Freud and Philosophy

Freud and Philosophy: An Essay on Interpretation

Cover of the first edition
Author	Paul Ricœur
Original title	De l'interprétation. Essai sur Sigmund Freud
Translator	Denis Savage
Language	French
Series	L'Ordre philosophique
Subject	Sigmund Freud
Publisher	Éditions du Seuil, Yale University Press
Publication date	1965
Publication place	France
Published in English	1970
Media type	Print (Hardcover and Paperback)
Pages	528 (Éditions du Seuil edition) 573 (Yale edition)
ISBN	978-0300021899

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 Freud and Philosophy, Ricœur 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. He addresses questions such as the nature of interpretation in psychoanalysis, the understanding of human nature to which it leads, and the relationship between Freud's interpretation of culture and other interpretations. The book was first published in France by Éditions du Seuil, and in the United States by Yale University Press.

Ricœur explores what he considers a tension in Freud's work between an emphasis on "energetics", which explains psychological phenomena in terms of quantities of energy, and an emphasis on hermeneutics. 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). In response to criticism of the scientific status of psychoanalysis by philosophers such as Ernest Nagel, Ricœur argues that psychoanalysis should be understood not as an observational science, but as an "interpretation" that resembles history rather than psychology. He criticizes psychoanalysts for failing to adopt this as their response to arguments that psychoanalysis is unscientific.

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, his exploration of usually neglected aspects of Freud's work, his comparison of Freud to Hegel, Marx, and Nietzsche, and his discussion of phenomenology. However, Freud and Philosophy became controversial. The work 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. He was also credited with convincingly criticizing Freud's views on both symbols and religion generally. However, some Anglophone critics have argued that Ricœur's views imply the impossibility of scientifically evaluating psychoanalysis.

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 founder of psychoanalysis, rather than psychoanalysis itself, and that he therefore avoids discussing psychoanalytic literature subsequent to Freud and dissident 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 those of philosophers such as Roland Dalbiez in Psychoanalytical Method and the Doctrine of Freud (1936) and Herbert Marcuse in Eros and Civilization (1955), as well as to those of the sociologist Philip Rieff in Freud: The Mind of the Moralist (1959) and the psychoanalyst John Flügel in Man, Morals and Society (1945). Like Marcuse, Rieff, and Flügel, he considers psychoanalysis an "interpretation of culture", but unlike them his principal concern is the "structure of Freudian discourse".

He identifies his main purposes as explaining the nature and purpose of interpretation in psychoanalysis, showing to what understanding of human nature psychoanalytic interpretation leads, and exploring whether or how Freud's interpretation of culture is compatible with other interpretations. He notes that by discussing these questions he further explores unresolved issues related to symbols raised in his earlier work The Symbolism of Evil. He explains the structure of Freud and Philosophy, which includes Book I, the "Problematic", Book II, the "Analytic", and Book III, the "Dialectic".

Book I: Problematic: The Placing of Freud

Ricœur relates his discussion of Freud to the emphasis on the importance of language shared by philosophers such as Ludwig Wittgenstein and Martin Heidegger, schools of philosophy, such as phenomenology, a movement founded by Edmund Husserl, and English linguistic philosophy, as well as 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.

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. 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 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.

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. 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. Seeking an appropriate definition of symbolism, he criticizes Ernst Cassirer's ideas about the "symbolic function", as put forward in The Philosophy of Symbolic Forms (1923–1929), and makes use of the understanding of poetic imagination advanced in Gaston Bachelard's The Poetics of Space (1958). He proposes that "the problem of symbolism" is to a large extent coextensive with that of language.

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, seeking 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".

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 primarily to show how it differs from or is opposed to them. 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". 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.

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".

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 something external to a person or part of his or her own body. He credits Freud with making these discoveries in Three Essays on the Theory of Sexuality (1905). He provides examples of how Freud attempted to explain the process by which instincts change their objects 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 helped Freud to show that displacement of narcissism is the basis of "the formation of ideals" and thus has implications for the theory of identification. He notes that, for Freud, identification is based in the oral stage of development and modeled after the act of devouring. He argues that it was important for Freud that he decide whether it involves a desire to possess something or a desire to be like something, since only the former could be traced to oral origins.

