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Knapp described the book as "thoughtful, searching, and comprehensive". He credited Ricœur with broad knowledge of both philosophy and psychoanalysis, carefully distinguishing between different aspects of Freud's work, convincingly criticizing Freud's hypotheses about language and views about religion, and revealing Freud's "lack of a broad view of symbolic functioning", exposing confusions in Freud's thought, such as that between "force" as a metaphorical term and "force" as a reference to observable phenomena, and with showing that psychoanalysis resembles historical science and phenomenology rather than science as understood by positivism. He also praised his discussions of Toulmin, Flew, and French psychoanalysts. However, he suggested that integrating Freud's views about meaning with Freud's ideas about "drive energy" would "require a more comprehensive psychosomatic theory of emotion" than that provided by Ricœur, and that ''Freud and Philosophy'' was sometimes confused and presented debatable conclusions. He compared the book to Brown's ''Life Against Death''.{{sfn|Knapp|1971|pages=978–979}} Gargiulo described the book as "a provocative philosophical enterprise and a masterful reading of Freud" and "a text of extraordinary complexity and sensitivity". He compared Ricœur's work to that of Rieff, and credited him with showing that "desire has a semantics" and that psychoanalysis "cannot be verified as in physical and experimental sciences". He praised his discussions of sublimation and symbols. However, he criticized Ricœur's discussion of the reality principle.{{sfn|Gargiulo|1971|pages=295–301}}
Knapp described the book as "thoughtful, searching, and comprehensive". He credited Ricœur with broad knowledge of both philosophy and psychoanalysis, carefully distinguishing between different aspects of Freud's work, convincingly criticizing Freud's hypotheses about language and views about religion, and revealing Freud's "lack of a broad view of symbolic functioning", exposing confusions in Freud's thought, such as that between "force" as a metaphorical term and "force" as a reference to observable phenomena, and with showing that psychoanalysis resembles historical science and phenomenology rather than science as understood by positivism. He also praised his discussions of Toulmin, Flew, and French psychoanalysts. However, he suggested that integrating Freud's views about meaning with Freud's ideas about "drive energy" would "require a more comprehensive psychosomatic theory of emotion" than that provided by Ricœur, and that ''Freud and Philosophy'' was sometimes confused and presented debatable conclusions. He compared the book to Brown's ''Life Against Death''.{{sfn|Knapp|1971|pages=978–979}} Gargiulo described the book as "a provocative philosophical enterprise and a masterful reading of Freud" and "a text of extraordinary complexity and sensitivity". He compared Ricœur's work to that of Rieff, and credited him with showing that "desire has a semantics" and that psychoanalysis "cannot be verified as in physical and experimental sciences". He praised his discussions of sublimation and symbols. However, he criticized Ricœur's discussion of the reality principle.{{sfn|Gargiulo|1971|pages=295–301}}


Reider described the work as "one of the most important books on the theory of psychoanalysis in the last two decades." He praised Ricœur's discussion of Freud, crediting him with noting respects in which Freud's views were illogical, inconsistent, or incomplete, especially where religion was concerned. He considered Ricœur's critique of Freud superior to anything written by psychoanalysts. He also praised Ricœur's discussion of "symbols and symbolization" and credited him with convincingly criticizing Nagel. However, he wrote that Ricœur's "preoccupation with religion, with the sacred, and his conclusion that psychoanalyis is teleological contain weighty evidence of his acceptance of idealism."{{sfn|Reider|1972|pages=142–144}}
Grolnick considered the book important. He credited Ricœur with placing psychoanalysis in a larger historical and intellectual context.{{sfn|Grolnick|1972|pages=436–443}} Reider described the work as "one of the most important books on the theory of psychoanalysis in the last two decades." He praised Ricœur's discussion of Freud, crediting him with noting respects in which Freud's views were illogical, inconsistent, or incomplete, especially where religion was concerned. He considered Ricœur's critique of Freud superior to anything written by psychoanalysts. He also praised Ricœur's discussion of "symbols and symbolization" and credited him with convincingly criticizing Nagel. However, he wrote that Ricœur's "preoccupation with religion, with the sacred, and his conclusion that psychoanalyis is teleological contain weighty evidence of his acceptance of idealism."{{sfn|Reider|1972|pages=142–144}}


Ihde maintained that the book was primarily "an inquiry into the foundations of language and hermeneutics" and that Ricœur's discussion of Freud was often "tedious". He credited Ricœur with using the Freudian "hermeneutics of suspicion" to both correct phenomenology and provide an intellectual counter-weight to it. He noted that the book was "Ricœur's most controversial work", and that it was attacked by both the followers of Lacan, who claimed that Ricœur's ideas derived from Lacan's work, and adherents of phenomenology, who argued that Ricœur ignored the contributions of "phenomenological-existentialist psychologists". He rejected the views of both groups. He argued that despite the charge that Ricœur had borrowed ideas from Lacan, ''Freud and Philosophy'' reflected themes, such as the importance of symbols, that he had explored in earlier works such as ''The Symbolism of Evil''.{{sfn|Ihde|1972|pages=138–139}}
Ihde maintained that the book was primarily "an inquiry into the foundations of language and hermeneutics" and that Ricœur's discussion of Freud was often "tedious". He credited Ricœur with using the Freudian "hermeneutics of suspicion" to both correct phenomenology and provide an intellectual counter-weight to it. He noted that the book was "Ricœur's most controversial work", and that it was attacked by both the followers of Lacan, who claimed that Ricœur's ideas derived from Lacan's work, and adherents of phenomenology, who argued that Ricœur ignored the contributions of "phenomenological-existentialist psychologists". He rejected the views of both groups. He argued that despite the charge that Ricœur had borrowed ideas from Lacan, ''Freud and Philosophy'' reflected themes, such as the importance of symbols, that he had explored in earlier works such as ''The Symbolism of Evil''.{{sfn|Ihde|1972|pages=138–139}}

