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Authors rarely have the opportunity to directly engage their critics, so I am pleased to offer a response to Johan Eriksson's “Freud and philosophy” in this issue, in which he discusses my Freud, the reluctant philosopher (Tauber, 2010). Although we fundamentally agree that psychoanalysis has deep moral commitments, what that means and how we derive our respective positions significantly differ. While some of Eriksson's criticisms stem from genuine disagreement with my positions, some arise from a misunderstanding of what I claim in my book. I hope to clarify these misunderstandings and, in so doing, suggest where productive debate might still emerge.
Different orientations give rise to different judgments. Eriksson seems intent on preserving for psychoanalysis the validity conferred by scientific discourse. And, as a psychoanalyst, he is of course committed to the therapeutic efficacy of his craft and to the truth claims upon which that therapy is based. I, as a philosopher, am not constrained by these considerations, and thus I look at psychoanalysis without seeing it as a version of science and without adjudicating its therapeutic efforts. Instead, I am content to define Freud's philosophical commitments and inquire why psychoanalysis defines personal identity with such force. I am especially interested in how Freud placed free will in his theory and the ethics of that construction. In short, my philosophical study overlaps, but subordinates certain themes held dear by Eriksson.
Freud, the reluctant philosopher assumes a narrative conceit whereby I imagine Freud engrossed in philosophical debate with various philosophers, most of his own era, and others - Kant, Hegel, and Schopenhauer - who provide crucial philosophical background for his enterprise. The first group (Neo-Kantians, positivists, historicists, Nietzsche and Wittgenstein) serves to elucidate Freud's own epistemology and metaphysics. In this hypothetical discussion, these thinkers frame the debate on th