Following earlier commentary, 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". According to Ricœur, psychoanalytic claims about religion are shaped by both the "topographic-economic model" of Freudian metapsychology and by the example of dreams. He argues that aspects of Freud's views on religion, such as his "radical questioning" of it, merit the consideration of both religious believers and non-believers, despite potential misunderstandings by both groups. He also proposes that psychoanalysis can co-exist with "purified" religious faith. However, he questions Freud's analogy between religion and neurosis, as well as the accuracy of some of his claims about the history of religion. Freud's hypothesis of the death instinct, put forward in Beyond the Pleasure Principle (1920), is criticized by Ricœur, who describes it as speculative and as resting on a limited factual basis. He draws connections between Freud's ideas about the death instinct and his views about the structure of the mind as presented in The Ego and the Id (1923).

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. He summarizes his approach as involving first examining the validity of psychoanalysis from the standpoint of epistemology, then exploring its concepts through elaborating an "archaeology of the subject". He adds that he then integrates this "archaeology" with a "teleology" in a way that suggests the possibility of interrelating these "opposed hermeneutics", and that it is because of this integration that the third section is called a "Dialectic".

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

He compares psychoanalysis to both scientific psychology and phenomenology, arguing that it cannot be made part of a "general psychology". He writes that most philosophers who have discussed psychoanalysis have concluded that it fails to satisfy the basic requirements of a scientific theory. He credits Ernest Nagel with presenting the strongest such argument, summarizing it as follows. It is questionable whether psychoanalysis is subject to empirical verification, since some its concepts are so vague and metaphorical, and have such an unclear relevance to behavior, that it appears impossible to either deduce specific conclusions from them or explain how psychoanalysis itself could be refuted. Furthermore, there is no way of showing that psychoanalytic interpretations are valid because psychoanalytic data cannot be separated from the relationship of a given analyst to his or her patients and the suspicion that interpretations are forced upon the data by analysts is unavoidable given the lack of comparative procedures and statistical investigation. Between them, these problems make it impossible for independent inquirers to obtain the same data under carefully standardized circumstances or for psychoanalysts to establish objective procedures to decide which conflicting interpretations might be correct. Claims made by psychoanalysts about the effectiveness of treatment are unavailing, since the percentages of improvement cannot be strictly established or defined by appropriate studies, making it impossible to compare the effectiveness of psychoanalysis to other methods of treatment.

In Ricœur's view, such arguments are convincing so long as psychoanalysis is considered an observational science. He argues that psychoanalysts should, but have not, respond by presenting psychoanalysis as an "interpretation" that resembles history rather than psychology. He argues that while some psychoanalysts have tried to reformulate psychoanalysis so that it meets scientific criteria acceptable to psychologists, aspects of Freudian theory make this difficult. He refers to the attempt to assimilate psychoanalysis to observational psychology as the "operational" reformulation of psychoanalysis. He writes that such efforts at operationalization have not satisfied psychologists. He nevertheless argues that they are legitimate, writing that it is desirable for psychoanalysis to be evaluated by psychology and that attempts should be made to validate or invalidate its results. However, he emphasizes that such reformulation of psychoanalysis is "a second operation with respect to the experience on the basis of which the Freudian concepts have arisen" and as such can only deal with results that are "detached from the analytic experience".

Emphasizing the importance of the difference between the concepts of psychoanalysis and those of behavioral psychology, Ricœur endorses the philosopher Stephen Toulmin's argument that an explanation of human behavior in terms of motives is different in kind from an explanation of human behavior in terms of causes, and that psychoanalysis deals with motives rather than causes. He maintains that because psychoanalysis is concerned with motive concepts, there is a clear distinction between it and observational science. Criticizing the idea that psychoanalysis resembles an experimental science, he emphasizes, following the work of Jacques Lacan, that an analysis is based on verbal interactions between a psychoanalyst and a patient and that it reveals "another language, dissociated from common language, and which presents itself to be deciphered through its meaningful effects" such as symptoms and dreams. He maintains that psychoanalytic theory is thus concerned with "analytic experience, insofar as the latter operates in the field of speech". He critiques Freud's theories concerning sublimation, arguing that they suffer from multiple problems and that sublimation is an "empty concept", as well as his views on language. He also discusses the relationship between Freud's ideas and those of the philosopher Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel, comparing the role that desire plays in both men's work.

Background and publication history

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. The book was first published in May 1965 by Éditions du Seuil, as part of the series L'Ordre philosophique (The Philosophic Order). In 1970, an English translation by Denis Savage was published in hardcover by Yale University Press. A paperback edition followed in 1977.

Reception

Reception in France

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 and reactionary, 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 Ricœur. Vinicio Busacchi wrote in Études Ricœuriennes / Ricœur Studies that the accusation of plagiarism against Ricœur was false and that Tort's discussion of Freud and Philosophy was "fallacious and calumnious".

