Chapter 15 Philosophical References

This addendum is an attempt to circumscribe the cultural environment of psychoanalysis. It shows the relations of proximity, often more unfriendly than friendly, which the related disciplines maintain with psychoanalytic thought. In my opinion, they show how, contrary to what is claimed, psychoanalysis, more than a hundred years after, has lost nothing of its subversive power.

Is it really necessary to include a chapter of philosophy in a psychoanalytic work? Between those who think that philosophy alone can really throw light on what psychoanalysis advances and those who do not hide their mistrust of any dialogue with it, I will adopt a nuanced position.

It is not unusual to identify certain philosophical references which may have played a part in Freud’s judgement, beyond the immediate influences of his time. His correspondence during his youth with Silberstein1 relates how he met Brentano, how the latter tried in vain to turn him away from medicine by inviting him to embrace a philosophical career. Anzieu has drawn up a balance sheet of what Freud owed him.2 But, quite independently of that, one is struck by certain convergences with authors of the past in whom one finds the germ, as it were, of Freudian concepts. More recently, one is also surprised by the evolution of some of his ideas and the use to which they have been put in contexts far removed from psychoanalysis. Nor can one help thinking that Freud provided many philosophers with grist for their mill.

I am concerned here, then, with incidents which are only of a certain interest because, as a rule, they are passed over in silence. Thus, there is frequently a tendency to see Plato as one of the sources of Freudian inspiration, whereas Aristotle, it seems to me, is more influential; and Spinoza, often cited, tends to overshadow Kant. Hegel, whom Freud found obscure, played a role in Lacan’s development thanks to Kojève. Nietzsche posed Freud with a difficult problem to resolve, and the latter admitted that he