The history of the ‘philosophies of psychiatry' can be defined as the contextualized study of past theoretical views on the nature, understanding and management of madness and related notions. The application of an hermeneutic apparatus to past psychiatric narratives gives rise to the history of psychiatry; its application to current narrative gives origin to the philosophy of psychiatry. If the latter employs off-the-shelf, ready-made, external philosophies, it follows a centripetal approach; if it starts from the inside of psychiatry and generates its own tools and meta-language, it follows a centrifugal approach.