The book was also reviewed by the psychoanalyst Jean-Paul Valabrega in Critique. 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. 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 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, Ricœur's discussion of Lacan was erroneous. 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.

The philosopher Jonathan Rée suggested in The Guardian that Freud and Philosophy had been "scandalously neglected in France". 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). Johann Michel wrote in Ricoeur and the Post-Structuralists (2015) that Deleuze and Guattari found Ricœur's interpretation of Freud's theory of culture "marked by Idealism", though he added that they also did "justice" to it. Reagan wrote that because Freud and Philosophy made little mention of Lacan, Lacan's followers attacked Ricœur. Boer wrote that the book received a hostile response not only from Lacan and his followers, but also from the students of the philosopher Louis Althusser. He argued that the book was not the first "major exploration of the hermeneutics of suspicion and recovery", pointing to the work of the philosopher Ernst Bloch as a precedent. Reagan wrote in Paul Ricoeur: His Life and His Work (1996) that some psychoanalysts, in particular those influenced by Lacan, argued that since Ricœur was not a psychoanalyst and had never been psychoanalyzed he was incompetent to write about Freud. The critic Rita Felski wrote in The Limits of Critique (2015) that while Freud and Philosophy has often been claimed to have introduced the phrase "the hermeneutics of suspicion", this attribution is a mistake, and Ricœur in fact introduced the term at a later date.

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 discussed important points that were rarely addressed and complimented him for his 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, 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. Dufresne, in his introduction to an edition of Freud's Beyond the Pleasure Principle, noted that Ricœur's understanding of the work represented only one possible interpretation and that other thinkers, including Marcuse, Lacan, Deleuze, Derrida, and Judith Butler, had produced irreconcilable interpretations.

Reception in Anglophone journals

Freud and Philosophy received positive reviews in academic journals written in English. These reviews included those by Peter H. Knapp in The American Journal of Psychiatry, Gerald J. Gargiulo in The Psychoanalytic Review, the philosopher Eliseo Vivas in the Journal of Value Inquiry, John W. Slaughter in the International Journal for Philosophy of Religion, Simon A. Grolnick in The Psychoanalytic Quarterly, Norman Reider in the Journal of the History of the Behavioral Sciences, the philosopher Don Ihde in the International Philosophical Quarterly, the psychiatrist Eliot Slater in the British Journal of Psychiatry, George J. Stack in The Modern Schoolman, and Walter James Lowe in Religious Studies Review. However, the book received a negative review from John M. Hems in Philosophy and Phenomenological Research.

Knapp described the book as "thoughtful, searching, and comprehensive". He wrote that Ricœur had broad knowledge of both philosophy and psychoanalysis. He credited him with carefully distinguishing between different aspects of Freud's work and convincingly criticizing Freud's hypotheses about language and views about religion. He also believed that he revealed Freud's "lack of a broad view of symbolic functioning", exposed confusions in Freud's thought, such as that between "force" as a metaphorical term and "force" as a reference to observable phenomena, and showed that psychoanalysis resembles historical science and phenomenology rather than science as understood by positivism. He praised his discussion of Toulmin. 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. 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.

Vivas described the book as the most thorough study of Freudian theory that he was aware of. He considered it similar, but also superior to, Rieff's Freud: The Mind of the Moralist. He praised Ricœur's discussion of Freud's views on religion, crediting him with convincingly criticizing and correcting them. However, while finding Ricœur's views on religion preferable to Freud's, he nevertheless disagreed with them. He also expressed uncertainty about whether Ricœur had resolved the issue of the scientific status of psychoanalysis, and questioned the value of Ricœur's discussion of the reasons for the difficulty of resolving whether the processes postulated by psychoanalysis actually exist. Slaughter suggested that the book might be the best commentary on Freud ever written, maintaining that it not only assisted in the understanding of Freud but had implications for the practice of philosophy. However, he criticized Ricœur's discussion of Freud's views on religion, believing that Ricœur interrupted his discussion of Freud by presenting his personal beliefs.

Grolnick understood the work as "a stage in the development of a comprehensive religious philosophy". He credited Ricœur with placing psychoanalysis in a larger historical and intellectual context and relating it to contemporary cultural trends, showing broad knowledge of philosophy, literature, and religion, and providing a useful discussion of the development of Freud's work. He praised Ricœur's exploration of topics such as narcissism, identification, sublimation, and the reality principle, and believed that he showed the flaws of some of Freud's views on art, culture, and religion. He complimented Ricœur for his comparison of psychoanalysis and phenomenology. However, he wrote that psychoanalysts might disagree with Ricœur's assessment of the scientific status of psychoanalysis, and that some of Ricœur's criticisms of Freud were unoriginal, having been made within psychoanalysis itself. 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 his criticism of 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".

