German philosophy, Freud, and the riddle of the woman

After Kant's critique of empiricism, subjectivist epistemologies cropped up in 19th-century German philosophy. Schopenhauer argued that the true essence of every object was an irrational and sexual will. This underlying will distorted a subject's knowledge of the world. Schopenhauer's notion of this true essence was analogous to his portrayal of women; they too were natural, irrational, and instinctual. Nietzsche postulated a will-to-power that structured and hence distorted a chaotic world. That structureless "real" world Nietzsche symbolized as the essential "truth of a woman," a truth which for Nietzsche was unknowable to the desirous male philosopher. Freud, while maintaining belief in empirical truth, developed a psychology of mis-knowledge which had much in common with Schopenhauer's epistemology. His theory of transference grew from a need to explain how female patients libidinally distorted the reality of their male analysts. Conversely, Freud's later writings on women are hampered by the author's realization of his own precarious and subjective position as man trying to know woman. These counter-transferential concerns ultimately made the woman's psychological essence an unknowable riddle for Freud.     

Psychoanalysis,religion, philosophy and the possibility for dialogue: Freud,Binswanger and Pfister

Abstract

This article considers the longstanding disciplinary tensions between psychoanalysis, religion, and philosophy. It argues for a cross-disciplinary understanding of human experience by examining the relationship of Sigmund Freud to his two Swiss colleagues, Ludwig Binswanger and Oskar Pfister. In contrast to Freud's avowed atheism and pronounced ambivalence on philosophy, Binswanger and Pfister both professed a strong religious sensibility and philosophical outlook. The article juxtaposes their theoretical divergences on religion and philosophy with personal interactions and correspondence. The relationship of Freud to Binswanger and Pfister is instructive for understanding the historical and contemporary interaction of psychoanalytic theory and practice with other disciplines and diverse viewpoints. The dialogical spirit that connects the three protagonists constitutes a critical engagement with learning and is essential to psychoanalysis today.     

Freud and the figure of Moses: the Moses of Freud.

Moses was a lifelong preoccupation of Freud, representing a double and idealized self and object. Freud identified with different aspects of Moses during different periods of development, from concrete hero to abstract ideal. He turned to Moses in the concluding phase of his relationship with Fliess and his self-analysis, and then at other times of crisis. The Moses recreated by Freud is important to the evolution of the concepts of the superego, and his Moses studies simultaneously illuminate the developmental significance of internalization, identification, and abstract symbolic thought. Latently autobiographical, the Moses motif is related to the analysis of unconscious conflict and trauma and to issues of Jewish identity and analytic ideals.     

Unconscious forces: a survey of some concepts in Indian philosophy

In this article, I examine some traditional Indian conceptions of unconscious mental activity. There are concepts in the Indian philosophical tradition, notably saskāras and vāsanās, which can be taken to refer to unconscious mental states and dispositions. My discussion, which is essentially philosophical by nature, is loosely based on the English philosopher C.D. Broad's distinctions concerning the unconscious. Saskāras, which are interpreted realistically in Indian tradition, may manifest themselves as what I (and Broad) call relatively unconscious states. Evidence for this interpretation can be found in discussions concerning the nature of dream state and the supernatural powers of yogis in Indian tradition. It is interesting to try to view the retributive system of karma as an absolutely unconscious system, but this is not a plausible interpretation of the Indian view of karma.     

The Perennial Freud: Method versus Myth and the Mischief of Freud Bashers

Nowadays Freud bashing is not only à la mode, in certain circles it has become de rigueur. Once a name of respect, Freud has become a name of ridicule. But like any scientific method, body of knowledge, and therapeutic procedure, psychoanalysis should be subjected to critical scrutiny. The recent crop of hostile Freud critics may have filled a vacuum left for decades by a psychoanalytic establishment which, like the Church of yesteryear, shunned all forms of criticism intramural and extramural. A central guiding idea of this essay is the distinction between the psychoanalytic method and psychoanalytic doctrines, hypotheses, and theories. This distinction has been invariably confused by both Freud's adherents and Freud's attackers. Moreover, arguments ad rem have been conflated with arguments ad hominem. A socially responsible criticism must seek to be constructive and not merely destructive. It is the latter course that was taken by the various hostile critics that came to be labeled as Freud bashers. The time has come to take a stand against the more egregious attacks on Freud and the psychoanalytic method.     

Freud with Charcot: Freud's discovery and the question of diagnosis

Although Charcot's seminal role in influencing Freud is widely stated, although Freud's trip to Paris to study with Charcot is well recognized as pivotal in his shift from neurological to psychopathological work, a key fact of the Freudian heuristic remains largely underestimated: namely, that Freud's psychopathological breakthrough, which gave birth to psychoanalysis, cannot be separated from his ‘diagnostic preoccupation’, which is a crucial and at times the first organizing principle of his earliest writings. The purpose of this article is therefore to reopen the question of diagnosis by following its development along the path leading from Charcot to Freud. The authors demonstrate that Freud's careful attention to diagnostic distinctions follows strictly in the direction of Charcot's ‘nosological method’. More importantly, the article intends to identify the precise way in which his ideas operate in Freud's own work, in order to understand how Freud reinvests them to forge his own nosological system. If the authors trace the destiny of Charcot's lessons as they reach Freud's hands, it is the importance granted to mixed neuroses in Freud's psychopathology that allows them to pinpoint the role played by the diagnostic process in the rationality of psychoanalysis.