Psychopathy between explanation and understanding: toward an ontology of the self-interpreting person “Die natur Erklären Wir, das Seelenleben Verstehen Wir (we explain nature; we understand psychic life)” (Wilhelm Dilthey)

This article reconsiders the relationship between explanation (Erklären) and understanding (Verstehen) in the philosophy of psychological science, using psychopathy as a case study. It argues that contemporary neuroscientific research explains psychopathy causally by identifying neurobiological, cognitive, and affective mechanisms, but philosophical questions about personhood, moral agency, and self-understanding remain underexplored. Drawing on the hermeneutic tradition from Vico, Dilthey, Jaspers, Heidegger, Gadamer, Ricoeur, and Taylor, the article contends that explanation and understanding are complementary modes of ontological disclosure, not competing methodologies.

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Abstract

This article reconsiders the relationship between explanation (Erklären) and understanding (Verstehen) in the philosophy of psychological science through the case of psychopathy. While contemporary psychological and neuroscientific research has significantly advanced the causal explanation of psychopathy by identifying its neurobiological, cognitive, and affective mechanisms, philosophical questions concerning the nature of personhood, moral agency, and self-understanding remain comparatively underexplored. Drawing upon the hermeneutic tradition from Giambattista Vico and Wilhelm Dilthey to Karl Jaspers, Martin Heidegger, Hans-Georg Gadamer, Paul Ricoeur, and Charles Taylor, the article argues that explanation and understanding should not be conceived as competing methodologies but as complementary modes of ontological disclosure. Each epistemological framework renders intelligible a distinct dimension of psychopathy: naturalistic psychology discloses it as a neurocognitive and behavioural syndrome, whereas hermeneutic philosophy discloses it as a transformation in the interpretive structures through which persons participate in shared worlds of meaning, recognition, and moral agency. Building upon Taylor's conception of human beings as self-interpreting agents and engaging contemporary debates in the philosophy of psychiatry and psychological science, the article develops the concept of ontological disclosure to clarify the relationship between explanatory pluralism and philosophical anthropology. It concludes that psychopathy should be understood not merely as an object of empirical investigation but as a privileged philosophical case through which the ontological foundations of psychological science itself may be reconsidered. By reframing the classical distinction between explanation and understanding in terms of complementary disclosures of personhood, the article contributes to ongoing discussions concerning the conceptual foundations of psychology, psychiatry, and the human sciences.