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 correct phenomenology. 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.

Slater considered the book impressive, calling it the first detailed study "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 of Freud's ideas. However, he found it unclear whether Ricœur "shows successfully on what grounds psychoanalysis could subjected to any criticism whatsoever". He suggested that Ricœur's view of the interactions between psychoanalysts and their patients misleadingly suggested that there is no way for third parties to determine the truth or untruth of the claims made by the analysts about their patients. He believed that this undermined their credibility.

Stack described the book as "illuminating and profound". He credited Ricœur with providing "the most complete philosophical interpretation" 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 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".

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 suggested that Freud and Philosophy contained unusual language. Hems wrote that the book could be seen as either "a work of formidable thoroughness" or one of "irksome prolixity", depending on one's point of view. He questioned whether Ricœur's attempt to reinterpret Freud was successful.

Additional discussions

Discussions of Freud and Philosophy in scientific and academic journals include those by Kirk A. Bingaman in Pastoral Psychology, Charles Reagan in The Review of Metaphysics, Roland Boer in Radical Philosophy, and Leif E. Vaage in Teaching Theology & Religion. The work received discussions from the philosopher Richard J. Bernstein, Gregory A. Trotter, and Philippe Lacour, in Études Ricœuriennes / Ricœur Studies. The philosopher Richard Kearney discussed the work in Philosophy & Social Criticism and Research in Phenomenology.

Several commentators have described Freud and Philosophy as "monumental"; these include Gary Bedford in the Journal of the American Academy of Religion, Lowe in The Journal of Religion, the critic Frank Kermode in An Appetite for Poetry (1989), and the philosopher Richard J. Bernstein in Études Ricœuriennes / Ricœur Studies. However, Lowe also argued that the work could be criticized in Heideggerian terms as a philosophy of "presence". Bernstein suggested that Freud and Philosophy 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 he did so was the weakest part of the book and that his interpretation of Freud suffered from "tensions and unresolved issues". He was also unconvinced by Ricœur's critique of Freud's views on religion.

In the Journal of Homosexuality, the philosopher Timothy F. Murphy criticized Ricœur for failing to examine Freud's idea of bisexuality. In Western Political Quarterly, William Adams described Freud and Philosophy as part of an exemplary body of work on hermeneutics. In The Psychoanalytic Review, R. D. Chessick described Freud and Philosophy as "one of the best philosophical works on Freud", crediting Ricœur with providing a thorough and scholarly" discussion of Freud's work. Bingaman credited Ricœur with demonstrating that "a Freudian hermeneutic" has the potential to both challenge and "purify and strengthen" religious faith. Vaage compared Freud and Philosophy to the theologian Augustine of Hippo's Confessions, the educator Paulo Freire's Pedagogy of the Oppressed (1968), and the anthropologist Jonathan Boyarin's The Ethnography 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". Trotter wrote that Freud and Philosophy was influential in both philosophy and psychoanalysis. However, he granted that details of Ricœur's views could be questioned.

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. In Research in Phenomenology, he suggested that, as in some of his other works, Ricœur was engaged in a form of eschatology in Freud and Philosophy.

Philosophical evaluations

Freud and Philosophy has become both a well-known study of Freud and one of Ricœur's best-known works. Commentators have evaluated the book from a variety of different philosophical perspectives, offering both praise and criticism for Ricœur's arguments and conclusions. In Hermeneutic Phenomenology: The Philosophy of Paul Ricoeur (1971), Ihde described Ricœur's discussion of Freud as "thorough" and "fastidious" but also "sometimes tedious". He argued that Ricœur's approach to interpretation was limited by its focus on the ideas of symbol and double meaning. John B. Thompson described Freud and Philosophy as a "justly acclaimed study of Freud" in his introduction to Ricœur's Hermeneutics and the Human Sciences (1981). He compared Ricœur's views to those of Lacan, writing that despite their differences, 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" in Freud and Philosophy. He and Ricœur both noted that Ricœur took a different approach to the issue in his subsequent essay "The question of proof in Freud's psychoanalytic writings".

