Freud and Philosophy: An Essay on Interpretation

Description

This book originates in the Terry Lectures given at Yale University in the autumn of 1961. According to the author, this book deals with Freud and not with psychoanalysis. Secondly, this book is one not of psychology but of philosophy. The problem concerns here is the texture or structure of Freudian discourse. First, it is an epistemological problem: What is interpretation in psychoanalysis, and how is the interpretation of the signs of man interrelated with the economic explanation that claims to get at the root of desire? Second, it is a problem of reflective philosophy: What new self-understanding comes out of this interpretation of culture excludes all others? If not, what is the rule of thought by which it can be coordinated with other interpretations without falling into eclecticism?

Book II, the “Reading of Freud,” conducted as rigorously as possible, has been kept separate from Book III, the “Philosophical Interpretation”. Thus the reader may treat the “Analytic” of Book II as a separate and self-sufficient work.