Sigmund Freud
Much of what drives us is unconscious – hidden wishes and conflicts shape our behaviour, dreams and slips without our knowing.
Placement
Founder of psychoanalysis: the ego is not master in its own house.
Key ideas
- The unconscious
- Id, ego, superego
- Interpretation of dreams
Teachers: Franz Brentano
Influence
Influenced by 4
Arthur Schopenhauer
influenced by
Freud granted that Schopenhauer had anticipated repression (1914) and said his death drive had steered into ‘the harbour of Schopenhauer’s philosophy’ (Jenseits des Lustprinzips, 1920). S. Freud, “Zur Geschichte der psychoanalytischen Bewegung” (1914); Jenseits des Lustprinzips (1920); SEP “Arthur Schopenhauer”
Evidence: also in InPhO · InPhO
Arthur Schopenhauer › 1788–1860
Charles Darwin
influenced by
Freud took Darwin’s primal horde as a premise of Totem und Tabu (1912–13) and called his theory of descent the ‘biological’ blow to human self-love (1917). S. Freud, Totem und Tabu (1912–13); “Eine Schwierigkeit der Psychoanalyse” (1917); C. Darwin, The Descent of Man (1871); F. J. Sulloway, Freud, Biologist of the Mind (1979)
Evidence: AI draft
Charles Darwin › 1809–1882
Franz Brentano studied with
studied with ✓
As a medical student Freud attended five of Brentano’s lecture courses and seminars in Vienna (1874–76), the only philosophy he studied; his letters to Eduard Silberstein report personal visits to Brentano. S. Freud, Jugendbriefe an Eduard Silberstein 1871–1881, ed. W. Boehlich (1989); P. Merlan, “Brentano and Freud”, Journal of the History of Ideas 6 (1945)
Evidence: also in Wikidata · Wikidata
Franz Brentano › 1838–1917
Friedrich Nietzsche
influenced by disputed
Direct influence is disputed: Freud said he avoided Nietzsche, whose guesses agreed with psychoanalysis, yet took ‘das Es’ via Groddeck from Nietzsche (The Ego and the Id, 1923). S. Freud, Das Ich und das Es (1923); Selbstdarstellung (1925); R. Lehrer, Nietzsche’s Presence in Freud’s Life and Thought (1995)
Evidence: also in InPhO · InPhO
Friedrich Nietzsche › 1844–1900
Influenced 20
Jacques Lacan
influenced ✓
Lacan called for a return to Freud and reread condensation and displacement as metaphor and metonymy, the unconscious being structured like a language (‘L’instance de la lettre’, 1957). J. Lacan, “La chose freudienne” (1955); “L’instance de la lettre dans l’inconscient ou la raison depuis Freud” (1957), both in Écrits (1966); SEP “Jacques Lacan”
Jacques Lacan › 1901–1981
Theodor W. Adorno
influenced
Adorno used Freud’s Group Psychology and the Analysis of the Ego (1921) to explain the appeal of fascist agitators (‘Freudian Theory and the Pattern of Fascist Propaganda’, 1951). T. W. Adorno, “Freudian Theory and the Pattern of Fascist Propaganda” (1951); S. Freud, Massenpsychologie und Ich-Analyse (1921); SEP “Theodor W. Adorno”
Evidence: also in InPhO · InPhO
Theodor W. Adorno › 1903–1969
Claude Lévi-Strauss
influenced
Lévi-Strauss compared the shaman’s cure with psychoanalysis: both make a disorder thinkable through a symbolic structure the patient lives through (‘L’efficacité symbolique’, 1949). C. Lévi-Strauss, “L’efficacité symbolique”, Revue de l’histoire des religions (1949), in Anthropologie structurale (1958); Tristes tropiques (1955)
Evidence: also in InPhO · InPhO
Claude Lévi-Strauss › 1908–2009
Jürgen Habermas
influenced ✓
In Knowledge and Human Interests (1968) Habermas took psychoanalysis as the model of a self-reflective science guided by an emancipatory interest, criticising Freud’s own scientistic self-misunderstanding. J. Habermas, Erkenntnis und Interesse (1968); SEP “Jürgen Habermas”
Evidence: also in Wikidata · Wikidata
Jürgen Habermas › 1929–2026
Jacques Derrida
influenced ✓
In ‘Freud et la scène de l’écriture’ (1966) Derrida read Freud’s mystic writing-pad (1925) as a model of the psyche as writing and trace. J. Derrida, “Freud et la scène de l’écriture” (1966), in L’écriture et la différence (1967); La carte postale (1980); S. Freud, “Notiz über den Wunderblock” (1925); SEP “Jacques Derrida”
Jacques Derrida › 1930–2004
Judith Butler
influenced
Butler drew on Freud’s ‘Mourning and Melancholia’ and The Ego and the Id to read gender identity as melancholic incorporation of an ungrieved same-sex attachment (Gender Trouble, 1990). J. Butler, Gender Trouble (1990); The Psychic Life of Power (1997); S. Freud, “Trauer und Melancholie” (1917); Das Ich und das Es (1923)
