normally seemself-evident and a frequent tendency to reflect uponthe conditions of possibility of existence that other-wise remain concealed. The author suggests that thefragility of common sense should not be seen as amere deficiency state. Rather, it derives from a basicvulnerability inherent in the very structure of beinghuman. (Abstract written by special issue editor: L.A.S.)

THE PHRASE IN OUR TITLE, Psychopathologyof Common Sense, may seem strange tosome readers. How can the disturbanceof what is obviously a banal ability have signifi-cance? However, we find here something that isfrequently true: The deepest human problemslurk behind the obvious.

One dictionary defines common sense as prac-tical understanding; capacity to see and takethings in their right light; sound judgement. Or-dinary mental capacity (Funk and Wagnalls1964). In this definition, an understanding gov-erned by practice and the ability to see things intheir right light is considered most essential.Healthy judgement is simply equated with nor-malcy.

In general, our current understanding of theterm, common sense [English in the original]predominantly derives from Anglo-American us-age. The conceptual history of common sense,however, extends back to ancient times. Ourpresent term is a translation of the Latin sensuscommunis. The Aristotelian definition of com-mon sense (in Greek, koih aidhsi~, from whichthe Latin sensus communis is derived) is theorgan that orders and sums up sensations.2 How-ever, we will not concern ourselves with the Aris-totelian definition. In Anglo-American usage, thedefinition of common sense, such as the oneabove, more closely resembles that proposed by

304 PPP / VOL. 8, NO. 4 / DECEMBER 2001

the stoics. Although it will not be our emphasis,it is still possible to trace relationships betweenthe two definitions.

Many modern thinkers have addressed theproblem of common sense. Descartes (1953),Vico (1966), Shaftesbury (1711), Thomas Reid(1846) and the Scottish school, and Kant aresome. We need not enter here into a debate withthe philosophical tradition. Gadamer (1965) hasalready done this with masterful subtlety. Fromthese modern thinkers there spans a sweepingarch which extends to the more recent philoso-phy of life, Bergsons views, Husserls approachto the life-world,3 and Heideggers (1927) analy-sis of the everydayness of Dasein. It also extendsto Marxist conceptions of practice, pragmatism,Moores (1969) approach, and various sociolog-ical and anthropological trends of recent times.

The problems connected with the concept ofcommon sense become particularly salient for usunder the following conditions:

1. When the scope of an exclusively cognitive ap-proach to the relationship between subject andworld is critically examined; this is when one ques-tions the human subject as merely being a subjectof cognition and, with this, questions the rift be-tween theory and praxis; this manner of question-ing leads to a concept of praxis in a wider sense,which is no longer seen as the opposite of cogni-tion but is rather included as a part of it. Praxis isnow seen as a form of coping with world and, withthis, its function of opening up and interpretingworld only properly comes to light.

2. When the relationship between mediacy and imme-diacy, as it pertains to our ability to make judg-ments, becomes questionable;

3. When our attention shifts away from major humanproblems to the basic, apparently banal assump-tions of everyday life; these are seemingly obvious,taken-for-granted assumptions, which do not loseany of their fundamental importance even as westrive to go beyond them.

4. When we raise the question about the social under-pinnings of our cognition and knowledge. Thistouches, perhaps, the most important condition. Itis the question of a relationship between cognitionand the social world.4 If we speak about commonsense, then we are speaking about a sense that iscommon to each of us. That means that either ithas its origin in this commonality or it aligns itselfto such a commonality, which then becomes bind-

ing for it.5 This problem becomes particularly crit-ical in Husserls examination of the intersubjectiveconstitution of the life-world.

In conclusion, we come across the followingthemes in our investigation of the phenomenonof common sense: (1) the relationship betweencognition and action or practice, (2) the relation-ship between mediacy and immediacy, (3) thequestionableness of the obviousness of what seemsobvious, and (4) the intersubjective constitutionof the world.

We see that the topic of common sense is alegitimate philosophical problem. For the philo-sophical sociological thinker, Natanson (1963,909), common sense is potentially the mostproductive topic for our philosophical investiga-tions. We now must ask: What can we knowabout it empirically, and what kind of empiricalstudies have been undertaken?

The concept is barely mentioned in psycho-logical handbooks. It does not seem to play muchof a role in contemporary psychology. This is notto say that it is not pertinent. It is rather toacknowledge that the appropriate methods, whichcould tackle these problems systematically, havenot yet been explored. With the current trend forpsychology to be ever more concerned with so-ciological questions, however, this lack will pre-sumably change.6

Admittedly, this concept, which has been sovariously accentuated in its history, requiressharper analysis. There is no consensus, for ex-ample, of whether common sense involves a uni-tary function. For the time being, we mustleave open the question whether, indeed, it may bethat heterogeneous factors preserve its intactness.

