In this highly acclaimed book, one of the most prominent theologians in the world offers a theological and psychoanalytic assessment of Freud's atheism and of its implications for current psychoanalytic practice.

In spite of claims made by Freud himself and others in his behalf that psychoanalysis rests on clinical investigations alone, free of historical influence, there is good reason to believe that Freud's work belongs to the mainstream of Western intellectual history. His theories on the psychology of artistic creation, for instance, indicate that he was deeply influenced by Nietzsche but was moved to quarrel with him in behalf of even older contentions which date back to Plato. The very structure of (...) Freud's theory of the mind can, indeed, be seen as the result of adjustments made in Nietzsche's psychology - adjustments which, in effect, amount to restatements of Platonic esthetic, political and social doctrine. (shrink)

This paper has three aims: first, to redeem some of Freud's most fundamental insights, so courageous and revolutionary that they were not even entirely appealing and intelligible to Freud himself; not understanding their teacher, Freud's disciples systematically distorted or suppressed his boldest speculations. By concentrating on an early Buddhist text of great profundity it is hoped to push our understanding of Freud beyond Freud himself. The exotic nature of this text makes it an especially powerful instrument for cutting through the (...) conservatism and resistance of venerable Freudian doctrine; secondly, to make more accessible a text which will encourage Western thinkers to do some serious thinking in the Buddhist way; and thirdly to examine the relationship between id and ego; it is shown why and how the egological construction (ego/superego) blocks the spontaneity of libidinal fulfillment. The role of representation in time-consciousness is also explored. (shrink)

In the second half of the 19 th century an “anthropologico-psychiatrical “ doctrine proposed a conception of mental illness which remained prevalent in Europe for a long time: the doctrine of degeneracy. Modern psychiatrical texts and works devoted to the history of ideas usually dismiss it with the slightly annoyed contempt of those who have long since given up such obsolete notions. The doctrine is most often referred back to a purely “hereditary” concept of alienation which psychoanalysis (...) long ago proved of no use. Now the most casual reading of the literature (whether medical or anthropological) shows that this interpretation is not only superficial but radically in error. The doctrine of degeneracy is not limited to this “hereditary” concept inasmuch as it assigns utmost importance to environmental factors such as social, educational and moral. Furthermore, the idea of heredity with which it is concerned has little to do with what genetical science today is studying under this term. Dissimilar heredity, during the second half of the 19th century, was the motivating force which was used to account for a factor that, paradoxically, transmits not likeness but unlikeness. Thus, a pathology o f heredity, or pathological heredity (in the sense that it is heredity itself which is “ill”), rather than hereditary pathology. (shrink)

The present piece, first presented on 19 November 2016 at the Centre Léon Robin (CNRS-Univ. Paris-Sorbonne-ENS Ulm) as part of the“Présocratiques” Seminar, is an investigation of the relationship between Empedocles and Freud. The analysis is divided into three parts: the first section examines the nature of Freud’s engagement with Empedocles; next, consideration is given to the similarities between their doctrines, based on the extant fragments of the Empedoclean corpus; finally, I offer a series of observations about Empedocles’ poetic style, which (...) shares strong affinities with the spoken word in a manner typical of the oral tradition and is freighted with corporeal and emotional significance. It is here that we see the emergence of one of the key concepts of psychoanalysis: the relationship between logos and alogon, between that which can be rationally analysed and that which can be intuited but which eludes the domain of logos. (shrink)

Dans son article de 1913, «L’intérêt de la psychanalyse», Freud déclarait que la philosophie pouvait profiter des lumières de la psychanalyse parce que celle-ci peut dévoiler la motivation subjective et individuelle de doctrines philosophiques prétendument issues d’un travail logique et impartial, et ainsi désigner à la critique les points faibles du système d’un philosophe. Mon texte présente quelques exemples de l’utilisation de la psychanalyse pour identifier l’impact de l’inconscient sur la pensée de certains philosophes tels que Parménide, Berkeley, Kant, Sartre. (...) À la lumière de ces exemples, j’examine brièvement quelques questions à propos du conseil de Freud : Est-il praticable ? Quand peut-on l’appliquer ? Comment en rendre l’application moralement acceptable ? Selon quels critères juger de la valeur de vérité d’interprétations psychanalytiques de ce genre ? Quels sont les bénéfices, et en valent-ils la peine ?In his article of 1913, " The Claims of Psycho-Analysis to Scientific Interest", Freud stated that philosophy could profit from psychoanalysis because it can indicate the subjective and individual motives of philosophical theories which are ostensibly based on impartial logical work, and in this way it can draw critical attention to the weak spots in a philosopher’s system. This paper presents a few examples of the use of psychoanalysis to identify the impact of the unconscious on the theories of certain philosophers, e.g., Parmenides, Berkeley, Kant, Sartre. In the light of these examples, I examine briefly a number of questions concerning Freud’s recommendation : Can it be put into practice ? In what circumstances ? How can it be applied in a way that is morally defensible ? By what criteria can one evaluate the truth value of such psychoanalytic interpretations ? What are the advantages, and are they worth the effort required ? (shrink)

The aim of this paper is to show that Freud’s Conception of aphasia is the first step towards the framing of a doctrine of representation whose main features remain unchanged throughout the further developments of his work. The right comprehension of such a doctrine is a fundamental requirement in the study of Freud’s metapsychology conceived as a naturalistic science of the mind.

