NOTES INTRODUCTION 1 Herzog (1988) attributes the source of the myth of Freud as anti-philosopher to his biographers Witte1s (1931) and Jones (1955). 2 For example, Freud (1873-1939: 375) wrote in 1927 to Werner Achelis, a psychologist who had written a philosophical essay on dreaming, that What I have to say about your argument will not surprise you, as you seem to be fa­ miliar with my attitude towards philosophy (metaphysics). Other defects in my na­ ture have certainly distressed me and made me feel humble; with metaphysics it is different - I not only have no talent for it but no respect for it, either. In secret - one cannot say such things aloud - I believe that one day metaphysics will be condemned as a nuisance, as an abuse of thinking, as a survival from the period of the religious weltanschauung. I know well to what extent this way of thinking estranges me from German cultural life. Given Freud's scientism, hostility to metaphysics and his materialism, it is swprising 1hat he seems to have been unaware of the Vienna Circle. According to Neider (1977), cited in Bouveresse (1995), a number of the Wiener Kreis philosophers had come to Vienna for the purpose of being psychoanalyzed, and Camap, for one, was in analysis for twenty years. We know 1hat there were links between the Vienna Psychoanalytic Society and the Vienna Circle, and that members of the Circle worked on the refonnulation of psychoanalytic theory along logical positivist lines, and that both Camap and Neurath spoke well of it (Schlipp, 1963; Frank. 1959). Furthennore, a considerable number of the Viennese analysts, including Heinz Hartmann, maintained contact with the Circle (Frank. 1959). Freud analysed Margaret Ston­ borough-Wittgenstein, a sister of Ludwig Wittgenstein, and presented her with a copy of the deluxe edition of 'The future of an illusion' on his flight from Vienna in 1938 (Leupold­ LOwenthal & Lohner, 1975; McGuiness, 1981). There is a letter from Freud to Klara Wittgen­ stein in the Freud Museum, London. 3 It is not generally known that, whilst at university, Freud and some of his friends pro­ duced a philosophical journal. Freud mentions the contents of only one issue of this journal in his correspondence with his Rumanian friend Eduard Silberstein. This letter, quoted in Chapter One of the present work, mentions that the young Sigmund Freud contributed an article criticising an article by his Friend Lipiner on the teleological ar­ gument for the existence of God. Freud's philosophical activities during these years are alluded to in the 'revolutionary dream' ('Count Thun') recounted in 'The interpretation of dreams' (1900). McGrath (1986) makes some interesting comments about the events to which the dream may allude. Accord- 180 NOTES ing to Hel7.Og (1988), Freud was dissuaded from pursuing a career in philosophy because he lacked confidence in his own abilities; (but see note 2 above). 4 Mach was also a friend of Freud's mentor and collaborator Josef Breuer. Freud men­ tions Mach in a letter to Fliess on 12 June 1900 (Freud, 1887-1904:417) and in a 1912 letter to JosefPopper-Lynkeus (Freud, 1873-1939:321). 5 Freud was opposed both to those philosophers (such as Brentano, James and Wundt) who denied the existence of unconscious mental events, and the representatives of naturphilosophie who advanced a mystical conception of the unconscious (Herzog, 1988). 6 There was, nonetheless some support for psychoanalysis from within the philosophical community during Freud's lifetime. Two examples are Hugo Friedman a German phi­ losopher who publicly defended Freud's view of the unconscious (Decker, 1977) and Israel Levine, a British philosopher who is discussed in the present work. 7 Compare this with Freud's comment, made in response to Tausk's presentation on the theory of knowledge at the Vienna Psychoanalytic Society on 24 November 1909, that It would be interesting to find out whether a philosophic study [of a question] would yield more than a mere translation into a language difficult to understand, or whether one could perhaps expect a further simplification and the achievement of clear results (Nunberg&Fedem, 1962-75, Vol. 2: 335). 8 In 1933 Rabbi Judah Magnes, Chancellor of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, wrote to Freud conceming the creation of a chair. Freud replied that: The view that it is premature to create a chair for psycho-analysis so long as none for psychology exists invites a discussion of the relationship between the two sciences. My opinion is as follows: psycho-analysis is also psychology in the sense that it is a science of the unconscious psychic processes, whereas what is taught as academic psychology is confined to dealing with conscious phenomena. There need be no contradiction between the two; psycho-analysis could be presented as an introduction to psychology; in reality, however, the contradiction is produced by the fact that the academic circles don't want to have anything to do with psycho-analysis (Freud, 1873-1939: 414). 