Sigmund Freud

This is a rudimentary paper written to claim my connection that the American and the erstwhile Indian modes of psychoanalysis are more authentic modes vis-à-vis the French mode. Some of the claims I make in this paper have been already published in Prabuddha Bharata and some are forthcoming. For instance, I have written on Ritalin which is pertinent to this discussion yet I have avoided mentioning this since my contention regarding Ritalin is pending publication in Prabuddha Bharata. Addition : 2020, (...) my comments on the efficacy of Ritalin have been published last year in Prabuddha Bharata. (shrink)

Brief description of Freud's life and work, emphasising the role of fictive belief and experience (phantasy) in his account of mental disorder.

The chapter begins with a brief genealogy of psychoanalytic thinking in the broad area of religion. It first looks at Freud’s early modernist dismissal of religion, comparing this with Lacan’s valorisation of the ethical quests that both religion and psychoanalysis are said to share at the heart of their discourse. It then examines Lacan’s later pessimism in opposing the ‘triumph of religion’ in our times to an increasingly uncertain future for psychoanalysis. Moving from a conceptual discussion of these themes to (...) an applied analysis of contemporary challenges, the chapter highlights the contribution of psychoanalysis to an understanding of the aesthetics of violence informing the eschatology of Islamic terror within contemporary global jihadism. (shrink)

This article aims to compare notions of progress and evolution in the social theories of Freud and Spencer. It argues 1) that the two authors had similarly complex theories that contained mixed elements of positivism and teleology; 2) In its positivist elements, both authors made use of unified natural laws and, in its teleological aspect, they made use of notions of final cause in that progress and the evolution of civilization was understood as a linear path of progressive development with (...) an aim, 3) that that aim was both ethno- as well as - in Freud?s case in particular? self-centric and, finally, 4) that such understanding of natural law led to ethical commitments to the individual. (shrink)

This book offers an interdisciplinary approach to religion and psychology, including a compelling denouement that reveals new narratives about longstanding rumours in the early history of the psychoanalytic movement. This volume demonstrates that the first generation of psychoanalysts succeeded in writing themselves into the history of religious thought and sacralizing the origins of psychoanalysis.

Discussions around the meaning and validity of Freud’s notion of Todestrieb, as it was introduced in the essay from 1920 Beyond the Pleasure Principle, later...

Freud was interested in the problem of memory from the time of his very early works. The processes taking place in memory, imaging, remembering and forgetting images focused his attention and were one of the pillars of shaping his conception of the unconscious and mind as “the storehouse of total memory,” which in one of his works he compared to “the Eternal City of Rome”, which accumulate images-memories gathered throughout life. Shifts, changes, deformations, strong emotional components determine the specificity of (...) many processes of remembering and forgetting, a specific “coding” of information in the form of visual, acoustic and other images. Nowadays, there are indications of Freud’s views in various dimensions of scientific research on memory and the consciousness of the importance of these approaches in our culture and its discovery of the role of autobiographical memory. (shrink)

This essay addresses the notion of self-deception as articulated by Sigmund Freud and Jean-Paul Sartre. More specifically, it provides an analysis of Sartre’s critique of Freud’s depth-psychological account of self-deception. I critically examine his theory of bad faith as an account of self-deception. Sartre’s main objection to the depth-psychological explanation of Freud’s account of self-deception rests on his argument that for self-deception to occur there needs to be conscious awareness of the coexistence of mutually incompatible beliefs, and that Freud had (...) obscured this fact by splitting the self and with a mixture of jargon. (shrink)

Ever since the 1960s, media and communication studies have abounded in heated debates concerning the psychological and social effects of fictional media violence. Massive empirical research has first tried to tie film violence to cultivating either fear or aggressive tendencies among its viewership, while later research has focused on other media as well (television, video games). The present paper does not aim to settle the factual question of whether or not medial experiences indeed engender real emotional dispositions. Instead, it brings (...) into play the resources of genetic phenomenology in order to ask how the formation of such dispositions would be generally possible. Thus, it aims to further the discussion by overtly employing the framework of Husserl’s later genetic phenomenology to the field of emotional experience. By posing questions with regard to how fictional emotional experiences contribute to the formation of apperceptions and to the specificities of emotional sedimentation, it also points out some shortcomings in Husserl’s account by drawing from Freud’s dynamic theory of drives and emotions. (shrink)