In a first step, we should not allow ourselvesto interpret the concepts evanescent quality andlack of contours merely negatively. We may betempted to do so for the sake of greater concep-tual clarity. While such clarity is often a desirablegoal, it will in the present case make our conceptdissolve into nothing. The very sponginess ofthe concept, rather, is connected with its richnessand vitality. We should not presume that its vague-ness signifies a lack of clarity on our part. It saysat the same time something about the peculiarityof the matter itself. It withdraws from our efforts


to conceptualize it unambiguously as an object.However, we must not simply yield to this with-drawal. In our very striving to overcome thisresistance, we should take heed of it. We shouldtake this withdrawal as an indication of the modeof Being of common sense itself.

For the empirical research of this function, itis best to start with examining when it fails. Indoing so, we enter the realm of psychopathology.Descartes had expressed the view that nothing inthe world is so well apportioned as commonsense (cf. the first sentence in his Discours de lamethod [1637] (Descartes, 1953). We cannotagree. Even among the mentally healthy, there isgreat variability. This range of fine variability forthe most part recedes from efforts to objectifyand measure it. Any quantitative variations canbe attributed to random chance or accident.

The situation changes when we come to neu-rotic and psychopathological developments. Theloss of certainty with regard to common sense inthe various disorders can no longer be over-looked. Von Gebsattel (1954) and Goeppert(1960) have demonstrated that patients with ob-sessive-compulsive disorder do not place intoquestion, doubt, enumerate, continuously moni-tor, and repeat those things that are usually takenas problematic by others. They concern themselvesrather with small, everyday things. These arethings, which are normally taken as matter of courseor understood in themselves. They are things thata healthy common sense usually considers takencare of and does not bother with.7 In 1938, Strausdescribed an insistent need to powerlessly ques-tion in such patients, which emerges in theplace of the spontaneous being able to live onesday (Straus 1960, 208). These patients requirecertainty in areas of life in which mere opinion(doxa)8 should prevail. Still, even in this exam-ple, our attempt to discover what is specific tothe function of common sense remains incom-plete. Therefore, we should turn in our analysisto even greater symptoms of loss of this function.

How does the function of common sense ap-pear in the endogenous psychoses? Notably, wedo not find a disturbance to common sense incyclothymic patients. They experience, rather, anenveloping loss of affective relationships to their

world, which is something different. On the con-trary, we could ask whether patients with majordepression are not, in their pre-morbid personal-ity structure,9 too strictly attached to their com-mon sense.10 Older psychoanalytic investigations,such as the one by Cohen, Baker, Cohen et al.(1954), support such a view. In any case, thepreserving of this ability in cyclothymic patientsis an important criterion for differential diagno-sis with schizophrenic patients. In manic patients,the common sense of their wit enables an aston-ishing accuracy in their ability to provoke, evenhurt those around them. Their manner of com-ing too near others and ability to be on targetwould not be possible without access to commonsense and differentiates them from manic-formhebephrenic patients.

We will now turn to the other group of pa-tients with endogenous psychoses: those withschizophrenia. In turning to schizophrenia, weenter the proper domain for the psychopatholo-gy of common sense.11 For example, Strindbergwrites, It is not the logic of the merely giventhat prevails here (Inferno, 423). Or in anotherplace, This is not a matter of the proper things.It is not natural, not a logic of events (Entzweit,Einsam, 85). It becomes clear that there is anabdication of common sense. (For a discussionof these matters and Strindbergs psychosis, seeBinswanger 1963, 1965; Hofer 1968a,b.)

We are able to study the loss of this ability notonly in paranoid psychoses. This loss is evenmore pronounced in the slow and insidious courseof hebephrenic schizophrenia or schizophreniasimplex. This frequently begins with a barelynoticeable decline in the ability to take things intheir right light. This subtle loss or atrophyprecedes the emergence of other symptoms. Whatbecomes striking for those around the patient isthat there is a withering away of a sense of tact, afeeling for the proper thing to do in situations, aloss of awareness of the current fashions or whatis in, and a general indifference toward whatmight be disturbing to others.

We also find a loss of tact and shame in manicpatients. This indicates, however, that when weuse the same terms, we are actually meaningquite different things.12 Manic patients and, in a


clearly different way, sociopathic as well ashealthy individuals can all be tactless and shame-less. Each of these groups may disregard thebasic considerateness that others expect fromthem. Nevertheless, they are still in possession ofwhat they disregard. This ignoring or disregard-ing is fundamentally different from the cluelessgroping of the hebephrenic patients.

It is not only the loss of the feeling for what issuitable, but also for what others may think, orwhat the situation demands. That is, there is aloss of the sense for what is nearest and what isless so.13 They lose a sense for what can beunderstood as a matter of course as determinedby the matter itself. This is all a matter ofcommon sense. What first emerges for manypatients is a being unable to play along with therules of the game of interpersonal behavior. Con-rad had described this as trema to indicate aprodromal stage of schizophrenia.14 The judgments,emotions, reactions, and actions, which therebyresult, no longer have relationship to social reality.

This process can sometimes have effects in thesphere of sensory processing. For example, ayoung craftsman reports that it (referring tohis illness) began in the following manner: Helost his sense of proportion at the same time thata nearby young girl lost her taste for a meal.Drawing upon Tellenbachs (1968) investigationsof sense-psychology, we could make reference toAristotles definition of common sense by takinginto account the ambiguity of the word taste.

