The philosophical concept
Categorical Analysis
The question of the meaning of life is the most urgent of all questions. It is the philosophical question that concerns everyone. The answer we give to it springs from the conviction we acquire and need as an inner compass. (Max Lüscher)
Max Lusher developed a strong interest in psychodiagnostics as a 16-year-old student. Due to his studies in physiognomy, he received special permission to attend lectures at the University of Basel. His academic path led him via Ludwig Klages's Expression Science to the anthropology of Paul Häberlin, whose lectures fascinated him as a student of philosophy and psychology. He also studied applied psychology and clinical psychiatry under John E. Staehelin, which was also possible for a non-physician at the time. In addition to Paul Häberlin, the philosophers Hermann Schmalenbach, Max Scheler, and Hans Kunz significantly influenced his academic development. Through them, he became acquainted withphenomenology.
Max Lusher studied Häberlin's philosophy in depth, seeing his functional ontology as the foundation of a functional psychology.According to Häberlin, philosophical anthropology can only answer the question of the essence of humanity if it is grounded ontologically and not empirically. In this respect, he takes a contrary position to his lifelong friend and psychiatrist Ludwig Binswanger, the founder of Daseinsanalyse. Häberlin criticizes Binswanger's concept of a phenomenological anthropology for mixing "being" and "self-image". Binswanger thus took the step towards a purely empirical psychology, which is limited to the "interpretation of phenomenal content". According to Häberlin, this is based on the assumption: "A person is as he appears to himself" (self-image).
Instead of investigating what everyone feels, anthropology should first try to understand the being for whom such sensations are possible. Only in this way can an anthropomorphic infection of phenomenology be avoided. Max Lusher addresses this enormous problem. He did not claim to develop a completely new philosophical-psychological theorem, but saw himself as a systematist.
Categorical Psycho-Logic
Starting from Häberlin, he developed a phenomenological anthropology whose fundamental categories are derived from the basic logical function of the subject-object relation. In this way, he fulfills his teacher's demand that anthropological psychology should not be empirically founded. Lusher goes one step further by also deriving the phenomenal contents (Categorial Psycho-Logic). The Lusher cube, the model of psychological functions, represents the unity of functions in their interdependence. The relationality of all functions also makes it possible to represent the self-regulation of the psyche. In relation to the functional model, the Lusher cube, this means: All modes of experience and behavior can be categorically developed with the help of the Lusher cube.
Literature:
- Max Lüscher (1949), Die Farbe als psychologisches Untersuchungsmittel. Dissertation. Universität Basel;
- ders.: 1955, Psychologie und Psychotherapie als Kultur. Auszug aus der Habilitationsschrift, In: Willy Canziani (Hg.): Psychologia-Jahrbuch 1955. Zürich: Rascher-Verlag, S. 172-214.
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