The following article presents an analysis of the conflict that occurs between philosophy and psychoanalysis in both the works of Sigmund Freud and Jacques Lacan; This conflict is conveyed from the alienated condition of the subject that arises from the thesis of the unconscious. The subject deconstructs himself as consciousness and reveals the impossibility of him in the very act in which he presents himself through his saying. In this way, language configures the Freudo-Lacanian idea of the unconscious in the (...) form of an act of performative iteration, not so much at the level of consultation, but as the founding cogito of philosophical and scientific reflection. (shrink)

No topic has caused more discussion in recent philosophy and political theory than sovereignty. From late Foucault to Agamben, and from Guantanamo Bay to the 'war on terror,' the issue of the extent and the nature of the sovereign has given theoretical debates their currency and urgency. New thinking on sovereignty has always imagined the styles of human selfhood that each regime involves. Each denomination of sovereignty requires a specific mode of subjectivity to explain its meaning and facilitate its operation. (...) The aim of this book is to help outline Jacques Derrida's thinking on sovereignty - a theme which increasingly attracted Derrida towards the end of his career - in its relationship to subjectivity. It investigates the late work Rogues: Two Essays on Reason, as not only Derrida's fullest statement of his thinking on sovereignty, but also as the destination of his career-long interest in questions of politics and self-identity. The book argues that in Derrida's thinking of the relationship between sovereignty and subjectivity - and the related themes of unconditionality and ipseity - we can detect the outline of Bataille's adaptation of Freud. Freud completed his 'metapsychology,' by defining the 'economic' nature of subjectivity. In Bataille's hands, this economic theory became a key to the nature of inter-relationship in general, specifically the complex and shifting relationship between subjectivity and power. In playing with Bataille's legacy, Derrida connects not only with the irrepressibly outrageous thinking of philosophy's most self-consciously transgressive thinker, but with the early twentieth century scientific revolution through which 'energy' became ontology. As with so many of the forebears who influenced him, Derrida echoes and adapts Bataille's thinking while radically de-literalising it. The results are crucial for understanding Derrida's views on power, subjectivity and representation, as well as all of the other key themes in late Derrida: hospitality, justice, otherness and the gift. (shrink)

In this paper I attempt to open a new horizon in the field of civilization studies by examining the concept of painless civilization from the perspective of the philosophy of biological evolution. Since the space is limited, the priority will be given to the clarification of an overall structure. Modern civilization has created systems that seek “comfort and pleasure” and eliminate “pain and suffering” and has spread them to every corner of our society. It is progressing like a great wave (...) in many developed countries. I have called a civilization advancing in this direction a “painless civilization.” At first glance, the elimination of pain and suffering seems like a good thing. Of course, it is considered good if unbearable suffering (such as the pain of terminal cancer) that we encounter in our lives can be avoided through technology. This is not the problem. The problem is that modern civilization is moving in a direction where various forms of suffering that we might experience in the future are going to be erased from our lives, one after another, through preventive technologies (preventive elimination of pain). ... (shrink)

Freud held complex and fascinating views on the question of mental causation. In this chapter, I propose an interpretation of Freud's views on this question, bringing together ideas from psychoanalysis, philosophy of psychoanalysis, and philosophy of mind. Faced with the impasse of the problem of how the mind interacts with the body, Freud created a two-dimensional picture of mental causation, with one dimension involving mechanistic causes and the other involving intentional causes. My thesis is that Freud's best-developed picture of mental (...) causation thesis describes mental causes as intentional causes using psychological vocabulary. I analyze three moments in Freud's work with a focus on mental causation. In the first topography, Freud uses a hybrid vocabulary, describing the mind in terms of both mechanistic causes and intentional causes. In his second topography, the mind increasingly assumes an intentional description. The third moment is Freud’s theory of anxiety, in which the arational cause of the unconscious drives, initially presented as a motor of the mind, gives rise to anxiety as an affective state that forces the self to find a solution for its mental conflicts. In the last part, I argue that Freud’s theory gradually moves from a reductionist approach to the mind-body problem on which mental causation is understood in terms of physical mechanisms, to a non-reductionist view where the mental becomes causally efficacious in its own right. (shrink)

Review Symposium on John Forrester and Laura Cameron’s Freud In Cambridge.