As far as judgement is concerned, it is less amatter of differentiating true from false than ofdistinguishing the probable from the improba-ble. Vico had emphasized that just as science isconcerned with the truth, so common sense isconcerned with the probable (verisimile). It isprecisely those errors and derailments at the be-ginning of the hebephrenic psychoses that makeevident for us the fact that the significance of theprobable is in no way a deficient mode of cogni-tion of what is true. Rather, the probable isencompassing and provides the basis for what istrue, which is here meant in the sense of what iscorrect and demonstrable. Vico (1963, 27) de-scribed an infima vera, the scope of which isnot to be underestimated. The proper thing to do

in life is to be judged according to the weight ofthe circumstances and things at hand and thus, itbecomes a matter for common sense. This facul-ty should be developed in young people as earlyas possible so that they do not fall prey in laterlife to all kinds of deviancies and folly. Commonsense is here viewed as the ability to put things intheir proper place. Without this, all manner ofcorrectness simply hangs in the air.

This brings us to the ancient distinction be-tween logic and topos. This distinction becomesrelevant when we examine the school essays of ourhebephrenic patients before they fell ill.15 There isa frequent being off key when it comes to the topic(the topoi). This is the case although the logicremains intact, even if overemployed. In Hus-serls sense, we are able to state: The formal logic isembedded in a world-logic. The question aboutthe manner of this embedding has the greatestinterest for psychopathology. The logic that we aretalking about is a logic of the life-world, to whichcommon sense belongs.16 To put it more precisely;the life-world is to a large extent nothing otherthan the intentional correlate of common sense.

It is not uncommon for the relatives of thepatient to report that the illness began with thepatient raising questions about the most ordi-nary things. These are things, which, to thecommon sense of the healthy person, are themost obvious, naturally understood things in life.In contrast, the patients still manage to solvedifficult, intellectually more demanding taskswithout considerable effort. These are tasks, how-ever, that do not require much interpretive skills.In this early stage, some patients retreat to thestudy of mathematics or physics. They try toreplace the natural successiveness or consisten-cy of experience that rests on common sensewith what are sometimes more- and sometimesless-ingenious logical constructions.17 These ef-forts are only temporarily successful. There fol-lows a rigidity and consistency that is main-tained with painstaking efforts. Binswanger(1956) has shown that such efforts result in abecoming extravagant (Verstiegenheit) andexhibiting highly mannered eccentricities.

One might think that all this might be easilyestablished by psychological tests. But that is far


from the case. The Wechsler Intelligence Test haslittle to say about the functioning of commonsense. We have seen schizophrenic patients inour clinic who have a massive disturbance tocommon sense functioning and yet whose IQsexceed 130. The profile of subtests sometimesgives indications but not always. The Rorschachtest is more informative but still lacks specificity.Recent efforts in clinical psychology to propose ahypothesis of overinclusive thinking still havenot been particularly applicable in the practicaldomain but have considerable theoretical inter-est. (For reviews, see Payne [1966] and Fish[1966].) Overinclusion indicates a loss of con-tours in thinking, or to put it more precisely, alack of the ability to distinguish between therelevant and the irrelevant. It would seem thatthe concept of relevance is a particularly tangibleterm, and for that reason, it is rarely reflectedupon. What actually allows us to recognize some-thing as relevant or irrelevant? Whatever thismay be, it is, without question, not formal logic.It is also not some empirical criterion. On theother hand, however, it is also not somethingthat is simply irrational, or purely dictated byfeeling. We refer, rather, to what the older tradi-tion describes as the faculty of judgement,which in turn provides a basis for common sense.

So far, relatively simple methods of clinicalinvestigation have proven to be most effective ininvestigating this problem. The patient, for ex-ample, is requested to retell fables, explain prov-erbs and sayings, interpret picture stories, etc.What is being examined in such procedures? Ithink that it is basicallyalthough not exclusive-lycommon sense. These procedures are usuallyconceptualized in terms of the search for thepresence of a latent formal thought disorder.Every psychiatrist knows from experience thatthought disorder only becomes a concern withthe more severely disturbed patients. In suchcases, Beringer (1924, 1926) described an abridge-ment of the patients scope of intentional arc.By way of contrast, in a still significant analysisof the father-and-son-image test with patientswith schizophrenia, Kuhn (1943) found an im-pairment of the patients cognitive sympathy func-tion. In spite of his reference to the philosopher

Max Scheler, who is known for his phenomeno-logical studies of emotions and sympathy, how-ever, the decisive question of how sympathy couldhave a cognitive component remains unre-solved. Indeed, when dealing with a so-calleddisturbance of empathy (Einfuehlung) func-tion in the actual patient, it is often impossible todecide whether the disorder is primarily one ofthought or affect.

The very alternative of disturbance to cogni-tion or affect is itself questionable. We find our-selves rather thrown up against what turns outto be a circular structure. One is able to say thatin the ability to judge, feeling has become theorgan of cognition. But even this formulation isnot sufficient. Affectivity and the ability to judge,as we find it in common sense, refer back to anoriginal unity of thinking, feeling, and willing inhuman existence, which is primarily related toan intersubjective world (mitweltbezogen).