Revision as of 06:34, 15 January 2019

Freud and Philosophy: An Essay on Interpretation
Cover of the first edition
AuthorPaul Ricœur
Original titleDe l'interprétation. Essai sur Sigmund Freud
TranslatorDenis Savage
LanguageFrench
SeriesL'Ordre philosophique
SubjectSigmund Freud
PublisherÉditions du Seuil, Yale University Press
Publication date
1965
Publication placeFrance
Published in English
1970
Media typePrint (Hardcover and Paperback)
Pages528 (Éditions du Seuil edition)
573 (Yale edition)
ISBN978-0300021899

Freud and Philosophy: An Essay on Interpretation (Template:Lang-fr) is a 1965 book about Sigmund Freud, the founder of psychoanalysis, by the French philosopher Paul Ricœur, in which the author interprets Freud's work in terms of hermeneutics, the theory of the rules that govern the interpretation of a particular text, and discusses phenomenology, a school of philosophy founded by Edmund Husserl. The book was first published in France by Éditions du Seuil, and in the United States by Yale University Press. Ricœur argues that psychoanalysis should be understood not as an observational science, but as an "interpretation" that resembles history rather than psychology. He compares Freud to the philosophers Karl Marx and Friedrich Nietzsche, describing the trio as a "school of suspicion", and explores similarities and differences between psychoanalysis and phenomenology. He also compares Freud's ideas to those of the philosopher Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel, criticizes Freud's views on religion, discusses language, and further develops ideas about symbols explored in his earlier work The Symbolism of Evil (1960).

One of Ricœur's most noted works, Freud and Philosophy has been compared to the philosopher Herbert Marcuse's Eros and Civilization (1955), the classicist Norman O. Brown's Life Against Death (1959), the sociologist Philip Rieff's Freud: The Mind of the Moralist (1959), and the philosopher Jürgen Habermas's Knowledge and Human Interests (1968). Commentators have praised Ricœur's discussion of Freud's theories, including those about sublimation, his exploration of usually neglected aspects of Freud's work, his comparison of Freud to Marx and Nietzsche, his discussion of phenomenology, and his examination of Freud's ideas in relation to those of Hegel. However, Freud and Philosophy became controversial. While the work was well received in France, it also received criticism there because phenomenology had become unfashionable by 1965. It angered the psychoanalyst Jacques Lacan, who accused Ricœur of borrowing his ideas without attribution; although scholars have rejected the accusation, Lacan's followers attacked Ricœur. Freud and Philosophy received positive reviews upon the publication of its English translation in 1970. The book was described as one of the most important discussions of psychoanalysis and Ricœur was praised for his discussion of symbols and the limitations of Freud's views on the subject, and credited with convincingly criticizing Freud's views on religion. However, some Anglophone critics have argued that Ricœur's views imply the impossibility of scientifically evaluating or criticizing psychoanalysis. Ricœur's hermeneutic interpretation of Freud has been criticized by the philosopher Adolf Grünbaum in The Foundations of Psychoanalysis (1984).

Background

According to Ricœur, Freud and Philosophy originated in the Terry Lectures given at Yale University in 1961, and was also developed in lectures given at the Cardinal Mercier Chair at the University of Louvain in 1962.[1]

Summary

Sigmund Freud, the founder of psychoanalysis. Ricœur argues that Freud's work should be interpreted in terms of hermeneutics.

Overview

Ricœur explains that his subject is Sigmund Freud, the "true founder of psychoanalysis", rather than psychoanalysis itself, and that he avoids discussing psychoanalytic literature subsequent to Freud and figures such as the psychiatrist Carl Jung. He stresses that Freud and Philosophy is a work of philosophy and not a work of psychology, and compares his enterprise to that of the philosopher Roland Dalbiez in La Méthode psychanalytique et la doctrine freudienne (1936), the philosopher Herbert Marcuse in Eros and Civilization (1955), the sociologist Philip Rieff in Freud: The Mind of the Moralist (1959), and the psychoanalyst John Flügel in Man, Morals and Society (1945), writing that like Marcuse, Rieff, and Flügel he considers psychoanalysis an "interpretation of culture." He identifies his main purposes as explaining the "epistemological problem" of the nature of "interpretation in psychoanalysis", the "problem of reflective philosophy" of showing what "new self-understanding comes out of this interpretation", and the "dialectical problem" of whether "Freud's interpretation of culture" excludes "all others". He notes that he further explores an issue raised in his earlier work The Symbolism of Evil, "the relationship between a hermeneutics of symbols and a philosophy of concrete reflection." He explains the structure of Freud and Philosophy, which includes Book I, the "Problematic", Book II, the "Analytic", and Book III, the "Dialectic".[2]

Book I: Problematic: The Placing of Freud

Ricœur relates his discussion of Freud to the emphasis on the importance of language shared by several philosophers, such as Ludwig Wittgenstein and Martin Heidegger, schools of philosophy, such as phenomenology, a movement founded by Edmund Husserl, and English linguistic philosophy, and disciplines such as New Testament exegesis, comparative religion, anthropology, and psychoanalysis. He argues that there is a need for a "comprehensive philosophy of language" to explain its diverse purposes, and that psychoanalysts should participate in discussion of language.[3]

Edmund Husserl, the founder of the philosophical movement of phenomenology, which Ricœur compares to psychoanalysis.

