Philosophical Principles in Freudian Psychoanalytic Theory: Ontology and the Quest for Matrem*

“When I was young, the only thing I longed for was for philosophical knowledge … I have become a therapist against my will.” (To Fliess).1

“I not only have no talent for it (metaphysics) but no respect for it either. In secret—one cannot say such things aloud (my emphases)—I believe that one day metaphysics will be condemned as a nuisance, as an abuse of thinking, as a survival from the period of die religious Weltanschauung.” (To Werner Achelis).2

“…it is impossible to pursue an idea of this kind (Thanatos), except by repeatedly combining factual material with what is purely speculative and thus diverting widely from empirical observation… (including) the hint given us by the poet-philosopher (Plato) in the Symposium.”3

“In summary, psychoanalytical theory has asserted the all-inclusive applicability to the study of man.”4

The problem of philosophical principles in the Freudian system is examined here in the light of Freudian dialectical thinking: Freud's over-all argument that psychoanalysis was a science and therefore had no Weltanschauung was objectively motivated by the need to defend it against the charges in his