Philosophical essays on Freud

Philosophical essays on Freud
Cover
Editors Richard Wollheim
James Hopkins
Cover artist Ken Farnhill
Country United States
Language English
Subject Sigmund Freud
Publisher Cambridge University Press
Publication date
 1982
Media type Print (Hardcover and Paperback)
Pages 314
ISBN 978-0521284257
LC Class 82-1123

Philosophical essays on Freud is a 1982 anthology of articles about Sigmund Freud and psychoanalysis edited by the philosophers Richard Wollheim and James Hopkins. It includes an introduction from Hopkins and an essay from Wollheim, as well as selections from philosophers such as Ludwig Wittgenstein, Clark Glymour, Adam Morton, Stuart Hampshire, Brian O'Shaughnessy, Ronald de Sousa, Patrick Suppes, Jean-Paul Sartre, Herbert Fingarette, Thomas Nagel, David Pears, and Donald Davidson. The essays deal with "philosophical issues arising from the work of Freud", including topics such as Freud's materialism, intentionality, and theories of the self's structure. They represent a range of different viewpoints, most of them from within the tradition of analytic philosophy.

Summary

Philosophical essays on Freud includes an introduction from James Hopkins and selections from philosophers such as Ludwig Wittgenstein, Clark Glymour, Adam Morton, Stuart Hampshire, Brian O'Shaughnessy, Richard Wollheim, Ronald de Sousa, Patrick Suppes, Jean-Paul Sartre, Herbert Fingarette, Thomas Nagel, David Pears, and Donald Davidson, as well as other authors. The selections concern "philosophical issues arising from the work of Freud", such as the question of how Freud's explanations relate to those in physical and experimental science. They represent a range of different viewpoints, the majority being within the tradition of analytic philosophy. Some are reprints from an earlier anthology, Freud: A Collection of Critical Essays (1974), edited by Wollheim.[1]

The selection from Wittgenstein is reprinted from Wittgenstein: Lectures and Conversations (1966), edited by Cyril Barrett. It reports on conversations between Wittgenstein and the philosopher Rush Rhees, in which Wittgenstein discussed subjects including Freud's theory of dreams, and also includes an excerpt from Wittgenstein's lectures. Glymour's essay, "Freud, Kepler, and the clinical evidence", discusses issues involved in testing psychoanalytic theory. According to Glymour, psychoanalysts have argued that the hypotheses tested by experimental psychologists are "often no more than surrogates for the genuine article, and inferences from the falsity of such ersatz hypotheses to the falsity of psychoanalysis are not legitimate." Morton's essay is "Freudian commonsense". Hampshire's essay, "Disposition and memory", was first published in The International Journal of Psychoanalysis. O'Shaughnessy's essay is "The id and the thinking process", Wollheim's is "The bodily ego", and de Sousa's is "Norms and the normal". Suppes's essay, "On the generation and classification of defence mechanisms", written with Hermine Warren, discusses defence mechanisms.[2]

The selection from Sartre, "Mauvaise foi and the unconscious", is an extract from Being and Nothingness (1943) in which Sartre criticizes Freud's theory of the unconscious. Fingarette's essay, "Self-deception and the 'splitting of the ego'", proposes a model of self-deception that does not view it as based on holding inconsistent beliefs or as primarily a matter of belief. Nagel's essay is "Freud's anthropomorphism". Irving Thalberg's essay, "Freud's anatomies of the self", discusses Freud's explanations of disturbed behavior. Pears's essay, "Motivated irrationality, Freudian theory and cognitive dissonance", discusses Freud's explanations of errors such as forgetting and misreading, and criticizes Sartre's discussion of Freud, describing his critique of Freud's theories as complex but "not very precisely formulated" and open to several different interpretations, as well as various potential objections. Davidson's essay, "Paradoxes of irrationality", based on a 1978 lecture, discusses what it means for an action, belief, intention, inference or emotion to be irrational.[3]

Publication history

Philosophical essays on Freud was published in 1982 by Cambridge University Press.[4]

Reception

Philosophical essays on Freud received a positive review from Francisca Goldsmith in Library Journal,[5] mixed reviews from Kathleen Wilkes in The Times Literary Supplement and the philosopher Frank Cioffi in the London Review of Books,[6][7] and a negative review in Psychological Medicine.[8] It was also reviewed by Eugen Baer in Semiotica.[9]