What is the relationship between a philosophical or theoretical conception of mind, and the mind’s conception of itself? Should the latter constrain the former? And how does the mind itself understand a theory of mind, that is, a theory of itself? I raise these questions by means of Freud. Freud suggested that the mind cannot merely theoretically comprehend psychoanalytic concepts but must be able to “recognize” and “sympathize” with them. I call this the recognition requirement. This idea clarifies the rationale (...) behind Freud’s last metapsychology of Id, Ego, and Super-ego. I close by asking: when should a theory of mind try to meet the recognition requirement? I propose that a theory of mind should be structured according to the recognition requirement when that theory is connected with practical aims, specifically, when the theory is concerned with the life of the mind and with facilitating the mind’s own self-understanding. (shrink)

Freud and Conan Doyle. Parallel lives The investigative methods of Freudian psychoanalysis have long been debated, compared with the investigative methods of Sherlock Holmes. Although Freud was an avid reader of Conan Doyle's works, no one has never considered the existential and methodological concordances between the two authors. Both had medical degrees, were steeped in Darwinian science; moreover, they were the favored sons of brilliant mothers who nurtured their creative tendencies, and they had had as teachers clinicians who had become (...) role models (Charcot and Bell). In the early days of the profession the empty days without patients had prompted each of them to imagine new conceptions; furthermore, certain dangerous friendships, accompanied by daring experiments on alkaloids, had been stimuli for knowledge of the human nature and limits. Freud and Doyle touched on each other on two occasions. Between the two, who was a writer masquerading as a doctor and vice versa? (shrink)

_Abstract_: In this article, I propose an original re-interpretation of the encounter between deconstruction and psychoanalysis as it is described by Jacques Derrida in his early essay “_Freud and the scene of writing_” (1966). My working hypothesis is that Derrida first reads psychoanalysis as a _partially_ _deconstructive_ human science. To test this hypothesis, I begin by demonstrating that Derrida’s reading draws on the description of deconstructive sciences offered since his early version of_ Grammatology _(1965-66). Second, I explain that it traces (...) across Freud’s work the increasing adequation of the psychoanalytic account of psychism to the model of a somehow spontaneous archiving machine. Finally, I show that, for Derrida, as a consequence of this adequation, psychism – understood as the origin of life, temporalization and the relation to the other – also marks the beginning of the history of technics. As my analyses develop, it should become increasingly evident that any critical assessments of Derrida’s encounter with psychoanalysis must reckon with the overall project of deconstruction in which this encounter is inscribed. _Keywords_: Deconstruction; Life; Psychoanalysis; Technics; World _L’essere-nel-mondo della psiche: le prime interpretazioni freudiane di Derrida_ _Riassunto_: In questo lavoro intendo proporre una re-interpretazione originale dell’incontro tra decostruzione e psicoanalisi come lo descrive Jacques Derrida nel suo saggio “_Freud e la scena della scrittura_” (1966). La mia ipotesi di lavoro è che Derrida abbia letto in prima istanza la psicoanalisi come una scienza umana _in parte_ _decostruttiva_. Per verificare questa ipotesi inizierò mostrando che la lettura di Derrida attinge alla descrizione delle scienze decostruttive offerta sin dalle prime versioni di _Della grammatologia _(1965-66). In secondo luogo proverò a illustrare come si ritrovi nell’opera di Freud un progressivo allinearsi della descrizione psicoanalitica dello psichismo al modello di un apparato di archiviazione più o meno spontaneo. Mostrerò infine che, per Derrida, come conseguenza di questo allineamento, lo psichismo – inteso come origine della vita, temporalizzazione e relazione all’altro – segna anche l’inizio della storia della tecnica. Con lo sviluppo delle mie analisi diverrà sempre più chiaro che una valutazione critica dell’incontro di Derrida con la psicoanalisi debba fare i conti con il progetto complessivo della decostruzione in cui questo stesso incontro si iscrive. _Parole chiave_: Decostruzione; Vita; Psicoanalisi; Tecnica; Mondo. (shrink)

The aim of this paper is to retrace the evolution of the super-ego, in psychoanalysis and phenomenology, describing its effects on education, starting with the formation of individual morality. In the broadest sense, the reflection concerns not only the role that the family can play in this direction, but above all the contribution that schools can make to the formation of individual morality. The structuring of the super-ego is thus built up in the family system by being influenced by the (...) socio-educational environment. The importance of a healthy structuring of the super-ego emerges in the increased risk of alteration of the intersubjective sphere, in cases of dysregulation of the super-ego, a process that is fundamental to psychotic disorder. (shrink)

