British Journal for the History of Philosophy. 2026This paper reconsiders Hegel’s account of madness in the Encyclopaedia of the Philosophical Sciences and the Lectures on the Philosophy of Subjective Spirit. Hegel characterizes mental disorder as a disruption rooted in the natural determinacy of the mind, while simultaneously insisting on its necessary relation to rationality and maintaining their conceptual separation. Against this background, his emphasis on humane treatment, grounded in th