Freud as Philosopher

The image of Freud as a pure 19th century scientist— never quite fitting for a psychologist who focused his theory on the unconscious—has undergone considerable alterations in recent years. David Bakan1 discovered the significance of Jewish mysticism as a background of psychoanalyisis; others, such as Herbert Marcuse,2 Josef Meinertz,3 Paul Ricoeur4 and Philip Rieff,5 but especially the Austrian Catholic philosopher Augustinus Wucherer-Huldenfeld15 came to the conclusion that Freud devised a specific philosophy. The father of psychoanalysis, in his mature years, somewhat obscured the issue while, at the beginning and at the end of his career, he showed more candor about it. In his Autobiography, first published in 1925, he claims to have “carefully avoided any contact with philosophy proper,” adding in a jocular vein that this avoidance has been “facilitated by constitutional incapacity”9 (St. Ed., XX, p. 59).

But his own testimony, both in private correspondence and writings, points to the contrary. On January 1, 1896, he wrote to Wilhelm Fliess: “I see that you are using the circuitous route of medicine to attain your first ideal, the physiological understanding of man, while I secretly nurse the hope of arriving by the same route at my own original objective, philosophy. For that was my original ambition before I knew what I was intended to do in the world.”10 (Italics mine) Three months later, on April 2, 1896, Freud confesses in a letter to Fliess: “As a young man, my only longing was for philosophical knowledge, and now that I am changing over from medicine to psychology, I am in the process of fulfilling this wish. I became a therapist against my will. “11 (My italics)

By psychology, Freud understands “metapsychology,” a field very much conducive to philosophical analysis. He states in a letter of February 13, 1896 to Fliess: “I am continually occupied with psychology—it is really metapsychology.”10