9 Chessick (1980) misleadingly characterizes Freud's metaphysics as in the tradition of Leibniz and the Continental rationalists. See also (Freud, 1923a: 253; (1926a: 96) and his remarks in the letter to Max Eitingon cited in Jones (1957:140). 10 This seems to echo Brentano's 'Vera modus philosophiae non alia nisi scientae natu­ ralis': 'The true method of philosophy is none other than that of natural sciences') (Hay­ nal,1994). 11 Glymour (1991:144) puts this nicely: 'A big part of contemporary cognitive science,' he writes, 'is pretty much what you would expect if Sigmund Freud had had a com­ puter.' NOTES 181 CHAPTER ONE 1 Years later Freud's path crossed that of Brentano again: Brentano's sister-in-law, Anna von Leiben, was Freud's hysterical patient 'Caecelie M' described in the Studies on Hysteria (Haynal, 1994). 2 Freud's first contact with Herbart's ideas seems to have been through a work by Lind­ ner (1858) which was part of his Gymnasium curriculum. Later, at the University of Vienna, Freud's professor of psychiatry, Theodor Meynert, was of a Herbartian persua­ sion (Ellenberger, 1970). Wilhelm Wundt castigated Freud as a Herbartian (Decker, 1977). 3 Brentano regarded Hegel, Fichte and Schelling as 'the extreme limit of degeneration' (Gilson, 1966: 69). 4 Freud is referring here to rival accounts of the nature of light, a piece of information that he presumably picked up in his course on physiological optics. Freud purchased Helmholz's (1867) book on physiological optics while still a student and retained it until the end of his life (Davies & Fichtner, forthcoming). It was in this book that Helmholz discussed his theory of unconscious inference in visual perception. sit is unlikely that Freud's methodological dualism can be attributed to Brentano' s influ­ ence. Although the latter was an articulate exponent of methodological dualism, this approach seems to have been commonplace amongst psychologists and neuroscientists of the late nineteenth century (Sulloway, 1979). CHAPTER1WO 1 In addition to writiers mentioned elsewhere in the present text, the influence philoso­ pher Wilhelm Jerusalem deserves mention. For a discussion of Jerusalem's impact on Freud see Kaltenbeck (1985) and Geeardyn (1997). I am indebted to Saul Haimovitch for calling my attention to Jerusalem. 2 Kanzer (1981) speculates that a letter of 22 September 1896 refers obliquely to Lipps. The relevant passage is: But I am not in the least in disagreement with you, and have no desire at all to leave psychology hanging in the air with no organic basis. But, beyond a feeling of con­ viction [that there must be such a basis], I have nothing, either theoretical or thera­ peutic, to work on, and so I must behave as if I were confronted by psychological factors only. I have no idea yet why I cannot fit it together (Freud, cited in Kanzer, 1981: 395). The books in question are Grundtatsachen des Seelenlebens (1883), Psychologische Studien (1885), Astheische Faktoren der Romanschauung (1891), Der Streit iiber die Tragodie (1891, inscribed 2 October 1891), Grunddige der Logik (1893), Raumiiestheik und geometrisch-optische Tiiuschungen (1897, inscribed 6 October, 1897), Komik und 182 NOTES Humor (1898), Das Selbstbewusstsein; Empfindung und Gefii,hl (1901), Vom Fiihlen, Wollen und Denken (1902) and Einheiten und Relatvonen (1902). Freud also read at least one of Lipps' papers 'Der Begriff des Unbewussten in der Psychologie' (1897) which he cites in 'The interpretation of dreams' (1900) and 'Jokes and their relation to the unconscious' (1905). CHAPfER THREE 1 Andersson (1962). 2 Silverstein (1985,1989). 3 Sohns and Saling (1986,1990), Sulloway (1979), Leupold-LOwenthal (1998). 4 Amacher (1965), Natsoulas (1974), Solomon (1974a). 5 Flanagan (1984) describes him as having moved from a type identity theory to a token identity theory. Wallace (1992) regards Freud as a materialist - a dual-aspect monist or token identity theorist (with type identity theoretic leanings in 1895) from 1888 until the end of his life. 6 Mackay (1989) seems to argue that Freud moved from psychophysical parallelism to the identity theory at some point between 1895 and 1900, Flanagan (1984) and Wallace (1992) attribute to Freud shifting materialist commitments. Holt (1974) believes Freud's stance was inconsistent. 7 Freud purchased a copy of Locke's Essay in 1883. 8 For example, Jackson (1887) stated that Those who believe in the doctrine of concomitance do not believe that sensations, volitions, ideas and emotions produce movements or any other physical states. These expressions imply disbelief in the doctrine of conservation of energy; movements al­ ways arise from liberations of energy in the outer world, and it would be marvelous if there were an exception in our brains (86).