Evidence: also in InPhO · InPhO
Judith Butler › b. 1956
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Lou Andreas-Salomé
influenced ✓
After meeting Freud at the Weimar congress of 1911 she spent a study year in Vienna in 1912 and practised psychoanalysis afterwards, thanking him in an open letter in 1931. NDB “Andreas-Salomé, Lou” (E. Heimpel, NDB 1, 1953; read)
Evidence: also in Wikidata · Wikidata
Lou Andreas-Salomé › 1861–1937
Norbert Elias
influenced
Elias drew on Freud’s account of drive control and the superego to show how external constraints become self-constraint in the civilising process (Über den Prozess der Zivilisation, 1939). N. Elias, Über den Prozess der Zivilisation (1939); S. Mennell, Norbert Elias: Civilization and the Human Self-Image (1989)
Evidence: AI draft
Norbert Elias › 1897–1990
Herbert Marcuse
influenced
In Eros and Civilization (1955) Marcuse historicised Freud’s reality principle as the ‘performance principle’ of capitalist society and distinguished necessary from ‘surplus repression’. H. Marcuse, Eros and Civilization: A Philosophical Inquiry into Freud (1955); SEP “Herbert Marcuse”
Evidence: also in InPhO · InPhO
Herbert Marcuse › 1898–1979
Talcott Parsons
influenced
Parsons used Freud’s superego to explain how cultural values are internalised in socialisation, linking personality to the social system (‘The Superego and the Theory of Social Systems’, 1952). T. Parsons, “The Superego and the Theory of Social Systems”, Psychiatry 15 (1952), in Social Structure and Personality (1964)
Evidence: AI draft
Talcott Parsons › 1902–1979
Paul Ricœur
influenced
In De l’interprétation (1965) Ricœur read Freud’s psychoanalysis as a hermeneutics of suspicion that deciphers desire in symbols, combining an energetics of drives with interpretation. P. Ricœur, De l’interprétation. Essai sur Freud (1965); SEP “Paul Ricoeur”
Evidence: AI draft
Paul Ricœur › 1913–2005
Cornelius Castoriadis
influenced
Castoriadis read Freud’s psyche as radical imagination, a ceaseless flow of representations that society must socialise (The Imaginary Institution of Society, 1975). C. Castoriadis, L’institution imaginaire de la société (1975)
Evidence: also in InPhO · InPhO
Cornelius Castoriadis › 1922–1997
Jean-François Lyotard
influenced
Lyotard took Freud’s dream-work as a model of the figural that disrupts discourse (Discours, figure, 1971) and his economics of libido for Économie libidinale (1974). J.-F. Lyotard, Discours, figure (1971); Économie libidinale (1974); Dérive à partir de Marx et Freud (1973); SEP “Jean François Lyotard”
Evidence: also in InPhO · InPhO
Jean-François Lyotard › 1924–1998
Zygmunt Bauman
influenced
Bauman reversed Freud’s Civilization and Its Discontents: where Freud saw happiness traded for security, postmodern discontents come from freedom bought with insecurity (Postmodernity and Its Discontents, 1997). Z. Bauman, Postmodernity and Its Discontents (1997), introduction; S. Freud, Das Unbehagen in der Kultur (1930)
Evidence: AI draft
Zygmunt Bauman › 1925–2017
Frantz Fanon
influenced
The introduction to Black Skin, White Masks (1952) starts from Freud, who against the constitutional psychiatry of his time took the individual’s history into account; beside phylogeny and ontogeny Fanon set sociogeny – the alienation of the colonised is not an individual question. F. Fanon, Peau noire, masques blancs (1952), introduction
Evidence: AI draft
Frantz Fanon › 1925–1961
Lélia Gonzalez
influenced
Gonzalez took her ‘epistemological support’ from Freud’s psychoanalysis, reading racism as the symptom of a Brazilian ‘cultural neurosis’ that denies itself (‘Racismo e sexismo na cultura brasileira’, 1980/1984). L. Gonzalez, “Racismo e sexismo na cultura brasileira” (lecture, ANPOCS 1980), Ciências Sociais Hoje 2 (1984)
Evidence: AI draft
Lélia Gonzalez › 1935–1994
Ashis Nandy
influenced
Nandy, trained as a clinical psychologist, used psychoanalysis in his studies of colonialism and examined its Indian reception in The Savage Freud (1995). A. Nandy, The Intimate Enemy (1983); The Savage Freud and Other Essays on Possible and Retrievable Selves (1995)
Evidence: AI draft
Ashis Nandy › b. 1937
Julia Kristeva
influenced ✓