In view of the above difficulties to put suchstructural abnormalities into objective form, thephenomenological analysis of the introspectivedescriptions of those patients who are able togive them remains the method of choice. Patientsof the subtype, reflective schizophrenia simplex,are particularly suited to this purpose. Wyrsch(1940) was the first to describe and point out thetheoretical importance of this disorder. Clinical-ly, it is rare. From the 455 patients examined forthis disorder in our clinic, only twenty-sevenwere in a prolonged condition of pronouncedreflectiveness. Of this group, only five could beclassified as having schizophrenia simplex.

The following are extracts taken from state-ments made by a twenty-year-old female patient.Following a serious suicide attempt, she was ad-mitted to the Freiburg University Psychiatric Clinic:

What is it that I am missing? It is something so small,but strange, it is something so important. It is impos-sible to live without it. I find that I no longer havefooting in the world. I have lost a hold in regard to thesimplest, everyday things. It seems that I lack a natu-ral understanding for what is matter of course andobvious to others.

She then explains what she means:

Every person knows how to behave, to take a direc-tion, or to think something specific. The persons


taking action, humanity, ability to socializeall theseinvolve rules that the person follows. I am not able torecognize what these rules are. I am missing thebasics.It just does not work for me.Each thingbuilds on the next.I dont know what to call this.Itis not knowledge.Every child knows these things! Itis the kind of thing you just get naturally.

See, for instance, how difficult it has been for me. Iwas admitted to the clinic and everydayhow all thistook place in this spaceI tried to absorb how others,as people, behaved in front of me. I had to disappearlike a childthis just isnt normal. My soul issickwhat else could it be?

In order to take what is expressed in the pa-tients stammerings on its own terms, psychia-trists are requiredaccording to Kisker (1960,10)to become more philosophical. This doesnot mean, however, that we need to interpretthese statements metaphysically or engage inmetaphysical speculation. Statements by patientssuch as the ones made above reveal, in a kind ofimmediacy, the conditions of possibility of ourexistence that otherwise remain concealed. Thepatient states that what she lacks is somethingso smallsomething so important. It is impossi-ble to live without it. She herself considers itstrange that something so small, something sounapparent, should prove to be so importantand necessary for life. This amazementbornfrom a desperate perplexityis our starting point.We must allow ourselves to be drawn into thisamazement to fully comprehend the implicationsof such statements. The patients stammering andstruggle for words need not merely be seen as theexpression of a thought disorder. It could becaused by the incapacity of our colloquial lan-guage to provide ways of expressing what, as itwere, lies beneath such a disorder, that is, a pre-predicative, nameless understanding and com-municating. This small and important thing,which the patient thinks that she lacks, is notonly the knowledge of the naturally understoodand matter-of-course things of everyday life, it isalso the manner in which she understands thingsto be this way or that. The what and the howof this knowing are inextricably interrelated.

A twenty-four-year-old, male patient withschizophrenia clearly had something similar in mindwhen he wrote in a letter addressed to a stranger:

I do not know whether you are happy. Let us just putit this way so you will understand. Whom do youthank for this beinglet us just call itunburdened?Your childhood, your youth, your family? Perhaps.Your experience of protection and security, your be-ing unburdened or your happiness are all indebted tosomething in relation to which you are barely con-scious. It is this something which enables the beingunburdened as well as these other things. It is whatforms the first foundation.

What we find expressed more awkwardly and,therefore, seeming at first to be more genuine inthe first patient, we find in more reflective andself-conscious form in the second. In terms of thematter described, the two descriptions really in-volve the same thing. With the consciously pa-tronizing expression, well, let us just put itthis way so you will understand., the secondpatient is indicating that he has something veryspecific in mind. Indeed, he continues, Thismysterious something appears to obstinatelyoppose conscious awareness. It furnishes thegreatest resistanceand this has its reasons. Inhis reflection about what he is missing, the pa-tient is able to obtain essential (anthropological)insights into the human condition.

Our first patient spoke about something sosmall. She lives in the belief that what she ismissing is something entirely unapparent andworthy of disdain. She finds it hard to grasp thatit should have such great importance. She says,It is so small. One comes upon it, as it were, inpassing. There is really not much in it. It is justnaturally there as self-evident for everyone. Oth-er things have much more importance. Thenshe says rather derogatorily, It is just a matterof mere feeling, sensing what is appropriate. Onehas this from nature. That is, one should have itfrom nature as a tacit possession, as the neces-sary prerequisite to accomplishing ones dailytasks.

