Mind and Body in Freud

There is a growing consensus amongst philosophers of mind and cognitive scientists that any psychology which can lay claim to being comprehensive must encompass mental processes themselves, the psychophysiological processes through which they are realised, and the relationship between mental processes and the external world as well as the relations between these three levels (Dennett 1978, 1987a, 1987b, Marr 1982, Newell 1980, 1982, Peacocke 1986, Pylyshyn 1984, Stabler 1983, Sterelny 1990). Any psychology which aspires to such comprehensiveness must face up to some profoundly philosophical questions.

The development of psychoanalysis is a good case in point. Sigmund Freud's neuroscientific education and his extensive clinical experience with hysteria made him particularly sensitive to the philosophical question of the relationship between mind and body. His eventual creation of psychoanalysis owes as much to Freud's philosophical preoccupations as it does to his experiences as a clinician.

It is widely believed that Freud began his scientific career as a hard-nosed materialist, and that his movement away from a materialistic stance coincided with his invention of psychoanalysis. According to this story Freud's early materialism was due to the baleful influence of his teachers (particularly Ernst Brücke), and his move away from this position was facilitated by his growing intellectual independence and striking clinical experiences which forced him to acknowledge the reciprocal relationship between body and mind.

There is a sense in which this story is true. Freud did grant increased scope to the mental. However, this story is more misleading than informative. Freud's intellectual and clinical struggles in the early 1890s led him to far-reaching reconsideration of his own philosophical position with respect to the mind-body problem. The consolidation of his views in 1895 coincided with the birth of psychoanalysis and to the abandonment of the concept of the mind which u