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3 The Ego as Master in Its Own House
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40 3 The time will therefore come when the sun will shine only on free men who know no other master but their reason. —Condorcet Our best hope for the future of the intellect—the scientific spirit, reason—may in the process of time establish a dictatorship in the mental life of man. —Freud As a physician in search of a cure for neurosis, Freud took himself to be first and foremost a scientist. Freud believed and openly stated that science gave us greater access to knowledge of reality. For this reason, he ostensibly felt no need (nor even the ability) for psychoanalysis to attempt to create a worldview of its own. He wrote: “It does not need one; it is a part of science and can adhere to the scientific Weltanschauung.”1 Yet one might ask, from whence did this scientific worldview originate? Certainly Freud had some deeper knowledge of these historical sources, as indicated by his classical training and personal library. A closer look into the “scientific” influences on Freud reveals a wealth of underlying philosophical ideas which formed the ground of scientific thinking in Freud’s time. It was Enlightenment philosophy—as represented by Descartes, Bacon, Diderot, Voltaire, and Kant—that provided the philosophical infrastructure for Freud’s scientism,2 and which was later to be reinforced by Brentano’s attempt to bridge the gap between philosophy and science (see chapter 9). In this chapter, we will focus on the primary philosophical influences that underlie, and led to the generation of, Freud’s scientistic worldview. The following chapter will consider some specific Enlightenment figures, for whom Freud had the utmost respect and admiration. The Ego as Master in Its Own House: Freud and the Enlightenment Freud and Bacon It has not been generally recognized just how influential (consciously or unconsciously) Sir Francis Bacon’s philosophy was—as one of the major intellectual predecessors of the Philosophes—in Sigmund Freud’s intellectual development. Although he did not often refer to Bacon in his writings , Freud ranked him as the intellectual rival of Da Vinci and Copernicus , in terms of importance for the development of intellectual history.3 This was high praise indeed! One of Freud’s mentors, Pierre Janet, often quoted Bacon; while another, Theodor Meynert, considered himself a “Baconian.” In addition, and most significantly, there were clear reasons why Freud thought it important enough to retain Bacon’s Novum Organum in his highly selective final library in London. It is not at all surprising to find that Freud shared (and identified with) many views put forth by Bacon ; what is surprising is just how closely the content and tone of Freud’s expressions approached those of Bacon.4 The highly significant similarities5 between Bacon and Freud include that both (1) viewed the forces of nature as something to be understood and controlled, (2) viewed and articulated the nature and role of philosophy in similar (though not identical) ways, (3) sought a solid foundation for knowledge in genuine scientific philosophy, and (4) had a related notion of a hidden something to be discovered and explored. These similarities are explored below. Bacon was, of course, famous for his claim that “Knowledge is power.”6 “Human knowledge and human power come to the same thing, for where the cause is not known the effect cannot be produced. We can only command Nature by obeying her.”7 Bacon defended science, then, as the ultimate dominion of humanity over nature. Similarly, Freud’s view called for the scientific spirit to “establish a dictatorship in the mental life of man” so that humans could gain progressive control over themselves (their natural instincts) and, thereby, Nature as well.8 Freud wrote: “Human civilization rests upon two pillars, of which one is the control of natural forces, and the other the restriction of our instincts.”9 Most significantly, Freud and Bacon viewed the nature and role of philosophy in similar ways. Both distinguished between what they regarded as true and false philosophy. Though the root cause of error of false philosophy was more encompassing in Bacon than in Freud, they voiced similar objections in the same tenor: according to both, false philosophy occluded truth for much the same reasons.10 For Bacon, metaphysicians were prey to Idols of the Theater. Like Freud, Bacon was completely opposed to the systems generated by metaphysicians—those constructed by Aristotle and Scholastic philosophers such as Anselm, Aquinas, and so 41 T H E E G O A S M...