He maintains that one of Freud's objectives was, "a reinterpretation of all psychical productions pertaining to culture, from dreams, through art and morality, to religion." Discussing Freud's theory of dreams, he writes that Freud used dreams as a model for all disguised expressions of human desire. He argues that psychoanalysis is concerned not with desires themselves but rather the language in which they are conveyed, that it involves a "semantics of desire", and that psychoanalytic concepts such as repression and cathexis express dynamics or "energetics" that are "articulated only in a semantics". He writes that Freud's examinations of dreams and related phenomena such as humor, mythology, and religion, shows that they are meaningful and concern the way in which desires "achieve speech". He concludes that psychoanalysis offers a new approach to speech.[4] In Ricœur's view, Freud's work suggests that language resembles dreams, in the sense that it "means something other than what it says" and thereby expresses "double meaning". According to Ricœur, dreams and phenomena comparable to them, including both insanity and human culture in general, involve "significations where another meaning is both given and hidden in an immediate meaning", which he equates with the symbol.[5]

Comparing the way in which psychoanalysis addresses "double meaning" to that of the phenomenology of religion, he identifies both similarities and differences between the two approaches. In his view, the primary difference is that phenomena that psychoanalysis views as distorted reflections of basic desires are regarded instead by the phenomenology of religion as "the revelation of the sacred." He identifies the relative merits of these views as one of his major concerns.[6] He argues that psychoanalysis is concerned with "the hermeneutic field", which concerns double meanings and the confrontation between different forms of interpretation. He defines "hermeneutics" as "the theory of the rules that preside over an exegesis—that is, over the interpretation of a particular text, or of a group of signs that may be viewed as a text", adding that exegesis can be understood to include the interpretation of things analogous to texts. He criticizes the philosopher Ernst Cassirer's ideas about symbolism, as put forward in The Philosophy of Symbolic Forms (1923–1929), and makes use of the understanding of poetic imagination advanced in the philosopher Gaston Bachelard's The Poetics of Space (1958). He proposes that multiple lines of argument show that "the problem of symbolism" is to a large extent coextensive with that of language.[7]

In Ricœur's view, Freud's work can be compared to that of the philosophers Karl Marx and Friedrich Nietzsche. He refers to the trio as masters of the "school of suspicion", arguing that despite their differences, the apparent incompatibility of their ideas, and despite caricatures or misunderstandings of their conclusions, they all view consciousness primarily as false consciousness and seek to explain its process and provide a means of deciphering it, with the objective of extending consciousness. He views all of them as being fundamentally opposed to the "phenomenology of the sacred" and to "hermeneutics understood as the recollection of meaning and as the reminiscence of being."[8]

Karl Marx, the founder of Marxism. Ricœur writes that Marx and Freud are masters of the "school of suspicion".

Book II: Analytic: Reading of Freud

Ricœur explains that the second section of the book is called an "Analytic" because in it he is concerned with describing psychoanalysis based solely on Freud's presentation of it and discusses it in relation to other perspectives principally to show how it differs from or is opposed to them.[9] He argues that psychoanalysis can be understood as both an "energetics", in that it entails "an explanation of psychical phenomena through conflicts of forces", and a "hermeneutics", in that it entails an "exegesis of apparent meaning through a latent meaning".[10] He discusses Freud's theories of the death drive, the defence mechanisms, homosexuality, the id, ego and super-ego, identification, the libido, metapsychology, narcissism, the Oedipus complex, the pleasure principle, the preconscious, the psychic apparatus, psychosexual development, the reality principle, sublimation, the transference, the unconscious, as well as dreamwork, Freud's seduction theory, and the method of free association.[11]

He suggests that in The Interpretation of Dreams (1899), Freud did not succeed in reconciling the "language of meaning" and the "quasi-physical language" implied by different parts of his theory. He notes that for Freud, dreams provide the "ultimate proof" of the existence of the unconscious, since in Freud's view the dreamwork's activity of distortion makes it necessary to attribute to the unconscious both a distinct place in the structure of the mind and its own set of laws. He considers the psychoanalytic concept of the unconscious "totally unphenomenological". He also sees a fundamental contrast between Husserl's epoché, which involves a "reduction to consciousness", and the procedures of psychoanalysis, which involve a "reduction of consciousness". He argues that the contrast is the result of Freud's emphasis on instinct, which displaces an emphasis on the role of the subject and the object in consciousness, and observes that Freud realized that by using the concept of instinct to "relate empirical facts", he had moved from description to systematization, and that this involved the use of conventions, hypotheses, and postulates. He elaborates that Freud's postulates included those concerned with the operation of the psychic apparatus, which in Freud's view was regulated by qualities of "pleasure-unpleasure", which in turn depended on "the amounts of stimulus ... affecting mental life."[12]

Friedrich Nietzsche. Ricœur argues that Nietzsche, like Freud and Marx, is a master of the "school of suspicion".

