You do not currently have permission to view the full text for this document. Please sign in to an account with an active subscription or contact support.
K. R. Eissler has recently observed: “A psychological explication of Freud's genius will, I think, have to center in his language. His power to observe, to judge, to draw inferences—indispensable as these were to the greatness of his work—nevertheless, in my opinion, have to take a secondary place to the genius in his language.”1
Now if, as he continues, Freud's discoveries emerged in the course of a continuing clarification of what had been “linguistically preformed earlier,” then we may consider it not at all unlikely that translation from the original German texts will be liable to some losses and/or distortions of meaning.
An instance of such significant loss of meaning occurs in the English translation of Freud's letter to Fliess of 14.11.97. In this letter Freud announces a solution to the problem of “repression” and outlines what was later to be called the “libido theory.” He concludes the letter with these words:
“My self-analysis is still interrupted. I have now seen why. I can only analyze myself with objectively acquired knowledge (as if I were a stranger); self-analysis is really impossible, otherwise there would be no illness. As I have come across some puzzles in my own case, it is bound to hold up the self-analysis.”2
The interpretation of this passage depends on the sense in which its reference to “knowledge” is to be understood. If we take “objectively acquired knowledge” in its ordinary everyday sense, it is difficult to see how this could be of self-analytic consequence. However, it is said that such knowledge is acquired “as if I were a stranger,” that is, as someone