Psychoanalysis and/As Philosophy? The Anthropological Significance of Pathology in Freud's Three Essays On the Theory of Sexuality and in the Psychoanalytic Tradition
Philosophy Today › Nbr. 50, January 2006
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Summary
What is the challenge which psychoanalysis poses to philosophy? Traditionally the assumption is made that psychoanalysis needs philosophy to provide its foundation. MerleauPonty, for example, was of the opinion that psychoanalysis contains an implicit philosophy that, hidden from view by the scientistic presuppositions of its founder, can only be formulated adequately by phenomenology. The insights of psychoanalysis must be translated into the language of phenomenology. Only then can they reveal their truth.1
In so doing, do we not run the risk of reducing psychoanalysis all too easily to well known philosophical topics, and thereby run the risk of avoiding a genuine confrontation and debate? Regardless of the extent to which psychoanalysis may need philosophy, must we not first ask what in psychoanalysis resists philosophy? Must we not first ask which psychoanalytic insights offer resistance to what the philosophical tradition offers to thought? This is the only way in which to do justice to the originality of the psychoanalytic problematic while uncovering its proper philosophical radicality.See the full content of this document
Extract
Psychoanalysis and/As Philosophy? The Anthropological Significance of Pathology in Freud's Three Essays On the Theory of Sexuality and in the Psychoanalytic Tradition
What is the challenge which psychoanalysis poses to philosophy? Traditionally the assumption is made that psychoanalysis needs philosophy to provide its foundation. MerleauPonty, for example, was of the opinion that psychoanalysis contains an implicit philosophy that, hidden from view by the scientistic presuppositions of its founder, can only be formulated adequately by phenomenology. The insights of psychoanalysis must be translated into the language of phenomenology. Only then can they reveal their truth.1
In so doing, do we not run the risk of reducing psychoanalysis all too easily to well known philosophical topics, and thereby run the risk of avoiding a genuine confrontation and debate? Regardless of the extent to which psychoanalysis may need philosophy, must we not first ask what in psychoanalysis resists philosophy? Must we not first ask which psychoanalytic insights offer resistance to what the philosophical tradition offers to thought? This is the only way in which to do justice to the originality of the psychoanalytic problematic while uncovering its proper philosophical radicality.The radicality of the psychoanalytic project allo...See the full content of this document