Observing that for Freud, the object of instincts must be understood in terms of their aim and not the reverse, he adds that the object may be either an something external to a person or part of his or her own body. He credits Freud with making his discoveries about the aim and object of instincts in Three Essays on the Theory of Sexuality (1905), noting that they became a starting point for Freud's understanding of what he referred to as the "vicissitudes of instincts", which concerned how instincts can be known and how they change their objects. He provides examples of how Freud attempted to explain this process in his theories of narcissism and identification, observing that for Freud, explaining narcissism meant showing that "not only is the object a function of the aim of an instinct, but the ego itself is an aim of instinct." He writes that in Freud's view, narcissism has to be understood through its secondary expressions, such as the perversion "in which one's own body is treated as an object of love", and that the theory of narcissism has implications for the theory of identification, in that it helped Freud to show that displacement of narcissism is the basis of "the formation of ideals". He notes that for Freud, identification is based in the oral stage of development, and that it is modeled after the act of devouring. He argues that it was important for Freud's theory that he decide whether identification involves the desire to possess something, or whether it involves a desire to be like something that is different in nature from the desire to possess it, since only the former could be traced to oral origins.[13]

Following earlier commentary on Freud, Ricœur maintains that Freud uses different sets of terms, including an "observational" set concerned with observable phenomena and a "theoretical" set concerned with phenomena that cannot be observed, including various hypothesized forces. He maintains that the conflict between hermeneutics and an incompatible discourse of "economics", involving quantities of energy, persisted in Freud's work after The Interpretation of Dreams, and concludes that in it, "the language of force can never be overcome by the language of meaning."[14] According to Ricœur, psychoanalytic claims about religion are shaped by both the "topographic-economic model" of Freudian metapsychology and by the example of dreams.[15] He argues that Freud's views on religion merit the consideration of both religious believers and people who reject religion, despite potential misunderstandings by both groups. He proposes that despite its "iconoclastic" approach to religion, psychoanalysis can co-exist with "purified" religious faith.[16]

Book III: Dialectic: A Philosophical Interpretation of Freud

Ricœur explains that the third section of the book is concerned with criticism of Freud's ideas, which includes examining the epistemological status of psychoanalysis, exploring the concepts that govern psychoanalysis by means of elaborating an "archaeology of the subject", and integrating the "archaeology of the subject" with a "teleology" in a way that suggests the possibility of interrelating these "opposed hermeneutics". He writes that it is because of this integration that the third section is called a "Dialectic".[17]

Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel. Ricœur compares the ideas of Hegel and Freud

Psychoanalysis is compared by Ricœur to both scientific psychology and phenomenology. He notes that its scientific status has been questioned by philosophers and other authors, most of whom have concluded that it "does not satisfy the most elementary requirements of a scientific theory." He credits the philosopher Ernest Nagel with presenting "the most devastating critique" of psychoanalysis. According to Ricœur, Nagel argued that it is questionable whether psychoanalysis is subject to possible empirical verification, since its "energy notions" "are so vague and metaphorical that it seems impossible to deduce from them any determinate conclusions" and that their relevance to behavior is so ambiguous that "it is impossible to state on what conditions the theory could be refuted." Furthermore, Nagel argued that psychoanalysis has no means of showing that its interpretations are valid because it cannot show that "independent inquirers have access to the same data obtained under carefully standardized circumstances" and because it has no "objective procedures to decide between rival interpretations." In Ricœur's view, psychoanalysts have responded to such criticism in an unsatisfactory manner and avoided the appropriate response, which is to present psychoanalysis not as an observational science, but as an "interpretation" that resembles history rather than psychology. While he argues that it is legitimate to reformulate psychoanalysis in operational terms, he adds that, "This reformulation is only a reformulation, that is, a second operation with respect to the experience on the basis of which the Freudian concepts have arisen." In his view, it can only deal with results that are "detached from the analytic experience". He questions whether it is possible or desirable to "submit Freudian propositions to a verification that is experimental in nature."[18]

Other topics considered by Ricœur include ego psychology, the views of the philosophers Antony Flew and Stephen Toulmin, the relationship between Freud's ideas and those of the philosopher Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel, and the work of Jacques Lacan. He writes that he disagrees with Lacan's elimination of "energy concepts in favor of linguistics". He also writes that Lacan had proposed a linguistic conception of the unconscious. He cites both Marcuse's Eros and Civilization, and the classicist Norman O. Brown's Life Against Death, on the meaning of desire. He also critiques Freud's theories concerning sublimation, arguing that they suffer from multiple problems and that sublimation is an "empty concept".[19]

Publication history

Freud and Philosophy was first published in May 1965 by Éditions du Seuil, as part of the series L'Ordre philosophique (The philosophic order).[20][21] In 1970, an English translation was published by Yale University Press.[22]

Reception

Mainstream media

Freud and Philosophy received a negative review from Michel Tort in Les Temps modernes. According to the historian and psychoanalyst Élisabeth Roudinesco, Tort argued that the book was obscurantist, reactionary, and "clerical", that Ricœur's Christian and phenomenological approach to understanding Freud's texts was unhelpful and obsolete, and that Lacan's approach to psychoanalysis was superior to that of both psychologists and philosophers such as Ricœur.[23] Later discussions of Freud and Philosophy include that in The Christian Century by Don Browning, who compared the book to the philosopher Jonathan Lear's Love and Its Place in Nature (1990).[24]

Scientific and academic journals

Freud and Philosophy received positive reviews from Peter H. Knapp in the The American Journal of Psychiatry,[25] Gerald J. Gargiulo in The Psychoanalytic Review,[26] Simon A. Grolnick in The Psychoanalytic Quarterly,[27] Norman Reider in the Journal of the History of the Behavioral Sciences,[28] the philosopher Don Ihde in the International Philosophical Quarterly,[29] the psychiatrist Eliot Slater in the British Journal of Psychiatry,[30] George J. Stack in The Modern Schoolman,[31] and Walter James Lowe in Religious Studies Review.[32] Other discussions include those by the psychoanalyst Jean-Paul Valabrega in Critique,[33] Gary Bedford in the Journal of the American Academy of Religion,[34] Lowe in The Journal of Religion,[35] the philosopher Timothy F. Murphy in the Journal of Homosexuality,[36] William Adams in Western Political Quarterly,[37] the philosopher John Forrester in Isis,[38] R. D. Chessick in The Psychoanalytic Review,[39] Margaret Chernack Beaudoin in American Imago,[40] Kirk A. Bingaman in Pastoral Psychology,[41] Charles Reagan in The Review of Metaphysics,[42] Leif E. Vaage in Teaching Theology & Religion,[43] and the philosopher Richard J. Bernstein in Études Ricœuriennes / Ricœur Studies.[44] The philosopher Richard Kearney discussed the work in Philosophy & Social Criticism and Research in Phenomenology.[45][46]