In the face of their experienced deficits, ourpatients assume a mask of seeming banality anddisdain. Behind this mask they conceal how whatis naturally obvious and self-evident for healthypersons has withdrawn from them and been de-nied them. Healthy common sense is based onthis seeming natural obviousness. Kant (1799)writes, Common human understanding, which,


as mere healthy (not yet cultivated) understand-ing, which, as the least to be expected fromanyone claiming to be human, has therefore thedoubtful honor of being given the name of com-mon sense (sensus communis); and in such away that by the name common (not merely inour language, where the word actually has adouble signification, but in many others), weunderstand vulgar, that which is everywheremet with, the possession of which indicates abso-lutely no merit or superiority. (15667). Butthis is precisely what our patients are missing.They state over and over again that they aremissing the most banal and mundane of things.18

Our female patient states, It is such a strangefeeling, when one does not even know the sim-plest of things. Indeed, these are, seen objective-ly, the simplest of things which seem to slip awayfrom her: how to behave in certain situations,how to dress, how to grapple with everydayproblems, how to speak with the people onemeets, or what one is supposed to think aboutthem, and so on. It was possible, however, todiscuss with her abstract, theoretical questionsabout her experience in an unimpeded and rath-er differentiated manner.

Let us take a concrete example. The patientasks herself which dress she should wear for aparticular occasion. This becomes a tortured ask-ing herself which material the dress should have.She tries to make clear to herself up to the small-est detail why it should be precisely this colorand this material for this occasion. It is quiteeasy to see how this becomes an endless under-taking. After all, the particular qualities that onefinds pleasing in the material of a dress are, inpart, complexly determined by processes of so-cial judgment. We should not suppose that it ispossible to completely analyzei.e., without re-mainderthese processes into their componentparts. We may attempt to enumerate them bylisting the bourgeois conventions, prevailing fash-ions, striking aesthetic qualities, possible rele-vant personal memories, ones will to have apersonal style, personal preferences, and so on.These are precisely the kind of experiences thatbecomes problematic for her. They are also thekind of experiences that resist being subsumed

under unambiguous, rational definition. Theyare based on assumptions, which are rooted inthe interpersonal, intersubjective realm. They area matter of a certain delicacy and subtlety offeeling.

In this regard, it is interesting to read in Kant(1799): Taste can be called sensus communiswith more justice than sound (healthy) under-standing canaesthetic rather than intellectualjudgment may bear this name of a sense commonto all (160). Vico, Shaftesbury, and others hadalready made suggestive statements in this direc-tion. At the beginning of the twentieth century,Simmel (1909, 26) employed the term imita-tion19 to indicate the transition from the groupinto the individuals life. He developed this con-cept especially for its application to fashion. Hewanted to grant to practical life the same kind offeelings of satisfaction that one experiences intheoretical thinking. The experience of transi-tion to individual life by means of imitation infashion might be likened to the feeling of satis-faction one experiences when subsuming the in-dividual appearance under the general concept.Our patients, however, are unable to take anysolace in such feelings of satisfaction. The abilityto dwell healthily in a habitual and customaryworld is based on the ability to be consoled inthis way (Wyrsch 1949). The healthiness of com-mon sense rests on habituality. The natural self-evidence of everyday existence draws its nourish-ment from just such a habituality.

We are now confronted in our analysis by theproblem of the relationship between the logicaland the social significance of what is universal orpresumably common to each individual. We mustask how can that which has been found to begenerally valid for those who belong to a partic-ular ethnic and cultural group be built, as itwere, into the particular persons spontaneousunderstanding of things and integrated into thepersonality? This same commonality is to befound again on the outside of the person with acertain independence as taken for granted andnaturally self-evident in the persons social envi-ronment. We may ask how the person from thisbasis in common sense (which spontaneouslyemerges as naturally self-evident within the per-


son) comes to be an individual, i.e., taking anindependent position in the world. The unitybetween common sense and being an individualis a natural developmental process in the healthyperson. For many of our patients as we haveseen, however, this whole process becomes prob-lematic. As a result, they constantly alternatebetween a stereotyped assuming of maxims tak-en from their environment and an autistic retreatinto themselves.20

It would certainly be an error to assume thatthis could be explained in these patients as amorbid relationship to self, what Conrad identi-fies as a cramp in the ability to reflect. On thecontrary, things would improve for such patientsif only they could reflect less. When this wassuggested to our female patient, she respondedvehemently:

One always measures oneself in terms of otherpeople.Everybody does that. This goes on unno-ticed in others [i.e., in healthy people]. What I amtalking about everyone does or has done at one time.It is what one calls a developed sensitivity or feelingfor situations.21 Everybody needs it.

Our patient refers to a basic need to compare.The healthy person has it as part of an availablerepertoire, what Heidegger (1927) calls an apri-ori perfect (in the Latin sense of what is alreadyaccomplished). The patient makes this very clearby constantly stating how strange it is that she ismissing this ability to compare:

This is what is so strange for me. What is missing forme is even more fundamental than what is missing forothers. Many people do not know how to dress well.Even if they know that they do not have any taste,they are not particularly bothered by it. But I ammissing something even more fundamental. These peo-ple do not even sense the necessity of common sensebecause they do not lack it. They simply have com-mon sense. Then they are able to put two and twotogether. It is no longer so critical for them. They areable to create a connection with others and enter arealm in which everything functions from itself. Then,one is able to find a way. Then, it is natural andobvious. One is unable to live without it. In despair,she continues: Without it, one cannot manage atall!

Kant (1799) writes, But under the sensuscommunis we must include the idea of a sense

common to all, i.e., of a faculty of judgmentwhich, in its reflection, takes account (a priori)of the mode of presentation of all other personsin thought, in order, as it were, to compare itsjudgment with the collective reason of humani-ty (157; translation by Bernard 1951, 136, slight-ly modified).