The philosophers Douglas Kellner and Jeffrey Abramson have compared Freud and Philosophy to Marcuse's Eros and Civilization. Kellner credited Ricœur with demonstrating the importance of psychoanalysis for "increasing understanding of human nature and contributing to the process of self-formation" in Herbert Marcuse and the Crisis of Marxism (1984). He suggested that Ricœur made better use of several Freudian ideas than did Marcuse. Abramson also compared Freud and Philosophy to 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 maintained that these works jointly placed Freud at the center of moral and philosophical inquiry. He praised Ricœur's discussions of narcissism and sublimation. In Smut: Erotic Reality/Obscene Ideology (1983), Murray S. Davis credited Ricœur with making a subtle, but only partially correct, comparison of psychoanalysis with phenomenology. He concluded that there is a parallel between psychoanalytic therapy and phenomenological inquiry, but not between psychoanalytic theory and phenomenological inquiry.

Other commentators to have criticized Ricœur include the philosophers Ronald de Sousa and Geoff Waite. In The Rationality of Emotion (1987), de Sousa maintained that Ricœur was one of several commentators on Freud to have incorrectly 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. In Nietzsche's Corps/e (1996), Waite described Ricœur's claim that Freud, Marx, and Nietzsche form a "school of suspicion" as "famous" but misleading. He argued that Ricœur misrepresented Nietzsche by attributing to him a position of "suspicion".

Adolf Grünbaum's criticism

The philosopher Adolf Grünbaum has discussed Freud and Philosophy in works such as The Foundations of Psychoanalysis (1984) and Validation in the Clinical Theory of Psychoanalysis (1993). In The Foundations of Psychoanalysis, he criticized Ricœur's hermeneutic interpretation of Freud, arguing that Ricœur wrongly limited the relevance of psychoanalytic theory to verbal statements made during analytic therapy. He accused Ricœur of wanting to protect his hermeneutic understanding of psychoanalysis from scientific examination and criticism, and maintained that Ricœur's arguments rested on an untenable dichotomy between theory and observation and that he took a reductive form of behaviorism as his model of scientific psychology. He argued that Ricœur's view that psychoanalysis provides a "semantics of desire" mistakenly equates symptoms with linguistic representations of their causes, and accused Ricœur of endorsing Lacan's "obfuscating" view that a symptom resembles "a language whose speech must be realized". However, Grünbaum gave Ricœur credit for later reassessing his views in Hermeneutics and the Human Sciences (1981) by abandoning the dichotomy between reasons and causes.

Grünbaum's criticisms of Ricœur have been endorsed, in whole or in part, by the psychologist Robert R. Holt, the psychoanalyst Jonathan Lear, the historian Paul Robinson, and the critic Frederick Crews. Holt dismissed Freud and Philosophy, arguing in Freud Reappraised (1989) that it was only superficially impressive, that parts of it were unreadable, and that Ricœur used vague or inappropriately metaphorical language to engage in "self-congratulation, obfuscation, and intimidation". He also maintained that Ricœur's view that psychoanalysis is not a science depended on unoriginal arguments. Though he noted that Ricœur's views were supported by some psychoanalysts, 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 employed Grünbaum's work to question the merits of hermeneutics in general. 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.

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 French philosopher Jacques Derrida. Although he believed that there was some truth to them, he argued that Ricœur's arguments harmfully obscured Freud's identification with the scientific tradition. He credited Grünbaum with showing that Ricœur's effort to obscure that identification is misguided. In Unauthorized Freud (1999), Crews criticized Ricœur for helping to inspire unscientific defenses of Freud and psychoanalysis, and additionally charged him with misunderstanding Freud.

Other evaluations

Psychologists such as Hans Eysenck, Glenn Wilson, and Paul Kline have attributed to Ricœur the view that psychoanalysis either cannot or should not be evaluated in terms of experimental evidence. In The Experimental Study of Freudian Theories (1973), Eysenck and Wilson described Freud and Philosophy as a good example of a defense of psychoanalysis against the claim that it should be so evaluated. They argued that Ricœur espoused a form of "extreme subjectivism" which implies that psychoanalytic theories cannot be tested empirically or shown to be mistaken. They suggested that Freud would have rejected Ricœur's conclusions, that few psychologists or psychoanalysts would accept them, and that if they were to be accepted, this would further undermine psychoanalysis. Kline wrote in Fact and Fantasy in Freudian Theory (1981) that Ricœur might be correct that psychoanalysis cannot be dealt with through experiments based on quantifiable evidence, but argued that if he is, this shows that psychoanalytic theory is not scientific.