Knapp described the book as "thoughtful, searching, and comprehensive". He credited Ricœur with broad knowledge of both philosophy and psychoanalysis, carefully distinguishing between different aspects of Freud's work, convincingly criticizing Freud's hypotheses about language and views about religion, and revealing Freud's "lack of a broad view of symbolic functioning", exposing confusions in Freud's thought, such as that between "force" as a metaphorical term and "force" as a reference to observable phenomena, and with showing that psychoanalysis resembles historical science and phenomenology rather than science as understood by positivism. He also praised his discussions of Toulmin, Flew, and French psychoanalysts. However, he suggested that integrating Freud's views about meaning with Freud's ideas about "drive energy" would "require a more comprehensive psychosomatic theory of emotion" than that provided by Ricœur, and that Freud and Philosophy was sometimes confused and presented debatable conclusions. He compared the book to Brown's Life Against Death.[25] Gargiulo described the book as "a provocative philosophical enterprise and a masterful reading of Freud" and "a text of extraordinary complexity and sensitivity". He compared Ricœur's work to that of Rieff, and credited him with showing that "desire has a semantics" and that psychoanalysis "cannot be verified as in physical and experimental sciences". He praised his discussions of sublimation and symbols. However, he criticized Ricœur's discussion of the reality principle.[26]

Grolnick considered the book important. He credited Ricœur with placing psychoanalysis in a larger historical and intellectual context.[27] Reider described the work as "one of the most important books on the theory of psychoanalysis in the last two decades." He praised Ricœur's discussion of Freud, crediting him with noting respects in which Freud's views were illogical, inconsistent, or incomplete, especially where religion was concerned. He considered Ricœur's critique of Freud superior to anything written by psychoanalysts. He also praised Ricœur's discussion of "symbols and symbolization" and credited him with convincingly criticizing Nagel. However, he wrote that Ricœur's "preoccupation with religion, with the sacred, and his conclusion that psychoanalyis is teleological contain weighty evidence of his acceptance of idealism."[28]

Ihde maintained that the book was primarily "an inquiry into the foundations of language and hermeneutics" and that Ricœur's discussion of Freud was often "tedious". He credited Ricœur with using the Freudian "hermeneutics of suspicion" to both correct phenomenology and provide an intellectual counter-weight to it. He noted that the book was "Ricœur's most controversial work", and that it was attacked by both the followers of Lacan, who claimed that Ricœur's ideas derived from Lacan's work, and adherents of phenomenology, who argued that Ricœur ignored the contributions of "phenomenological-existentialist psychologists". He rejected the views of both groups. He argued that despite the charge that Ricœur had borrowed ideas from Lacan, Freud and Philosophy reflected themes, such as the importance of symbols, that he had explored in earlier works such as The Symbolism of Evil.[29]

Slater considered the book impressive, writing that it was "the first study in depth by a professional philosopher of the development of Freud's thought and of psychoanalytical theory in all the stages of its growth." He praised Ricœur's discussion of the development and evolution of Freud's ideas. However, he added that he found it unclear that Ricœur "shows successfully on what grounds psychoanalysis could be subjected to any criticism whatsoever." He suggested that Ricœur's view of the interactions between psychoanalysts and their patients could be understood to imply the questionable view that there is no way for third parties to determine the truth or untruth of the claims made by the analysts about their patients, meaning that they could "be properly advised not to pay the slightest attention" to those claims.[30] Stack described the book as "illuminating and profound". He credited Ricœur with providing "the most complete philosophical interpretation of the basic principles and concepts of psychoanalysis" to date, demonstrating "the incompleteness of Freud's conception of symbols", carefully discussing Freud's view of instinct, convincingly criticizing Freud's theorizing about the death instinct, and usefully comparing "Hegel's phenomenology of desire and Freudian theory". He praised Ricœur's comparison of psychoanalysis and phenomenology, suggesting that he showed that they are ultimately incompatible despite the existence of similarities between them. While he believed that Ricœur's insights undermined Freud's hostility to religion, he questioned Ricœur's attempt to find common ground between Freud and the phenomenology of religion. He was also unconvinced by Ricœur's attempt to demonstrate "an implicit teleology in psychoanalysis".[31]

Lowe credited Ricœur with providing an interesting perspective on psychoanalysis in Religious Studies Review. He compared Ricœur's views to those of Browning. He praised his comparison of psychoanalysis and phenomenology, crediting him with showing why it is wrong to absorb psychoanalysis into phenomenology or identify the two. He also praised his discussion of Freud's ideas in relation to those of Hegel. He wrote that he had influenced discussions of the relevance of Freud to theology, for example in his description of a teleological aspect to Freudian thought. However, he criticized some of Ricœur's views and suggested that Freud and Philosophy contained "Oddities of language".[32]