Kristeva grounded her distinction between the semiotic and the symbolic in Freud’s theory of the drives (La révolution du langage poétique, 1974) and practised as a psychoanalyst. J. Kristeva, La révolution du langage poétique (1974); Pouvoirs de l’horreur (1980)
Evidence: also in Wikidata · Wikidata
Julia Kristeva › b. 1941
Slavoj Žižek
influenced ✓
Žižek read Marx’s commodity form like Freud’s dream, whose secret lies in the dream-work, not the latent content (The Sublime Object of Ideology, 1989). S. Žižek, The Sublime Object of Ideology (1989); S. Freud, Die Traumdeutung (1900)
Slavoj Žižek › b. 1949
Eva Illouz
influenced
Illouz traced therapeutic culture from Freud’s lectures at Clark University (1909), through which psychoanalysis offered a new language of the self (Saving the Modern Soul, 2008). E. Illouz, Saving the Modern Soul: Therapy, Emotions, and the Culture of Self-Help (2008); S. Freud, Über Psychoanalyse (Clark lectures, 1909, printed 1910)
Evidence: AI draft
Eva Illouz › b. 1961
Criticism
Criticized by 13
C. G. Jung influenced
influenced
Jung applied Freud’s theory of repression to psychosis (Über die Psychologie der Dementia praecox, 1907) and in 1910 became first president of the International Psychoanalytical Association. C. G. Jung, Über die Psychologie der Dementia praecox (1907); W. McGuire (ed.), The Freud/Jung Letters (1974)
Evidence: AI draft
criticised by
Jung rejected Freud’s view of libido as essentially sexual, reading it as general psychic energy – a difference that led to their break (Wandlungen und Symbole der Libido). C. G. Jung, Wandlungen und Symbole der Libido (1911–12); The Freud/Jung Letters, ed. W. McGuire, 1974
Evidence: AI draft
C. G. Jung › 1875–1961
Erich Fromm influenced
influenced ✓
In ‘Über Methode und Aufgabe einer analytischen Sozialpsychologie’ (1932) Fromm joined Freud’s psychoanalysis to historical materialism, tracing shared drive structures to a society’s economy. E. Fromm, “Über Methode und Aufgabe einer analytischen Sozialpsychologie”, Zeitschrift für Sozialforschung 1 (1932); Escape from Freedom (1941)
Evidence: also in Wikidata · Wikidata
criticised by
Fromm rejected Freud’s libido theory as mechanistic and bound to bourgeois society, explaining character from social relations rather than drives (Escape from Freedom, 1941, appendix). E. Fromm, Escape from Freedom (1941), appendix “Character and the Social Process”; Greatness and Limitations of Freud’s Thought (1979)
Evidence: AI draft
Erich Fromm › 1900–1980
Karl Popper
criticised by
Popper argued that psychoanalysis can interpret any behaviour in its own terms; its constant confirmations show that it cannot be tested (Conjectures and Refutations, 1963, ch. 1). K. Popper, Conjectures and Refutations (1963), ch. 1 “Science: Conjectures and Refutations”
Evidence: AI draft
Karl Popper › 1902–1994
Jean-Paul Sartre
criticised by
Sartre argued that Freud’s censor, to repress a drive, must know it, so the unconscious only relocates bad faith; he proposed an existential psychoanalysis (Being and Nothingness, 1943). J.-P. Sartre, L’Être et le néant (1943), Part I, ch. 2.1; Part IV, ch. 2.1; SEP “Jean-Paul Sartre”
Evidence: AI draft
Jean-Paul Sartre › 1905–1980
Michel Foucault
criticised by
In The Will to Knowledge (1976) Foucault challenged the ‘repressive hypothesis’ and placed Freudian psychoanalysis within the long history of confession that produces truths about sex. M. Foucault, Histoire de la sexualité I: La volonté de savoir (1976), parts II–III; SEP “Michel Foucault”
Evidence: AI draft
Michel Foucault › 1926–1984
Luce Irigaray influenced
influenced
A trained psychoanalyst, Irigaray read the philosophical tradition as Freud reads symptoms, for what it represses of the feminine (Speculum de l’autre femme, 1974). L. Irigaray, Speculum de l’autre femme (1974); Ce sexe qui n’en est pas un (1977); M. Whitford, Luce Irigaray: Philosophy in the Feminine (1991)
Evidence: AI draft
criticised by
Irigaray objected that Freud’s lecture on femininity takes male sexuality as the norm and describes woman only as lack (Speculum of the Other Woman, 1974, part I). L. Irigaray, Speculum de l’autre femme (1974), part I “La tache aveugle d’un vieux rêve de symétrie”; S. Freud, “Die Weiblichkeit” (Neue Folge der Vorlesungen, 1933)
Evidence: AI draft
