Madness as the other of reason is a broad current of thought that brings together thinkers and clinicians, academics and practitioners, professors, psychiatrists, psychoanalysts and clinical psychologists—in essence, individuals from the academic and healthcare worlds. Franco Basaglia’s thinking and work is framed within this orientation. Basaglia stood out for his passionate activism and the practicality with which he implemented his ideas, dedicating his entire life to them as a psychiatrist, asylum director and mental health manager. Considering madness as the other of reason is a general approach that unites more than it separates. It is an approach that runs through our entire history from antiquity and will remain relevant in the future. And opposing this ethical and clinical stance is the other major approach that reduces madness to one or more illnesses and turns the mad person into a sick person, a sick person whom we, the specialists, must, according to the dictates of science, guard, care for and try to cure.