The psychologists Paul Vitz and Malcolm Macmillan have both praised Ricœur's discussion of Freud's theories about the development of the ego. In Freud Evaluated (1997), Macmillan credited Ricœur with recognizing 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. He endorsed Ricœur's criticism of the concept of sublimation and his questioning of the idea that identification has an oral origin.

Ricœur's hermeneutic approach to psychoanalysis has been discussed by historians such as Peter Gay and Roger Smith. Gay described Freud and Philosophy as a "highly disciplined study", albeit one he disagreed with, in Freud: A Life for Our Time (1988). In The Norton History of the Human Sciences (1997), Smith praised Ricœur's approach. Freud and Philosophy has been praised by the psychoanalysts Joel Kovel and Joel Whitebook. In History and Spirit (1991), Kovel described the book as an important demonstration that Freud was a post-Hegelian thinker, though he noted that Freud would have rejected any association with Hegel. Whitebook argued in Freud: An Intellectual Biography (2017) that Freud and Philosophy was "unsurpassed" and disproved the view that clinical experience is necessary for understanding psychoanalytic theory.

See also

• Philosophical essays on Freud

References

Bibliography

Books

• Abramson, Jeffrey B. (1986). Liberation and Its Limits: The Moral and Political Thought of Freud. Boston: Beacon Press. ISBN 0-8070-2913-0. {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)
• Bien, Joseph; Audi, Robert, Editor (2017). The Cambridge Dictionary of Philosophy. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. ISBN 978-1-107-64379-6. {{cite book}}: |first2= has generic name (help); Invalid |ref=harv (help)CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)
• Crews, Frederick (1999). Unauthorized Freud: Doubters Confront a Legend. New York: Penguin Books. ISBN 0-14-028017-0. {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)
• Davis, Murray S. (1985). Smut: Erotic Reality/Obscene Ideology. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. ISBN 0-226-13792-9. {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)
• De Sousa, Ronald (1995). The Rationality of Emotion. Cambridge, Massachusetts: MIT Press. ISBN 0-262-54057-6. {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)
• Dufresne, Todd (2000). Tales From the Freudian Crypt: The Death Drive in Text and Context. Stanford, California: Stanford University Press. ISBN 0-8047-3885-8. {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)
• Dufresne, Todd; Freud, Sigmund (2011). Beyond the Pleasure Principle. Toronto: Broadview Editions. ISBN 978-1-55111-994-6. {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)
• Eysenck, Hans J.; Wilson, Glenn D. (1976). The Experimental Study of Freudian Theories. London: Methuen & Co Ltd. ISBN 0 416 70470 0. {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)
• Felski, Rita (2015). The Limits of Critique. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. ISBN 978-0226293981. {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)
• Gay, Peter (1995). Freud: A Life for Our Time. Harmondsworth: Papermac. ISBN 0-333-48638-2. {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)
• Genosko, Gary (2002). Félix Guattari: An Aberrant Introduction. London: Continuum. ISBN 0-8264-6034-8. {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)
• Grünbaum, Adolf (1985). The Foundations of Psychoanaylsis: A Philosophical Critique. Berkeley: University of California Press. ISBN 0-520-05017-7. {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)
• Grünbaum, Adolf (1993). Validation in the Clinical Theory of Psychoanalysis: A Study in the Philosophy of Psychoanalysis. Madison, Connecticut: International Universities Press. ISBN 0-8236-6722-7. {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)
• Holt, Robert R. (1989). Freud Reappraised: a fresh look at psychoanalytic theory. New York: Guilford Press. ISBN 0-89862-387-1. {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)
• Ihde, Don; Ricœur, Paul (1980). Hermeneutic Phenomenology: The Philosophy of Paul Ricœur. Evanston: Northwestern University Press. ISBN 978-0810106116. {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)