ABSTRACT This article attempts to define karma as both action and the effects of action. In terms of the effects or fruits of action, the effect of action upon the mind is the focus; thus, the idea of “effect” is primarily defined as psychic residue and is compared to Freud's notion of memory traces. In addition, action that produces karma is said to be accompanied by the “pulling” feeling of volition (cetanā). Some comparisons are then made between cetanā and the (...) theories of Karen Horney in Western psychology vis à vis her view of the neurotic's compulsive, driven feelings. The article also has a more ethically oriented side. Often, the karma doctrine is believed to be the only causal factor responsible for one's present condition, and thus, a person's unfortunate circumstances: sometimes this notion leads to blaming a person for his or her misfortune. This article seeks to discover whether or not this idea truly has scriptural backing. Lastly, the article explores the issue of whether or not one must always live out the entirety of the effects of one's actions or if it is possible to purify or eliminate actions' effects before they come to fruition. For this question in particular, the article examines both Theravāda and Mahāyāna thinking. (shrink)

L’inceste, comme transgression en acte, et l’incestuel, comme séduction narcissique et aliénante, constituent des figures d’une causalité que Spinoza et Freud, dans des perspectives différentes, ont explorée. Appuyée sur les grands principes qui fondent leurs démarches respectives, la confrontation de leurs analyses du procès d’individuation, de la filiation et de la transgression conduit à un éclairage réciproque des deux doctrines : apparaissent alors nettement certains de leurs points de convergence théorique comme leurs dissemblances. Elle permet aussi la reconstitution théorique de (...) la genèse et de la nature de l’inceste dans ses trois principales formes, en tant qu’objet d’interdit social, inceste psychique et inceste en acte. Loin d’être l’effet de désirs sexuels conduisant à la transgression de la loi, l’inceste résulte de son absence, et de la persistance de liens fusionnels qui manifestent à la fois les difficultés et l’immaturité des individus qu’ils unissent. (shrink)

L’inceste, comme transgression en acte, et l’incestuel, comme séduction narcissique et aliénante, constituent des figures d’une causalité que Spinoza et Freud, dans des perspectives différentes, ont explorée. Appuyée sur les grands principes qui fondent leurs démarches respectives, la confrontation de leurs analyses du procès d’individuation, de la filiation et de la transgression conduit à un éclairage réciproque des deux doctrines : apparaissent alors nettement certains de leurs points de convergence théorique comme leurs dissemblances. Elle permet aussi la reconstitution théorique de (...) la genèse et de la nature de l’inceste dans ses trois principales formes, en tant qu’objet d’interdit social, inceste psychique et inceste en acte. Loin d’être l’effet de désirs sexuels conduisant à la transgression de la loi, l’inceste résulte de son absence, et de la persistance de liens fusionnels qui manifestent à la fois les difficultés et l’immaturité des individus qu’ils unissent. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:The Birth of the Psychoanalytic Hero:Freud's Platonic LeonardoJohn FarrellThough the intellectual force of Freudian psychoanalysis grows weaker and weaker with time, its importance for the understanding of twentieth-century intellectual culture only increases. Freud made psychology a key ingredient in the century's conception of its own uniqueness and modernity. He claimed to initiate a decisive break with the past, but he also claimed to recover the past, indeed all of (...) human behavior, on new, scientific grounds. What Freud proposed was not just a new way of thinking about psychology but a new psychology, one that would permit unprecedentedly intrepid investigation of the past and the unconscious sources of its ways of thinking. But whereas Freud hoped to give us a new psychology of knowledge, what he did was to reintroduce one of the oldest psychologies of knowledge in a moderately disguised form. I will attempt to show this and assess the implications through a close examination of Freud's treatment of Leonardo da Vinci, a man he considered one of the great forerunners of the modern intellect.Psychoanalysis is both a theory of the psyche and a scientific movement. Its dual nature makes it almost a unique element in the culture of modern science. Freud and his followers repudiated the separation between institutional affiliation and intellectual commitment that had been carried down from seventeenth-century England. The original form of the psychoanalytic movement was a throwback to that of the ancient philosophical academies.1 Almost from the beginning of psychoanalysis its founders had recourse to a canon of dogma with the primacy of the libido at its center. Adherence to this canon, and the rituals of initiation and training surrounding it, became the basis for [End Page 233] an exclusive intellectual and professional commitment that separated initiates from the professional community at large.It is well known that the founders of psychoanalysis made use of psychoanalytic theory to explain the movement's adversarial relationship with the outside world. The doctrine of resistance to the libido allowed Freudians to interpret the hidden motives of anyone who might disagree with them. The ire of critics could be cited as proof of the intensity of unconscious repression applied to sexuality, the incredulity of unbelievers as evidence of an unwillingness to endure the wounds to human narcissism exacted by the Freudian system, and even slips of the tongue could be turned against unwitting opponents. The fact that psychoanalysis was greeted with hostility in some quarters was taken to prove that the universal tendency of humankind was to resist its teachings, and the lapsing away of prominent disciples illustrated the difficulty of living with these hard truths. Heretics were pitied as weaklings unable to face up to the power of the unconscious, unable to keep themselves from disguising it with it some pale reflection of the ego. And so the embattled history of psychoanalysis became part of the empirical evidence of its validity in a way that could never have occurred with a theory generated in the normal research environment. The doctrine of resistance seemed to have been designed as much for polemical as for analytic purposes. Like the monster in Forbidden Planet, the fifties Freudian fairy tale, the more psychoanalysis was resisted, the more it grew. The self-confirming value that could be derived from the history of the movement as a cultural scandal even led Freud to exaggerate the hostility of his early reception and the intensity of his early isolation. With the doctrine of resistance, Freud had imported into science the style of the avant-garde, which feeds upon rejection, outrage, and the breach of bourgeois manners. The concept of "resistance to psychoanalysis" is still in use among psychoanalysts today.The argument from resistance, however useful it may have been as a defense mechanism of psychoanalytic rhetoric, leads to a troubling theoretical question: If the truths of psychoanalysis are naturally repugnant to humankind, so much so that we have a powerful constitutional tendency to hide them from ourselves, what could have liberated Freud and his followers to unearth these unwelcome secrets from the depths of their own psyches? If we take the "resistance to psychoanalysis" as a... (shrink)

