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.
This is a very provocative little book! A most cogent examination and extension of the development of Freud's thought, with particular emphasis on the concept of love is presented. Lear asserts, “It is in the nature of things that one cannot both give birth to a revolution and then be there at the end of that process to appreciate its consequences” (p. 3), and “For his [Freud's] revolution contained three related elements whose significance we have only begun to understand: a science of subjectivity; the discovery of an archaic form of mental functioning; the positing of Love as a basic force in nature” (p. 3).
The author, Jonathan Lear, is professor of philosophy at Yale University and has written two previous books dealing with Aristotle's philosophy concerning the desire to understand and logical theory. Such prior work fits him for a similar effort concerning Freud's work.
In a 28-page introduction, Lear gives an overview of what he plans to do in this book; that is, “An attempt to bring together and unify disparate elements in Freudian thought and to find a unity in