According to Roudinesco, Valabrega accused Ricœur of having drawn on Lacan's ideas despite claiming to be original. At the request of the philosopher Michel Foucault, Critique published a reply by Ricœur, in which he denied the accusation and explained that he had completed the outline of his interpretation of Freud before having read Lacan or attended his seminar.[33] Bedford described the book as "monumental".[34] Lowe described the book as "monumental" in The Journal of Religion. However, he argued that the work could be criticized in Heideggerian terms as a philosophy of "presence".[35] Murphy criticized Ricœur for failing to examine Freud's idea of bisexuality.[36] Adams considered the book part of an exemplary body of work on hermeneutics.[37] Forrester argued that Freud and Philosophy had been misrepresented by Adolf Grünbaum in The Foundations of Psychoanalysis.[38]

Beaudoin argued that Freud and Philosophy had been misunderstood by commentators. She argued that while Ricœur regarded the image as primary for psychoanalysis, Grünbaum mistakenly attributed to Ricœur the view that language is primary. She also wrote that he attributed to Ricœur the view that symptoms should be assimilated to linguistic expressions, a position Ricœur rejected, and mistakenly claimed that Ricoeur endorsed Lacan's views.[40] Bingaman credited Ricœur with demonstrating that "a Freudian hermeneutic" has the potential to both challenge and "purify and strengthen" religious faith.[41] Reagan wrote that because Freud and Philosophy made little mention of Lacan, Lacan's followers attacked Ricœur.[42] Vaage compared Freud and Philosophy to Augustine of Hippo's Confessions, the educator Paulo Freire's Pedagogy of the Oppressed (1968), and the anthropologist Jonathan Boyarin's The Ehnography of Reading (1993), writing that despite their differences, each contains "a discipline or disciplines of learning how to read better or well for the sake of knowing a larger, more fulsome life."[43] Bernstein described the book as "monumental" and "remarkable", suggesting that it was "one of the most judicious, thorough and comprehensive explications of Freud’s work and development." He credited Ricœur with showing that there was always a tension between in Freud's thinking between an emphasis on "energetics" and an emphasis on "hermeneutics", and with using his discussion of Hegel to explain aspects of Freud's work. However, he noted that Ricœur presented only one possible philosophical interpretation of Freud, and suggested that the section of Freud and Philosophy in which Ricœur presented his interpretation was the weakest part of the book and that his interpretation of Freud suffered from "tensions and unresolved issues". He was unconvinced by Ricœur's critique of Freud's views on religion.[44]

In Philosophy & Social Criticism, Kearney identified Freud and Philosophy as one of Ricœur's three major works of the 1960s, the others being The Symbolism of Evil and The Conflict of Interpretations (1969). He credited Ricœur with expanding on his analysis of symbols in The Symbolism of Evil, and with demonstrating that the symbolic imagination is linguistic.[45] In Research in Phenomenology, he suggested that, as in some of his other works, Ricœur was engaged in an "eschatology of the possible" in Freud and Philosophy.[46]

Evaluations in books, 1965–1986

Ihde discussed Freud and Philosophy in Hermeneutic Phenomenology: The Philosophy of Paul Ricœur (1971).[47] The psychologists Hans Eysenck and Glenn Wilson described Freud and Philosophy as a good example of a defense of psychoanalysis against the claim that it should be evaluated in terms of experimental evidence in The Experimental Study of Freudian Theories (1973). They described Ricœur's views as a form of "extreme subjectivism", argued that they imply that psychoanalytic theories cannot be tested empirically or shown to be mistaken, and compared them to existentialism. They wrote that Freud would have rejected Ricœur's conclusions, and that few psychoanalysts or psychologists would accept them.[48] The critic Frederick Crews wrote in Out of My System (1975) that "school of suspicion" was an apt term for Ricœur's grouping of Marx, Nietzsche, and Freud.[49]

Lowe discussed Freud and Philosophy in Mystery and the Unconscious: A Study in the Thought of Paul Ricoeur (1977).[50] The philosopher Vincent Descombes noted in Modern French Philosophy (1979) that Freud and Philosophy led to "polemic between the Lacanians" and Ricœur.[51] John B. Thompson described Freud and Philosophy as a "well-known and justly acclaimed study of Freud" in his introduction to Ricœur's Hermeneutics and the Human Sciences (1981). He compared Ricœur's views to Lacan's, writing that despite differences between the two, both accepted the "irreducible role of language and meaning in psychoanalysis". However, he noted that Ricœur failed to resolve the "question of the scientific status of psychoanalysis", and that Ricœur took a different approach to the issue in his subsequent essay "The question of proof in Freud's psychoanalytic writings".[52] In the same work, Ricœur endorsed Thompson's view that his approach to psychoanalysis in "The question of proof in Freud's psychoanalytic writings" differed to his approach he had taken in Freud and Philosophy.[53] The psychologist Paul Kline maintained in Fact and Fantasy in Freudian Theory (1981) that Ricœur's view that psychoanalysis cannot be dealt with through experiments based on quantifiable evidence might be correct, but argued that if it is, this means that psychoanalytic theory is not scientific.[54]

The psychotherapist Joel D. Hencken described Freud and Philosophy as an important example of the intellectual influence of psychoanalysis in the anthology Homosexuality: Social, Psychological, and Biological Issues (1982).[55] Murray S. Davis credited Ricœur with subtly comparing psychoanalysis with phenomenology in Smut: Erotic Reality/Obscene Ideology (1983). However, he noted that the extent to which the two are similar is controversial. He concluded that there is a parallel between psychoanalytic therapy and phenomenological inquiry, but not between psychoanalytic theory and phenomenological inquiry, and that Ricœur's comparison is thus only partially correct.[56] Grünbaum criticized Ricœur's hermeneutic interpretation of Freud in The Foundations of Psychoanalysis, arguing that Ricœur wrongly limited the relevance of psychoanalytic theory to verbal statements made during analytic therapy. He accused Ricœur of endorsing Lacan's "obfuscating" view that "a symptom is like a language whose speech must be realized".[57]

