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My interest in this paper is to show that currently one of the most disputed aspects of psychoanalytic theory - metapsychology - is influenced by positivistic thought, and yet the importance of relationships and of affects, central axes of present-day psychoanalysis, is reminiscent of the seeds contributed by Brentano.
In historical research, the recovery and publication of new primary sources permit a re-elaboration, change, or confirmation of previously conceived hypotheses, or the construction of new ones. This is, precisely, one of the beauties of the historian's work: the impossibility of proclaiming dogmas, due to the permanent contact with the limits of the fields of study.
In this aspect, the historical investigation of Freud's work is indeed a goldmine, as his enormous and surprising correspondence is constantly being published. Recently the letters to his friend Silberstein (Freud, Youthful Letters (1992), written over a decade from 1871 to 1881) have been published, that is, during the period of young Freud's university studies.
Any psychologist knows the extreme importance of this formative period on a person's life. During this time vital steps are fulfilled which determine existence, when certain identifications - professional, aesthetic, affective, intellectual, etc. - become crystallized and which leave profound marks on a subject's thinking. Moreover, in my opinion, when that person happens to be one of the greatest and most creative geniuses in the history of psychology, the interest generated by reading these private youthful letters increases.
Through reading them one thing becomes very clear: the enormous interest kindled in the young and atheist in his relationship with the thought of the Catholic philosopher . Undoubtedly, the professor to whom Freud devotes more space in these letters is not any of his scientific teachers, but the philosopher Brentano. Freud not only sends Silberstein a summary of Brentano's critique of academic philosophy, but