Viljan att lyssna och förstå : Potters närmande till självskada i möte med Foucault, Derrida och Gadamer

Sammanfattning: This study is an attempt to develop the discussion about self-injury with the aid of philosophical discussions about understanding. I will present a reading of the discussion between Michel Foucault and Jacques Derrida about reason and madness, and also an interpretation of the Derrida and Hans-Georg Gadamer encounter. These readings focus on the concept of understanding, on the possibility to understand the other and on the possibility to reach out from reason toward the irrational. The project to formulate an ethical approach to self-injury by Nancy Nyquist Potter is then used to bring the question about understanding to life. I conclude that the project of Potter, formulated as “uptake”, is weakened by the fact that she fails to recognize the underlying philosophical problems in stating the possibility to understand the meaning of something that until today has been considered meaningless.