In contrast to this, our patient complains, Ihave no inner standard of comparison by which Icould see whether I am able to sympathize withothers. This is in marked contrast to that whichbears an a priori character in the healthy person.As an inner, or respectively, internalized stan-dard, it serves as an indispensable basis for beingable to place oneself in the other persons posi-tion. It also serves as the presupposition for judg-ments shared with others, which have a universalcharacter. For our patients, however, this is ac-complished each day anew only with the greatesteffort. This is, in fact, so difficult for our patientsthat any turning to others and bestowing atten-tion on themwhich rests on just such a basisis no longer possible.

It is understandable that the psychiatrist wouldbe disposed to pursue such an a priori in thedevelopment of the patients life-history ratherthan formally as a condition of possibility ofexperience. Seen in terms of transcendental phe-nomenology, the peculiar ability of common sensehas its basis in the intersubjective constitution ofthe life-world.

If we turn to child development, it is wellknown that Erikson (1957) describes basic trustas the foundation of the persons relationship toworld. The biologist Portmann (1951) finds thesignificance of early or premature birth in hu-mans to lie in the fact that the resulting processof maturation is codetermined by social factors.This occurs in a manner that is not available toanimals. The predisposition for common sensemay very well be present in early infancy. How-ever, the development of common sense is firstobservable in connection with the acquisition oflanguage.

The relationship between the development oflanguage and the development of common senseis important, but we will not pursue it here. Wewill focus, rather, on some hypotheses that can


be found in the work of Wynne. They help us tounderstand how the development of commonsense in the individuals life-history may becomedisturbed. He proposed an intimate relationshipbetween the prevailing forms of communicationin the family and the forms of personality orga-nization (including cognitive style) in the chil-dren growing up in the family. These connectionsare particularly conspicuous in families in whichchildren later become ill with schizophrenia.22

The communication stylei.e., what occurs ordoes not occur between the family membersbecomes internalized in the patient and playssome role in how the presuppositions for cogni-tion, judgment, and, also, the ability to encoun-ter others develop. One of the basic methods inour assessment of schizophrenia is the evaluationof its impact on the ability to encounter others(von Bayer 1955).

Even if such hypotheses are only partially ver-ified by further research, we nevertheless gain aconceptual grasp of the genesis and disturbanceof common sense in the life-history of the indi-vidual person. Borrowing from Goethes well-known formulation, one could say that commonsense is an organ, which is formed in commu-nication for the purpose of communication. It isformed in reciprocal interaction for the sake ofthis interaction. Given our current state of re-search, however, one must nevertheless leave openhow much the milieuin this case, the commu-nicative milieuin which the small child devel-ops provides the basis in which common senseevolves in the person. This, of course, is connectedto the question of how much a genetically deter-mined process of maturation or, respectively, fail-ure of maturation, plays a role in its development.

In our present investigation, we must never-theless confront the further puzzling question: Ifcommon sense is determined so early in humandevelopment, why does its lack, which we havebeen observing in our patients, usually first ap-pear after puberty? One possible answer is thatthis ability only really first becomes tested whenthe individual starts to become an adult andstand on his or her own feet (see Kuhlenkampff1964, and also Kretschmer 1959; Brutigam1965). This question, however, requires a much

more penetrating analysis of research in develop-mental psychopathology and problems of matu-ration (cf. Hfner 1963; Bayer 1968).

In conclusion, we must consider one furtherpossible objection: Is common sense really a ubiq-uitous phenomenon? It may merely be the prod-uct of social processes, or for that matter, veryspecific social structures. Are there notto saythe leastextremely diverse manifestations ofcommon sense in different socio-cultural con-texts? The prevailing common-sense judgmentsof any particular society vary considerably fromone society to the next. We can respond to theseconcerns by noting the fact that there is indeedsomething like common sense in the most diversepeoples and in the most varied socio-culturalcontexts. This fact can hardly be doubted (cf.Natanson 1963, 912ff). In saying this, however,we do not deny that there are not only differenc-es in the content of common sense between cul-tures, but also formal differences that may alsoinvolve levels of intensity. That is, the types anddegrees of relatedness to common sense can varytremendously.23 They correspond to the variousforms of intersubjective constitution of the life-world, or respectively, to various levels of beingrooted or anchored in it. Observations of cultur-al variations of the Far East seem to point in thisdirection.24

In these considerations, we find ourselves con-fronted with the question of whether commonsense possesses an essential structure. Can it atall be conceptualized in a static sense as a func-tion? This would have its basis in an inheritablepredisposition that receives further definition inearly childhood development. If it were such afunction, it would simply be present and relative-ly intact for the individual person. By means ofthis function, the healthy person would be ableto develop and ascribe truthful propositions abouthis or her world. On the other hand, we mightask whether such a view is fundamentally mis-guided. That is, is the view, which purports abasic sense common to all, outwardly cultivated,but also possibly impaired in various disorders,erroneous? After all, this would merely lead usback to a psychology and psychopathology basedon developmental stages.