Contemporary continental thought is marked by a move away from the “linguistic turn” in twentieth-century European philosophy, as new materialisms and ontologies seek to leave behind the thinking of language central to poststructuralism as it has been traditionally understood. At the same time, biopolitical philosophy has brought critical attention to the question of life, examining new formations of life and death. Within this broader turn, Derridean deconstruction, with its apparent focus on language, writing, and textuality, is generally set aside. This (...) book, by contrast, shows the continued relevance of deconstruction for contemporary thought’s engagement with resolutely material issues and with matters of life and the living. Trumbull elaborates Derrida’s thinking of life across his work, specifically his recasting of life as “life death,” and in turn, survival or living on. Derrida’s activation of Freud, Trumbull shows, is central to this problematic and its consequences, especially deconstruction’s ethical and political possibilities. The book traces how Derrida’s early treatment of Freud and his mobilization of Freud’s death drive allow us to grasp the deconstructive thought of life as constitutively exposed to death, the logic subsequently rearticulated in the notion of survival. Derrida’s recasting of life as survival, Trumbull demonstrates, allows deconstruction to destabilize inherited understandings of life, death, and the political, including the dominant configurations of sovereignty and the death penalty. (shrink)

The article examines the unconscious uncontrolled side of the human psyche, analyzes approaches to determining the structure of the unconscious, its constituent elements and their relationships from the point of view of the concepts of prominent psychoanalysts Z. Freud, C. Jung and J. Lacan. The significance of the "mirror stage" described by Lacan is revealed. in the understanding of human self-consciousness. Particular attention is paid to Lacan's thesis that the unconscious is, first of all, language; and it is he who (...) acts as a manifestation of a structure that has clear patterns. It is through language that we can approach understanding of the connection of the unconscious with the conscious world in the context of Lacan's definition of the triad of "real", "imaginary" and "symbolic". The purpose of the study is to show the relationship between the concepts of the structure of the unconscious and the fusion of psychoanalysis with philosophical and linguistic structuralism, which gives rise to a variety of approaches and interdisciplinary research in understanding the essence of the unconscious and interpreting social phenomena through the linguistic structures of myth. (shrink)

Partindo de O Mal-Estar na Civilização (1930), advogaremos que, se não há nada na cultura que não garanta nossa ruina, nosso destino reside num indefinível e persistente mal-estar. Problematizando incógnitas como a felicidade, a inibição pulsional, a destrutividade como variante da pulsão de morte, o sentimento de culpa, a hegemonia do Super-Eu e o triunfo de Thanatos, veremos que Freud não vislumbra possibilidades de anular a situação de desamparo em que nos encontramos. Sendo a agressividade uma de nossas fontes propulsoras, (...) acentuaremos não só o desejo de extermínio de tudo e todos, mas o quanto a cultura leva-nos a renunciar da satisfação ao propor uma seguridade que jamais garantirá. Da falta de comunhão entre indivíduo e sociedade, a ação de Thanatos revela que a civilização está minada por dentro. Portanto, veremos que o mal-estar é um fator inerente à civilização, sendo ilustrativo do atual destino da subjetividade. (shrink)

RESUMEN En el presente trabajo se buscará dar cuenta diagramáticamente del alcance y extensión del concepto de vida en Freud y Nietzsche, al pensar sus límites en términos de polos -instancias no alcanzables vitalmente, que marcan la frontera a partir de la cual se extiende el ‘más allá’ de la vida. Dicho de otro modo: haciendo uso de un diagrama, se buscará dar cuenta del carácter de lo vital para Nietzsche - al pensar a la vida como Wille zur Macht (...) - y Freud - desde su último modelo pulsional - no solo en cuanto a su particularidad, sino en función de lo que resulta en cada caso el límite mismo de la vida - es decir, aquello que marca el pasaje a otra cosa que la vida. ABSTRACT In the present work, we will seek to give a diagrammatic account of the scope and extension of the concept of life in Freud and Nietzsche, by thinking about its limits in terms of poles - vitally unreachable instances, which mark the border from which the ‘beyond ‘of life extends itself. In other words: making use of a diagram, we will seek to account for the character of what is vital for Nietzsche - thinking of life as Wille zur Macht - and Freud - from their latest drive model - not only in terms of their particularity, but rather as a function of what the very limit of life results in each case - it means, that which marks the passage to something other than life. (shrink)

Freud‘s Id, Ego and Superego - Irfan Ajvazi.

Freud’s Interpretations of Dreams - Irfan Ajvazi.