The Dao of Madness: Mental Illness and Self-Cultivation in Early Chinese Philosophy and Medicine [Hardcover]

InThe Dao of Madness, Alexus McLeod discuss three different accounts of the concept of madness (kuang) in early Chinese thought, and the origins of the conception of mental illness in early China. Madness is discussed in early Chinese texts in connection with personhood, self-cultivation, and agency. The book explores the role of madness in Confucian texts, which take madness as the result of flawed character, and in theZhuangziand related texts, which celebrate madness as an alternative and unbounded view of the world. The attempt to solve some of the problems inherent in these earlier views of madness leads to the medicalization of madness and mental illness more generally in Han Dynasty texts, and the origin of the Chinese medical tradition. Understanding these crucial links between the medical tradition and the philosophical tradition in early China clarifies early views of personhood, agency, and self-cultivation.Mental illness complicates views of agency and moral responsibility in ethics. Particularly for traditions and theories focused on self-cultivation, such as Aristotelian virtue ethics and many systems of ethics in early Chinese philosophy, mental illness offers powerful challenges. Can the mentally ill person cultivate herself and achieve a level of virtue, character, or thriving similar to the mentally healthy? Does mental illnessresultfrom failures in self-cultivation, failure in social institutions or rulership, or other features of human activity? Can a life complicated by struggles with mental illness be a good one?The Dao of Madnessinvestigates the role of mental illness, specifically madness (kuang), in discussions of self-cultivation and ideal personhood in early Chinese philosophical and medical thought, and the ways in which early Chinese thinkers probed difficult questions surrounding mental health. Alexus McLeod explores three central accounts: the early traditional views of thosls‘