Luce Irigaray › b. 1930
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Bronisław Malinowski
criticised by
Malinowski argued from Trobriand fieldwork that Freud’s Oedipus complex is not universal: in a matrilineal society hostility targets the mother’s brother (Sex and Repression in Savage Society, 1927). B. Malinowski, Sex and Repression in Savage Society (1927); E. Jones, “Mother-Right and the Sexual Ignorance of Savages” (1925)
Evidence: AI draft
Bronisław Malinowski › 1884–1942
Simone de Beauvoir
criticised by
Beauvoir objected that Freud modelled female sexuality on the male and that penis envy reflects men’s social privilege, not anatomy (The Second Sex, 1949). S. de Beauvoir, Le Deuxième Sexe (1949), vol. I, Part I, ch. 2; SEP “Simone de Beauvoir”
Evidence: AI draft
Simone de Beauvoir › 1908–1986
Gilles Deleuze
criticised by
With Guattari, Deleuze attacked Freudian psychoanalysis for confining desire to the Oedipal family triangle and conceiving it as lack rather than production (Anti-Oedipus, 1972). G. Deleuze & F. Guattari, L’Anti-Œdipe. Capitalisme et schizophrénie (1972), ch. 2; SEP “Gilles Deleuze”
Evidence: AI draft
Gilles Deleuze › 1925–1995
Carla Lonzi
criticised by
Lonzi rejected Freud’s norm of the mature vaginal orgasm as a patriarchal construction tying female pleasure to male sexuality (La donna clitoridea e la donna vaginale, 1971). C. Lonzi, La donna clitoridea e la donna vaginale (Scritti di Rivolta Femminile, 1971)
Evidence: AI draft
Carla Lonzi › 1931–1982
Carol Gilligan
criticised by
Gilligan criticised Freud for taking male development as the norm and reading women’s supposedly weaker sense of justice as a deficit (In a Different Voice, 1982). C. Gilligan, In a Different Voice (1982), ch. 1; S. Freud, “Some Psychical Consequences of the Anatomical Distinction between the Sexes” (1925)
Evidence: AI draft
Carol Gilligan › b. 1936
Fatima Mernissi
criticised by
Mernissi set Freud’s theory of a passive female sexuality against al-Ghazali’s theory of an active one, treating both as culturally bound (Beyond the Veil, 1975). F. Mernissi, Beyond the Veil: Male–Female Dynamics in a Modern Muslim Society, 1975
Evidence: AI draft
Fatima Mernissi › 1940–2015
Carole Pateman
criticised by
Pateman read Freud’s primal horde (Totem and Taboo, 1913) as a social contract story that conceals the brothers’ prior sexual pact over women (The Sexual Contract, 1988). C. Pateman, The Sexual Contract (1988); S. Freud, Totem und Tabu (1913), part IV
Evidence: AI draft
Carole Pateman › b. 1940
Criticizes 1
Edvard Westermarck
criticised
Freud rejected Westermarck’s view that growing up together breeds sexual aversion: if incest were naturally avoided, it would need no strict prohibition (Totem und Tabu, 1913, ch. 4). S. Freud, Totem und Tabu (1913), ch. IV; E. Westermarck, The History of Human Marriage, 1891
Evidence: AI draft
Edvard Westermarck › 1862–1939
Works
A dream is the fulfillment of a repressed wish.
Civilization rests on the renunciation of instinct – and produces guilt.
Position
Freud argued that much of our mental life is unconscious: wishes and memories we have repressed still shape our dreams, slips of the tongue and symptoms. Dreams are the disguised fulfilment of such wishes and the “royal road” to the unconscious. Later he divided the psyche into the id (drives), the ego (mediating reality) and the superego (internalised conscience). Civilisation, he concluded, demands the renunciation of drives and therefore produces discontent. With this he offered a third great blow to human self-love after Copernicus and Darwin: the ego is not master in its own house. His ideas shaped literature, critical theory and the modern understanding of the self.
Life & context
Born in 1856 in Freiberg in Moravia, Freud grew up in Vienna, trained as a physician and neurologist, and studied hysteria with Charcot in Paris. Together with Josef Breuer he developed the “talking cure”, from which psychoanalysis emerged. He worked in Vienna for almost half a century; after the Nazi annexation of Austria he emigrated to London in 1938 and died there in 1939.
Further main works
- Studies on Hysteria (1895, with Josef Breuer)
- Three Essays on the Theory of Sexuality (1905)
- The Ego and the Id (1923)
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