Roudinesco maintained in Jacques Lacan & Co: A History of Psychoanalysis in France, 1925—1985 (1986) that Freud and Philosophy was well received in France because it was the first book of its kind but criticized because phenomenology had become unfashionable by the time it was published in May 1965. She noted that the book angered the psychoanalyst Jacques Lacan, who had expected it to praise him, prompting him to spread the rumor, which convinced Lacan's followers, that Ricœur had borrowed his ideas without attribution. She argued that while Ricœur was able to understand Freud and ego psychology, Ricœur's discussion of Lacan was erroneous, and that he failed to understand Lacan's use of structural concepts. She rejected Ricœur's claims that Lacan had eliminated energy concepts in favor of linguistics and proposed a "linguistic conception of the unconscious." However, she dismissed the charge that Ricœur had borrowed Lacan's ideas, writing that he could not have done so given his failure to understand them.[58]

The philosopher Jeffrey Abramson compared Freud and Philosophy to Marcuse's Eros and Civilization, Rieff's Freud: The Mind of the Moralist, and Habermas's Knowledge and Human Interests, as well as Brown's Life Against Death, in Liberation and Its Limits: The Moral and Political Thought of Freud (1986). He wrote that these works jointly placed Freud at the center of moral and philosophical inquiry. He praised Ricœur's discussions of narcissism and sublimation.[59]

Evaluations in books, 1987–2000

The philosopher Ronald de Sousa wrote in The Rationality of Emotion (1987) that Ricœur was one of several commentators on Freud to have argued that Freud, by basing the method of psychoanalysis on an extension of the principle of determinism from the physical to the mental realm, confused determinism and meaningfulness. He rejected the criticism.[60] The psychologist Paul Vitz praised Ricœur's discussion of Freud's theories about the development of the ego in Sigmund Freud's Christian Unconscious (1988).[61] The historian Peter Gay described Freud and Philosophy as a "highly disciplined study by the leading advocate of psychoanalysis as hermeneutics" in Freud: A Life for Our Time (1988), but expressed disagreement with Ricœur's view of Freud.[62] The psychologist Robert R. Holt noted in Freud Reappraised (1989) that Ricœur's views were supported by some psychoanalysts. However, he dismissed Freud and Philosophy, describing the book as unreadable in parts. He suggested that while Ricœur's writings were superficially impressive, close study revealed their flaws. He rejected Ricœur's view that psychoanalysis is not a science, writing that it depended on unoriginal arguments. He argued that if Ricœur's view that psychoanalysis does not have to make predictions and is not subject to "substantial constraints" were correct, it would mean the end of psychoanalysis. He questioned the merits of hermeneutics, referring to Grünbaum's The Foundations of Psychoanalysis. He also accused Ricœur of using vague or inappropriately metaphorical language to engage in "self-congratulation, obfuscation, and intimidation".[63] The critic Frank Kermode praised Freud and Philosophy in An Appetite for Poetry (1989), calling it "monumental".[64]

Lear criticized Freud and Philosophy in Love and Its Place in Nature (1990), blaming it, along with Habermas's Knowledge and Human Interests, for convincing some psychoanalysts that reasons cannot be causes, a view he considers part of a mistaken philosophical tradition. He credited Grünbaum with effectively criticizing Ricœur.[65] The psychoanalyst Joel Kovel saw Freud and Philosophy as an important demonstration that Freud was a post-Hegelian thinker in History and Spirit (1991), though he noted that Freud would have rejected any association with Hegel.[66] The historian Paul Robinson described Freud and Philosophy as a classic portrayal of Freud as a hermeneutician and a philosopher similar to Nietzsche in Freud and His Critics (1993). He compared Ricœur's views to those of the philosopher Jacques Derrida. Although he believed that there was some truth to the hermeneutic interpretation of Freud, he argued that it had helped to obscure the fact that Freud understood his work as science. He credited Grünbaum with showing that Ricœur's effort to obscure Freud's identification with the scientific tradition is misguided.[67] Geoff Waite described Ricœur's claim that Freud, Marx, and Nietzsche form a "school of suspicion" as "famous" in Nietzsche's Corps/e (1996). However, he considered Ricœur's discussion of the three figures a "naïve fantasy", and was especially critical of his treatment of Nietzsche, arguing that it was misguided and misrepresented Nietzsche's intentions.[68] Forrester praised Freud and Philosophy in Dispatches from the Freud Wars (1997).[69]

The psychologist Malcolm Macmillan credited Ricœur with being one of the few to recognize that Freud saw a close connection between the mental structures he outlined in The Ego and the Id and the instinctual theory he put forward in Beyond the Pleasure Principle in Freud Evaluated (1997). He endorsed Ricœur's criticism of the concept of sublimation and his questioning of the idea that identification has an oral origin.[70] The historian of science Roger Smith credited Ricœur with showing the "richness of a hermeneutic approach to Freud" in The Norton History of the Human Sciences (1997).[71] Crews criticized Ricœur for helping to inspire unscientific defenses of Freud and psychoanalysis in Unauthorized Freud (1998). He also charged him with misunderstanding Freud. He endorsed Grünbaum's criticisms of Ricœur.[72] The philosopher Joseph Bien described Freud and Philosophy as one of Ricœur's best-known books in The Cambridge Dictionary of Philosophy (1999).[73] The philosopher Todd Dufresne rejected Lacan's accusation that Ricœur copied his ideas in Tales from the Freudian Crypt (2000), endorsing Roudinesco's conclusion that it was unfounded. He credited Ricœur with providing an evenhanded interpretation of Freud that addressed important details that were rarely addressed. He considered Ricœur's examination of Beyond the Pleasure Principle central to Freud and Philosophy, and credited Ricœur with providing a nuanced interpretation of the concept of the death drive. However, while he believed that Ricœur's interpretation of Freud was in some ways superior to Lacan's, since it followed the relevant texts more closely, he concluded that Ricœur's attempt to "oppose and then synthesize" Freud and Hegel was already dated when Freud and Philosophy was published. He suggested that Lacan found being mentioned only in passing in the book an insult and was more angered by it than by Ricœur's criticism.[74]