Beyond the Pleasure Principle is Freud's most philosophical and speculative work, exploring profound questions of life and death, pleasure and pain. In it Freud introduces the fundamental concepts of the "repetition compulsion" and the "death drive," according to which a perverse, repetitive, self-destructive impulse opposes and even trumps the creative drive, or Eros. The work is one of Freud's most intensely debated, and raises important questions that have been discussed by philosophers and psychoanalysts since its first publication in 1920. The (...) text is presented here in a contemporary new translation by Gregory C. Richter. Appendices trace the work's antecedents and the many responses to it, including texts by Plato, Friedrich Nietzsche, Melanie Klein, Herbert Marcuse, Jacques Derrida, and Judith Butler, among many others. (shrink)

Sigmund Freud, the founder of psychoanalysis, declared that religion is a universal obsessional neurosis in his famous work of 1927, The Future of an Illusion. This work provoked immediate controversy and has continued to be an important reference for anyone interested in the intersection of philosophy, psychology, religion, and culture. Included in this volume is Oskar Pfister's critical engagement with Freud's views on religion. Pfister, a Swiss pastor and lay analyst, defends mature religion from Freud's "scientism." Freud's and Pfister's texts (...) have been updated in Gregory C. Richter's translations from the original German. (shrink)

One of 15 volumes in this series, this title is part of a plan to generate non-specialist Freud titles for a wide readership - beyond the institutional/clinical ...

The book stands somewhat apart from the rest of Freud's writings as a study of normal, rather than pathological psychology, and, although it contains the most closely reasoned accounts of complicated psychological processes that Freud ever gave, it remains one of his most readable works. It includes a rich collection of jokes, particularly those of Jewish folk tradition, in which Freud clearly revelled.

Vorlesungen zur Einführung in die Psychoanalyse mit drei Teilen: Fehlleistung - Traum - Allgemeine Neurosenlehre, Nachdruck des Originals von 1920.

Presents Freud's classic study of the Moses legend and its role in the growth of Judaism and Christianity.

VSEBINA Uredniška opomba I II III IV V VI VII VIII IX X XI Dodatki A Modifikacije prejšnjih stališč a) Odpor in nasprotna investicija b) Tesnoba iz preoblikovanja libida c) Potlačitev in obramba B Dopolnilo k tesnobi C Tesnoba, bolečina in žalovanje.

Ludwig Binswanger (1881-1966) came from a distinguished Swiss psychiatrist dynasty which had run the internationally-renowned sanatorium Bellevue in Kreuz-lingen for generations. In 1907 he spent a year at the Zurich Burgh lzli under Bleuler and Jung, and indeed it was Jung who took Binswanger with him to Vienna that year for his first visit to Freud.

This chapter contains section titled: “The Ego and the Id”.

First Published in 1999. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.

First Published in 1999. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.

A reconstruction of Leonardo's emotional life from his earliest years, it represents Freud's first sustained venture into biography from a psychoanalytic perspective, and also his effort to trace one route that homosexual development can take.

Sigmund Freud was already internationally acclaimed as the principal founder of psychoanalysis when he turned his attention to the life of Leonardo da Vinci. It remained Freud’s favourite composition. Compressing many of his insights into a few pages, the result is a fascinating picture of some of Freud’s fundamental ideas, including human sexuality, dreams, and repression. It is an equally compelling – and controversial – portrait of Leonardo and the creative forces that according to Freud lie behind some of his (...) great works, including the Mona Lisa. With a new foreword by Maria Walsh.  . (shrink)