Degenerate and simulators: a foucauldian reading of “The Simulation of Madness” by José Ingenieros

• Main Author: Sandra Caponi
• Format: Article
• Language: Portuguese
• Published: Universidade Federal de Santa Catarina 2017-06-01
• Series: Política & Sociedade
• Subjects: ingenieros; simulación; psiquiatría; degeneración; derecho; josé ingenieros y degeneración en locura simulada
• Online Access: https://periodicos.ufsc.br/index.php/politica/article/view/50853

This article discusses the problem which is the axis of the study that José Ingenieros dedicated to the simulation of madness: the simulating criminals. These are individuals who have committed a crime and that, in order to break free from prison, pretend to have acted without awareness of their actions. By mediating the simulators figure, Ingenieros shows the precise moment that begins, in Argentina psychiatry, the building of that psychiatric-criminological continuum that allows address the most varied legal issues from a medical point of view. From that moment, it will be possible, through the mediation of the theory of degeneration, that an undefined set of behaviors enter in the field of psychiatric observation. For Ingenieros, Criminal Law only could resolve the problem of simulation by integrating that new psychiatric perspective.