• Kearney, Richard; Kemp, T. Peter, Editor; Rasmussen, David (1989). The Narrative Path: The Later Works of Paul Riceour. Cambridge, Massachusetts: MIT Press. ISBN 0-262-61060-4. {{cite book}}: |first2= has generic name (help); Invalid |ref=harv (help)CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)
• Kellner, Douglas (1984). Herbert Marcuse and the Crisis of Marxism. London: Macmillan. ISBN 0-333-36830-4. {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)
• Kermode, Frank (1989). An Appetite for Poetry: Essays in Literary Interpretation. London: William Collins Sons & Co. ISBN 0-00-215388-2. {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)
• Kline, Paul (1995). Fact and Fantasy in Freudian Theory. Second Edition. London: Routledge. ISBN 0-415-13651-2. {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)
• Kovel, Joel (1991). History and Spirit: An Inquiry into the Philosophy of Liberation. Boston: Beacon Press. ISBN 0-8070-2916-5. {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)
• Lear, Jonathan (1992). Love and its Place in Nature: A Philosophical Interpretation of Freudian Psychoanalysis. London: Faber and Faber. ISBN 0-571-16641-5. {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)
• Macmillan, Malcolm (1997). Freud Evaluated: The Completed Arc. Cambridge, Massachusetts: MIT Press. ISBN 0-262-63171-7. {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)
• Michel, Johann (2015). Ricoeur and the Post-Structuralists: Bourdieu, Derrida, Deleuze, Foucault, Castoriadis. London and New York: Rowman & Littlefield. ISBN 978-1-78348-095-1. {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)
• Murphy, Timothy F.; DeCecco, John P., Editor; Shively, Michael G., Editor (1985). Origins of Sexuality and Homosexuality. New York: Harrington Park Press. ISBN 0-918393-00-0. {{cite book}}: |first2= has generic name (help); Invalid |ref=harv (help)CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)
• Reagan, Charles E. (1998). Paul Ricoeur: His Life and His Work. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. ISBN 978-0226706030. {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)
• Ricœur, Paul (1970). Freud and Philosophy: An Essay on Interpretation. New Haven: Yale University Press. ISBN 0-300-02189-5. {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)
• Ricœur, Paul; Thompson, John B. (1981). Hermeneutics and the Human Sciences: Essays on language, action and interpretation. New York: Cambridge University Press. ISBN 0 521 28002 8. {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)
• Robinson, Paul (1993). Freud and His Critics. Berkeley: University of California Press. ISBN 0-520-08029-7. {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)
• Roudinesco, Elisabeth (1997). Jacques Lacan. New York: Polity Press. ISBN 0-7456-1523-6. {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)
• Roudinesco, Elisabeth (1990). Jacques Lacan & Co: A History of Psychoanalysis in France, 1925—1985. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. ISBN 0-226-72997-4. {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)
• Smith, Roger (1997). The Norton History of the Human Sciences. New York: W. W. Norton & Company. ISBN 0-393-31733-1. {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)
• Thompson, John B.; Ricœur, Paul (1981). Hermeneutics and the Human Sciences: Essays on language, action and interpretation. New York: Cambridge University Press. ISBN 0 521 28002 8. {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)
• Vansina, Frans; Kemp, T. Peter, Editor; Rasmussen, David (1989). The Narrative Path: The Later Works of Paul Riceour. Cambridge, Massachusetts: MIT Press. ISBN 0-262-61060-4. {{cite book}}: |first2= has generic name (help); Invalid |ref=harv (help)CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)
• Vitz, Paul C. (1988). Sigmund Freud's Christian Unconscious. New York: Guilford Press. ISBN 0-89862-673-0. {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)
• Waite, Geoff (1996). Nietzsche's Corps/e: Aesthetics, Politics, Prophecy, or, the Spectacular Technoculture of Everyday Life. Durham, North Carolina: Duke University Press Books. ISBN 978-0822317197. {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)
• Whitebook, Joel (2017). Freud: An Intellectual Biography. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. ISBN 978-0521864183. {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)