Alternatively, we could propose that the de-velopment of human existence is a dialecticalprocess with its own fragility in which thereoccurs a destabilization or, perhaps, disturbanceto a hypothetical basic common-sense function.Such a fragility and destabilization could alsoprovide the impetus for developing a sharpenedself-consciousness. This process would accom-plish the encounter with others worlds and, onever-higher stages of mediation, the integrationof these worlds in one world common to all ofus. If this were the case, then could such a dialec-tical movement become exaggerated (too tenselydrawn) and thereby collapse or become annihi-lated? In other words, we raise the followingquestion: Is the brittle fragility of common sensemerely a matter of pure deficiency or does itinvolve, rather, a basic risk or vulnerability whichbelongs to the very structure of being human?The latter view corresponds to the long traditionof philosophical anthropological models, whichspans from Herder to Gehlen. Common sensewould then be given in terms of the most variouslevels of dialectical development. It would not besomething static, but, as human existence, itwould be embedded in a dialectic of becoming.Thus, the possibility we mentioned above of abecoming attached to too much common sensein the premorbid personality of depressive pa-tients can also be understood in terms of such adialectic.

After all is said, our fundamental two-partquestion remains unanswered: (1) To what ex-tent do the disturbances of common sensedescribed in this study represent a decompensa-tion in the framework of a dialectical develop-ment of the essential structure of being human?Or (2) To what extent do such disturbances reston a basic insufficiency, which itself does notenter into a dialectical process? This questioncannot be answered in terms of our present stateof knowledge but only in terms of our individualpreferences for particular world-views. Ratherthan yielding to such temptations, we shouldfocus our attention on developing a methodolo-gy that would be able to differentiate the empiri-cal scope of application of the static approach todeficits from that of the dialectical one.

Notes1. The original article in German is Ansaetze zu

einer Psychopathologie des common sense. ConfiniaPsychiatrica 12, pp. 144163. Originally appearing in1969, this essay has in part been modified by theauthor for the present translation. Presented as hisentry lecture when joining the faculty of the Universityof Heidelberg psychiatric clinic, it is dedicated to theDirector, Prof. Dr. W. von Bayer for his 65th Birthdayand thus, just before v. Bayers retirement.

2. Aristotle, De Anima III a. More precisely stated:the koih aidhsi~ as the actual perception, enables therelation of sensations to self and world.

3. In doing so, one is able take into account theentirety of Husserls late work, especially The Crisis ofthe European Sciences and Transcendental Phenome-nology. English translation by D. Carr. Evanston: North-western University Press, 1970.

4. As each of the above four points are closelyconnected with one another, 3 and 4 may be consid-ered in tandem. G. Lehman has written: The mysteryof the everydayshows itself to be ultimately a mys-tery of social reality. There is a dialectic immanent tothe concept of the everyday which expresses itself inthe fact that the everyday world reveals itself just asmuch as it conceals itself. Cf. Theunissen, 1965.

5. With regard to the problem of common sense,one may ask the following: What significance does theinterhuman or intersubjective have for the becomingmanifest of world? And conversely: What significancedoes the becoming manifest of world (and thereby ourbeing able to be in a world) have for the developmentof the interhuman realm? Putting this problem in stillother terms: How far does cognitive understandingrest on coming to terms with others and how muchdoes coming to terms with others rest on cognitiveunderstanding? Clearly, both sides interlock in a circu-lar structure, which is peculiar to their relationship.What is important is that this interconnecting does notrest on the uniqueness of the particular interpersonalrelations but rather on that which is, as it were, shedfrom these relations as a particular deposit or sedi-ment, which then acquires constitutional significance(in the sense of Husserlian phenomenology) so thatevery future relationship to self and to world is therebyco-constituted.

6. Translators note. Blankenburg wrote this in 1969.It is hard to say how much of Blankenburgs predictionhas become true. More recently, empirical investiga-tions of everyday cognition and emotions have beenthe themes of several conferences and edited collec-tions. Blankenburg himself points to how difficult it isto conceptualize and thus operationalize common sense.Nevertheless, his use of it as a basis of differential


diagnosis and understanding the subjective experienceof the patient does seem to open up the possibility of itsfurther study. However, the potential application ofphenomenology for the neuropsychological study ofschizophrenia has, in general, been regrettably neglected.

7. Translators note. Blankenburg uses the Germanexpression for common sense, gesunde Menschenver-stand, for the first time in the essay. The Germanexpression contains the word for health (gesund)and implies mental health in its ordinary usage.

8. Translators note. Straus uses the ancient Greekword, doxa, which means opinion, thus recallingPlatos opposition in the dialogue, Theatetus, betweenmere opinion and true opinion or knowledge (episteme).

9. Recently, Alfred Kraus (1969) has attempted towork out the common elements in the descriptions ofthe premorbid personality structure of depressed patientsas found in the writings of Shimoda, Tellenbach, Becker,and others. He then attempts to integrate these elementsinto a phenomenological-anthropological theory.

10. We find an entirely different kind of (relative)hypertrophy of common sense in patients with mentalretardation. The problem of how much this is a prima-ry and how a compensatory phenomenon is interestingand not well researched.