Goldsmith described Hopkins's introduction as "incisive", and the selections chosen by Wollheim and Hopkins as "uniformly well-presented discussions of such topics as Freud's materialism, intentionality, and theories of the self's structure." She wrote that the collection would be "useful to researchers at the graduate and professional levels."[5] Wilkes wrote that there was "something in this collection for everybody", but suggested that only "a few will find a great deal" because of the "slimness of the unifying thread".[6] Cioffi, quoting a remark by Wittgenstein, wrote that not all of the contributors had been willing to "hang on to their brains" while reading Freud. He wrote that while many of the papers included were distinguished, those that dealt with the crucial question of why the fundamental claims of psychoanalysis are still the subject of "radical scepticism" were flawed. He described Hopkins's introduction as a "shabby" psychoanalytic apologetic, and accused Hopkins of dismissing criticism of psychoanalysis by arguing that psychological factors such as attitudes to bodily processes make it difficult for people to assess psychoanalysis fairly, and of discussing psychoanalysis without being clear what his credentials were for doing so.[7] Cioffi's review was followed by a letter from Hopkins accusing Cioffi of misrepresenting Freud. In a subsequent book, Freud and the Question of Pseudoscience (1998), Cioffi described Wollheim and Hopkins's work as a "compilation of tributes to Freud's genius", and defended himself from Hopkins's charge that he misrepresented Freud.[10]

The reviewer for Psychological Medicine wrote that while a few contributors to the book took "an overtly critical stand", the great majority "indulge in tortuous ratiocination which does little more than transport the familiar arguments into their own conceptual spheres", concluding that in so doing they "tend to support Freud's own mistrust of philosophical inquiry."[8]

The philosopher Michael Ruse, writing in Homosexuality: A Philosophical Inquiry (1988), described Philosophical essays on Freud as "a good collection of philosophical discussions of Freud."[11] Glymour, writing in The Cambridge Companion to Freud (1991), edited by Jerome Neu, disagreed with Thalberg's interpretation of Freud's explanations of irrational behavior.[12] Wollheim commended his own work, writing that it contains excellent examples of serious methodological writing on Freud.[13] Nagel, responding to the philosopher Adolf Grünbaum in The New York Review of Books, endorsed the contributions by Davidson and Hopkins, crediting them with thoroughly developing the view that "psychoanalysis can borrow empirical evidence for its most important general foundations from the ubiquitous confirmation of the system of ordinary psychological explanation in everyday life".[14]

David Bell, writing in the British Psychoanalytic Society Book Club Leaflet, described Philosophical essays on Freud as a "seminal" work.[15]

References

Footnotes

  1. ↑ Wollheim & Hopkins 1982, pp. v–vii, 12, 92.
  2. ↑ Wollheim & Hopkins 1982, pp. 1–12, 60, 75, 124, 139, 163.
  3. ↑ Wollheim & Hopkins 1982, pp. 203–212, 228, 241, 264–276, 289.
  4. ↑ Wollheim & Hopkins 1982, p. iv.
  5. 1 2 Goldsmith 1983, p. 133.
  6. 1 2 Wilkes 1983, p. 245.
  7. 1 2 Cioffi 1983, pp. 14–16.
  8. 1 2 Psychological Medicine 1983, p. 458.
  9. ↑ Baer 1986, pp. 373–379.
  10. ↑ Cioffi 1998, p. 49.
  11. ↑ Ruse 1988, pp. 31, 291.
  12. ↑ Glymour 1991, pp. 75, 85.
  13. ↑ Wollheim 1991, p. xxv.
  14. ↑ Nagel 1994, pp. 55–56.
  15. ↑ Bell 1995.

Bibliography

Books

  • Cioffi, Frank (1998). Freud and the Question of Pseudoscience. Chicago: Open Court Publishing Company. ISBN 0-8126-9385-X.
  • Glymour, Clark; Neu, Jerome, Editor (1991). The Cambridge Companion to Freud. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. ISBN 0-521-37779-X.
  • Ruse, Michael (1988). Homosexuality: A Philosophical Inquiry. New York: Basil Blackwell. ISBN 0-631-15275-X.
  • Wollheim, Richard (1991). Freud. London: HarperCollins. ISBN 0-00-686223-3.
  • Wollheim, Richard, Editor; Hopkins, James, Editor (1982). Philosophical essays on Freud. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. ISBN 978-0521284257.
Journals

  • Baer, Eugen (1986). "Freud: A man of letters". Semiotica. 62 (3/4).  – via EBSCO's Academic Search Complete (subscription required)
  • Goldsmith, Francisca (1983). "Philosophical essays on Freud (Book Review)". Library Journal. 108 (January 15, 1983).  – via EBSCO's Academic Search Complete (subscription required)
  • Wilkes, Kathleen (1983). "Theorizing below the threshold". The Times Literary Supplement (4171).  – via EBSCO's Academic Search Complete (subscription required)
  • "Philosophical essays on Freud (Book Review)". Psychological Medicine. 13 (2). 1983.
Online articles

  • Bell, David (1995). "Richard Wollheim's 'The Mind and its depths' – Review by David Bell". British Psychoanalytic Society Book Club Leaflet. Retrieved 25 September 2017.
  • Cioffi, Frank (2 June 1983). "Psychoapologetics". London Review of Books. Retrieved 23 September 2017.
  • Nagel, Thomas; Grünbaum, Adolf (11 August 1994). "'Freud's Permanent Revolution': An Exchange". The New York Review of Books. Retrieved 23 September 2017.
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