Evaluations in books, 2001–present

Gary Genosko identified Ricœur's arguments about the death instinct as an influence on the philosopher Gilles Deleuze and the psychoanalyst Félix Guattari's Anti-Oedipus (1972) in Félix Guattari: An Aberrant Introduction (2002).[75]

References

Footnotes

  1. ^ Ricœur 1970, p. xi.
  2. ^ Ricœur 1970, pp. xi–xiii.
  3. ^ Ricœur 1970, pp. 3–4.
  4. ^ Ricœur 1970, pp. 4–6.
  5. ^ Ricœur 1970, pp. 6–7.
  6. ^ Ricœur 1970, pp. 6–8.
  7. ^ Ricœur 1970, pp. 8–11, 15–16.
  8. ^ Ricœur 1970, pp. 17, 32–35.
  9. ^ Ricœur 1970, pp. 59–61.
  10. ^ Ricœur 1970, p. 62.
  11. ^ Ricœur 1970, pp. 61–63, 67–79, 84–86, 95–96, 104–107, 115, 119, 121–122, 128–132, 172, 179, 195, 216, 219.
  12. ^ Ricœur 1970, pp. 115, 119, 121–123.
  13. ^ Ricœur 1970, pp. 123–125, 127–128, 131–132.
  14. ^ Ricœur 1970, pp. 138, 140, 142–143, 149.
  15. ^ Ricœur 1970, pp. 153–154.
  16. ^ Ricœur 1970, p. 230.
  17. ^ Ricœur 1970, pp. 341–342.
  18. ^ Ricœur 1970, pp. 345–346, 358, 366.
  19. ^ Ricœur 1970, pp. 350, 353, 358–359, 367, 387, 395, 457, 483–493.
  20. ^ Roudinesco 1990, p. 393.
  21. ^ Roudinesco 1997, p. 324.
  22. ^ Ricœur 1970, p. iv.
  23. ^ Roudinesco 1990, pp. 396–397.
  24. ^ Browning 1991, p. 340.
  25. ^ a b Knapp 1971, pp. 978–979.
  26. ^ a b Gargiulo 1971, pp. 295–301.
  27. ^ a b Grolnick 1972, pp. 436–443.
  28. ^ a b Reider 1972, pp. 142–144.
  29. ^ a b Ihde 1972, pp. 138–139.
  30. ^ a b Slater 1972, pp. 455–457.
  31. ^ a b Stack 1973, pp. 318–322.
  32. ^ a b Lowe 1978, pp. 246–254.
  33. ^ a b Roudinesco 1990, pp. 395–396.
  34. ^ a b Bedford 1978, pp. 267–294.
  35. ^ a b Lowe 1981, pp. 384–402.
  36. ^ a b Murphy 1985, pp. 65–77.
  37. ^ a b Adams 1986, pp. 548–563.
  38. ^ a b Forrester 1986, pp. 670–674.
  39. ^ Chessick 1988, pp. 299–318.
  40. ^ a b Beaudoin 1992, pp. 35–62.
  41. ^ a b Bingaman 1999, pp. 91–105.
  42. ^ a b Reagan 2005, pp. 277–278.
  43. ^ a b Vaage 2007, pp. 87–94.
  44. ^ a b Bernstein 2013, pp. 130–139.
  45. ^ a b Kearney 1989, pp. iv, 7, 10–11, 13.
  46. ^ a b Kearney 2009, pp. 167–183.
  47. ^ Ihde 1980, pp. 131–166.
  48. ^ Eysenck & Wilson 1976, pp. 393–395.
  49. ^ Crews 1975, pp. 180, 208.
  50. ^ Lowe 1977, pp. 1–184.
  51. ^ Descombes 1979, p. 70.
  52. ^ Thompson 1981, pp. 3, 7, 24.
  53. ^ Ricœur 1981, p. 38.
  54. ^ Kline 1995, p. 4.
  55. ^ Hencken 1982, pp. 127, 395, 414.
  56. ^ Davis 1985, pp. 247–248.
  57. ^ Grünbaum 1985, pp. 43–69.
  58. ^ Roudinesco 1990, pp. 394–395.
  59. ^ Abramson 1986, pp. ix, 26, 83.
  60. ^ De Sousa 1995, pp. 85, 340.
  61. ^ Vitz 1988, pp. 32, 230.
  62. ^ Gay 1995, p. 745.
  63. ^ Holt 1989, pp. 314–316.
  64. ^ Kermode 1989, p. 147.
  65. ^ Lear 1992, p. 49.
  66. ^ Kovel 1991, pp. 5, 240.
  67. ^ Robinson 1993, pp. 73, 195, 265.
  68. ^ Waite 1996, p. 106.
  69. ^ Forrester 1997, p. 157.
  70. ^ Macmillan 1997, p. 446, 486–487, 496.
  71. ^ Smith 1997, p. 856.
  72. ^ Crews 1999, p. xxix.
  73. ^ Bien 1999, pp. 795–796.
  74. ^ Dufresne 2000, pp. 122–123, 126.
  75. ^ Genosko 2002, p. 121.

Bibliography

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