Journals

• Adams, William (1986). "Review: Politics and the Archeology of Meaning: A Review Essay". Western Political Quarterly. 39 (3). {{cite journal}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)
• Bedford, Gary (1978). "Freud and Hermeneutics: Notes on the Overdetermination of Meaning in the Psyche". Journal of the American Academy of Religion. 46 (3). doi:10.1093/jaarel/XLVI.3.267. {{cite journal}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)
• Bernstein, Richard J. (2013). "Ricœur's Freud". Études Ricœuriennes / Ricœur Studies. 4 (1). doi:10.5195/errs.2013.163. {{cite journal}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)
• Bingaman, Kirk A. (1999). "Teach Your Students Well: The Seminary and a Hermeneutics of Suspicion". Pastoral Psychology. 48 (2). {{cite journal}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)  – via EBSCO's Academic Search Complete (subscription required)
• Boer, Roland (2005). "Paul Ricoeur, 1913–2005". Radical Philosophy. 133. {{cite journal}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)
• Browning, Don (1991). "Love and its place in nature (Book Review)". The Christian Century. 108 (March 20, 1991). {{cite journal}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)  – via EBSCO's Academic Search Complete (subscription required)
• Busacchi, Vinicio (2016). "Lacan's Epistemic Role in Ricœur's Re-Reading of Freud". Études Ricœuriennes / Ricœur Studies. 7 (1). doi:10.5195/errs.2016.352. {{cite journal}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)
• Chessick, R. D. (1988). "Prolegomena to the study of Paul Ricoeur's Freud and philosophy". The Psychoanalytic Review. 75 (2). {{cite journal}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)
• Gargiulo, Gerald J. (1971). "A modern dialogue with Freud". The Psychoanalytic Review. 58 (2). {{cite journal}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)
• Grolnick, Simon A. (1972). "Book reviews: Freud and Philosophy". The Psychoanalytic Quarterly. 41 (3). doi:10.1080/21674086.1972.11926607. {{cite journal}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)
• Hems, John M. (1971). "Reviewed Work: Freud and Philosophy by Paul Ricoeur". Philosophy and Phenomenological Research. 32 (1). doi:10.2307/2105909. {{cite journal}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)
• Ihde, Don (1972). "Freud and Philosophy: An Essay on Interpretation". International Philosophical Quarterly. 12 (1). doi:10.5840/ipq197212123. {{cite journal}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)
• Kearney, Richard (2009). "Returning to God after God: Levinas, Derrida, Ricoeur". Research in Phenomenology. 39 (2). doi:10.1163/156916409X448157. {{cite journal}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)  – via EBSCO's Academic Search Complete (subscription required)
• Knapp, Peter H. (1971). "Book reviews: Freud and Philosophy". The American Journal of Psychiatry. 127 (7). doi:10.1176/ajp.127.7.978. {{cite journal}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)
• Lacour, Philippe (2016). "Adolf Grünbaum critique de Ricœur". Études Ricœuriennes / Ricœur Studies. 7 (1). doi:10.5195/errs.2016.341. {{cite journal}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)
• Lowe, Walter James (1978). "Freud and Philosophy: An Essay on Interpretation; Theology after Freud: An Interpretive Inquiry; Generative Man: Psychoanalytic Perspectives". Religious Studies Review. 4 (4). {{cite journal}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)
• Lowe, Walter James (1981). "The Coherence of Paul Ricoeur". The Journal of Religion. 61 (4). {{cite journal}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)
• Reagan, Charles (2005). "In Memoriam: Paul Ricoeur (1913-2005)". The Review of Metaphysics. 59 (1). {{cite journal}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)  – via EBSCO's Academic Search Complete (subscription required)
• Reider, Norman (1972). "Paul Ricoeur. Freud and philosophy: An essay on interpretation. (Translated by Denis Savage), New Haven: Yale University Press, 1970. Pp. 571. $15.00". Journal of the History of the Behavioral Sciences. 8 (1). {{cite journal}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)
• Slater, Eliot (1972). "Freud: A Philosophical Assessment". British Journal of Psychiatry. 120 (557). doi:10.1192/bjp.120.557.455. {{cite journal}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)
• Slaughter, John W. (1972). "Freud & Philosophy: An Essay on Interpretation by Paul Ricoeur, Denis Savage". International Journal for Philosophy of Religion. 3 (1). {{cite journal}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)
• Stack, George J. (1973). ""Freud and Philosophy," by Paul Ricoeur". The Modern Schoolman. 50 (3). doi:10.5840/schoolman197350336. {{cite journal}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)
• Trotter, Gregory A. (2016). "The Debate Between Grünbaum and Ricœur: The Hermeneutic Conception of Psychoanalysis and the Drive for Scientific Legitimacy". Études Ricœuriennes / Ricœur Studies. 7 (1). doi:10.5195/errs.2016.340. {{cite journal}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)
• Vaage, Leif E. (2007). "Learning to Read the Bible with Desire: Teaching the Eros of Exegesis in the Theological Classroom". Teaching Theology & Religion. 10 (2). {{cite journal}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)  – via EBSCO's Academic Search Complete (subscription required)
• Vivas, Eliseo (1971). "Paul Ricoeur, Freud and Philosophy: An Essay on Interpretation". Journal of Value Inquiry. 5 (4). {{cite journal}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)

Online articles

• Rée, Jonathan (May 23, 2005). "Paul Ricoeur: Radical Christian philosopher struggling with the dilemmas of existence". The Guardian. Retrieved 23 February 2019. {{cite web}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)

External links

• Gerald J. Gargiulo's review of Freud and Philosophy