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Preface
- Northwestern University Press
- Chapter
- Additional Information
This book explores several major ways of approaching the theme of apprehending the inaccessible—the hidden dimensions of human experience —within the Western tradition. While doing this, we will take as our focal point the historical and philosophical engagement of Freudian psychoanalysis with Husserlian phenomenology and the various primary forms of existential phenomenology.1 We have selected Freudian metapsychological theory and therapeutic practice as our primary catalyst for exploring this theme for several reasons. First, it is a remarkable fact that no one has clearly, carefully, systematically , and succinctly delineated the most fundamental philosophical presuppositions underlying the philosophical-historical influences on Freudian psychoanalysis. Uncovering Freud’s philosophical presuppositions and influences allows us to understand Freud more clearly, and assess critiques of his psychoanalysis.2 Second, it is important to note that although society (even today) ostensibly acknowledges Freud’s great contributions toward understanding human nature, few are aware of the extent to which Freudian psychoanalysis was an accumulation, cultivation, and synthesis of many great ideas throughout history.3 Even those scholars who have studied Freud’s work have, for the most part, confined their research into the historical influences on psychoanalysis within the scientific sphere.4 These have most often included Ernest Brücke’s hard laboratory science, Josef Breuer’s preference for physiological theory, the physicalistic principles of the Helmholtz school, Darwinian evolutionary theory, and so on (to which Freud himself often referred). Yet it is also the case that Freud had clearly been affected (consciously and unconsciously) by the philosophical worldviews/traditions which underlie and are transcendentally prior to the various scientific positions.5 As his major translator , James Strachey once observed, on a conscious level Freud was a striking example of a man equally at home in both of what have been called the “two cultures.” He was not only an expert neuroanatomist and physiologist; he was also widely read in the Greek and Preface xi Latin classics as well as in the literatures of his own language and in those of England, France, Italy, and Spain.6 This is corroborated by the fact that the books surviving from Freud’s libraries are equally divided between the humanities and the sciences.7 To extend Strachey’s point, it is important to note that there are a good number of philosophical works in his highly selective library (books to which Freud had obviously become very attached). They include, among others, works by Plato, Montaigne, Bacon, Locke, Hume, Kant, Goethe, Feuerbach , Schopenhauer, Nietzsche, and Theodor Lipps. It surely is no coincidence that of those relatively select few whom Freud took to be the exemplars of genuine greatness were Plato, Bacon, Goethe, Kant, Voltaire, Darwin, Schopenhauer, and Nietzsche.8 Third, it is undeniable that Freud made powerful contributions toward our understanding of some of the hidden dimensions of human experience which arguably have still not been sufficiently understood or appreciated within the philosophical community or by popular culture. For example, as the influential philosopher, Richard Rorty, recently declared : “I think we have not even begun to assimilate Freud. Freud has been dead for fifty years but we intellectuals are barely beginning to come to terms with Freud.”9 Similarly, the intellectual historian Peter Gay remarked : “Yet while modern culture has largely absorbed Freud’s ideas, and given them enormous influence, they are, strangely enough, really not very well known or fully appreciated.”10 It must also be said that although some of Freud’s discoveries and ideas have been assimilated into our culture at large, much has been forgotten or—even worse—distorted. The Freud who has entered public consciousness has become such a caricature that the actual Freud has virtually disappeared. What are arguably some of Freud’s most important contributions—the unconscious, the Oedipus complex, sexual symbolism , the notion of a phylogenetic history, and so on—are no longer taken seriously by most. Having been reduced to punch lines in an array of bad jokes, these ideas are no longer taken as possible modes of apprehending the inaccessible. This is due, in part, to the uproar his theories and discoveries incited during his own lifetime. Many of the important scholars and thinkers of his time simply joined the crowd of outraged bystanders in dismissing his ideas as ludicrous. Yet one must ponder (as did Freud himself) how ideas so “obviously false” could incite such opposition . Why not simply and silently shake one’s head and move on? According to Freud’s own theory, such hostile reactions are strong...