11. Kant (1800) had already seen this when hewrote, The single universal characteristic of madness(Verruecktheit) is a loss of common sense (sensus com-munis) and a logical obstinacy (sensus privatus) whichenters in its place (151). Cf. K. Kisker (1957) and W.v. Baeyer-Katte (1966).

12. The loss of tact that we experience in someorganic patients is also completely different where thereis very specific deterioration of brain processes. Al-though the resulting structure of the loss varies fromcase to case, the lapses may nevertheless be similar.

13. E. Bleuler (1911) writes, Their ideas andthoughts are presented in entirely irregular fragments.These frequently contain what is not pertinent, therebycompletely overlooking what is nearest (64).

14. Translators note. Situated in Goettingen, K.Conrad (19051961) was conversant with the Heidel-berg and Freiburg applications of phenomenologicalanthropology to psychopathology but was more influ-enced by Gestalt theory. Trema refers is the first of fivestages in the progression of schizophrenia: trema, apo-phany, anastrophe, apocalyptic, consolidation, and re-sidual or defect state. (For a description of Conradsstages, see Sass [1992]) .

15. Translators note. Following Kraeplin, Blanken-burg takes schizophrenia simplex to fall under themore general category, hebephrenia, rather than mak-ing it its own independent clinical subtype as Bleulerdid. (See commentary in this issue by Mishara.)

16. For Husserl, the life-worldis the world thatis concealed in the horizon of our shared humanityand thus serves as the continuous basis for our experi-ence of validity, an always ready source for self-evi-dent, taken for granted assumptions. (1954, 124).

17. Binswangers concept of natural consistency,which he developed in close relationship with the phe-nomenological philosopher, Szilasi, needs to be furtherdeveloped both with regard to what he means bynatural and by consistency, [i.e., the experience ofcontinuity of natural consciousness, A. M.]. What com-mon sense actually preserves is the balance of what hasbeen called by Binswanger the anthropological pro-portions. This balance is maintained by dampeningthe tendency to ascend vertically in ones perspective. Italso means not merging or melting into the horizontaldimension of existence. (We are now more readily ableto understand the ambivalence of Goethe or Hegeltowards common sense.)

Translators note: This difficult but critical footnotefor understanding Blankenburgs definition of com-mon sense requires some clarification. It may help tocite a similar passage by the same author (Blankenburg1971). In describing Descartess methodological doubtand the inherent danger of losing common sense, Blan-kenburg writes that there is a possible endangeringof what Binswanger has called the anthropologicalproportions. This is determined by the relationshipbetween height and breadth. In relation to Descartes,this means: in order to accomplish the pure cogito hemust ascend into isolating heights. This radically pre-cludes the healthy habituality of natural experience(1971, 66, my translation). For Binswangers conceptof anthropological disproportion as referring not merelyto space but also to directions of significance in theprojection of existence as a world design, see Misha-ra (1994): The images of ascending (in self-realiza-tion, along the vertical axis) and of going forth, en-countering obstacles, and being with others (along thehorizontal axis) signify basic human possibilities ofmovement. Using a term normally applied to the verti-go of mountain climbers (sich versteigen) and xtrav-agence (Verstiegentheit), Binswanger shows how therecan be an anthropological disproportion between thevertical and horizontal dimensions or directions ofsignificance in the projection of existence as a world-design (63).

18. Translators note. As Heidegger writes, we onlybecome aware of the context when the hammer fails.

19. In referring to this concept, however, it shouldbe added that it only approximates what is beingexamined here.

20. We find this alternative in even more extremeform in echolalia and echopraxia, on the one side, andnegativism or stuporous inaccessibility, on the other.


21. When the patient describes sensitive feelingor a feeling of the world, she had no idea that suchthoughts have their resonance in Pascals espirit definesse. Esprit de finesse and esprit de couer canbe seen as more differentiated modes of appearing ofcommon sense.

22. Translators note. When W. Blankenburg waswriting this article, the theories of Wynne were muchmore in vogue in explanations for schizophrenia thanthey are now. The celebrated neurodevelopmental hy-pothesis of schizophrenia prevalent in contemporary psy-chiatry to explain the delayed onset of the disorder wasnot known at the time. See Blankenburgs own specula-tions about the prevalence of adolescent onset below.

23. Common sense becomes particularly salient whenindividuation processes in a society become accelerat-ed. (Cf. Habermass concept of the structural change ofthe public realm and W. v. Baeyer-Katte [1966]). It isnot accidental that discussions concerning commonsense increased in the eighteenth century. Nevertheless,an enduring dialectical relationship of tension betweena sensus communis and a sensus privatus appears tobelong to the essential structure of being human. Aslong the person develops in a healthy manner, each ofthese poles remains related to and counterbalances theother.

24. Compare, for example, Beitraege zur vergle-ichende Psychiatrie (Contributions to ComparativePsychiatry) ed. by N. Petrilowitsch (1967), especiallyWulfs description of a certain relativity, which isspecific to the consciousness of the Vietnamese.

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blankenburg 2001 toward a psychopathology of common sense

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