Life circle, time and the self in Antoni Kępiński’s conception of information metabolism
Life circle, time and the self in Antoni Kępiński’s conception of information metabolism

Summary/Abstract: The term ‘information metabolism’ is one of the key concepts put forward by the great Polish psychiatrist Antoni Kępiński. In this biological-philosophical approach, the fundamental feature of life is the exchange of energy and information with the environment. The exchange of information, or information metabolism, is exceptionally well developed in a human being. Thanks to it, man is able to maintain contact, in the broad sense, with the external environment, and to experience the sense of the self. This concept of metabolism basically allows Kępiński to account for many psychopathological disorders like schizophrenia and depression. Some problems with schizophrenic and manic-depressive subject’s experience pertaining to temporal experiences are presented. Kępiński’s concept of “the rhythm of life” is explained in the context of contemporary philosophy of mind and the phenomenological tradition of psychopathology.

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