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Freud's debt to philosophy and philosophers is probably the most disputed, controversial, and ultimately confusing area of the sources he is said to have drawn from in the development of his thought. Conventional wisdom suggests that Freud had little use for philosophy and even despised the few philosophers whom he bothered to read. Freud's dismissive remarks in his 1933 paper “The Question of a Weltumchauung” concerning philosophy-that it “has no direct influence on the great mass of mankind” and that “it is of interest to only a small number even of the top layer of intellectuals” (p. 161)-has contributed to the impression that Freud's mind was ill suited for philosophical inquiry and that he was wedded to the physicalist bias of the natural sciences. But does this characterization of Freud actually hold up under scrutiny?
In fact, Freud was an avid and informed reader of a wide range of subjects, including philosophy. His insatiable appetite for knowledge encompassed the Greek Classics, literature, mythology, anthropology, and virtually every religious system known to man-including the mystics-in addition to the “harder” sciences that his medical training entailed. Freud's grasp of and appreciation for Greek philosophy probably exceeded that of many contemporary philosophers; his imaginative incorporation of ideas from Socrates, Plato, Aristotle, and Empedocles into his clinical theories and technique demonstrates a gift for practical application that would rival the most gifted artist. Indeed, it is generally acknowledged that Freud was profoundly influenced by any number of philosophers, including some who lived closer to his own era, such as Brentano, Feuerbach, and Schopenhauer.
It is therefore ironic that the one philosopher who, it is generally assumed, made an indelible impact on Freud's thinking is the one he most stubbornly resisted: Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche. Anyone who is acquainted with both Freud and Nietzsche-not a large group, to be