Analytic Freud: Philosophy and Psychoanalysis

333 Pages·1999·1.12 MB·English

by  Michael Levine

THE ANALYTIC FREUD

‘Escaping the sterile debates over the “scientific” status of his work,
this collection demonstrates the fertility of Freud’s thought in several
key topics in the philosophy of mind and moral philosophy’.
John Cottingham, University of Reading

This is a timely and stimulating collection of essays on the importance of Freudian
thought for analytic philosophy, investigating its impact on mind, ethics, sexuality,
religion and epistemology.
Marking a clear departure from the long-standing debate over whether Freudian
thought is scientific or not, The Analytic Freud expands the framework of
philosophical inquiry, demonstrating how fertile and mutually enriching the
relationship between philosophy and psychoanalysis can be.
The chapters are divided into four clear sections, addressing the implications
of Freud for the philosophy of mind, ethics, sexuality and civilization. The
contributors discuss the problems psychoanalysis poses for contemporary
philosophy as well as what philosophy can learn from Freud’s legacy and
undeniable influence. For instance, The Analytic Freud discusses the problems
presented by psychoanalytic theories of the mind for the philosophy of language;
the issues which current theories of mind and meaning raise for psychoanalytic
accounts of emotion, metaphor, the will and self-deception; the question whether
psychoanalytic theory is essential in understanding sexuality, love, humour as
well as the tensions which arise out of personal relationships.

The Analytic Freud is a critical and thorough examination of Freudian and
post-Freudian theory, adding a welcome and significant dimension to the debate
between psychoanalysis and contemporary philosophy.
Michael P.Levine is Professor of Philosophy at the University of Western Australia.
He is the author of Hume and the Problem of Miracles and Pantheism: A Non-
Theistic Conception of Deity.

THE ANALYTIC FREUD

Philosophy and psychoanalysis
Edited by
Michael P.Levine

London and New York
First published 2000
by Routledge
11 New Fetter Lane, London EC4P 4EE

Simultaneously published in the USA and Canada
by Routledge
29 West 35th Street, New York, NY 10001

Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group
This edition published in the Taylor & Francis e-Library, 2002.

© 2000 Michael P.Levine for selection and editorial matter; the contributors for individual
chapters

The editor and publishers would like to thank all individuals and organizations for permission to
reproduce material. We have made every effort to contact and acknowledge copyright holders, but
if errors have been made we would be happy to correct them at a later printing.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or
by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including
photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without
permission in writing from the publishers.

British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data
The analytic Freud: philosophy and psychoanalysis/edited by Michael Levine.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 0-415-18039-2 (hb: alk. paper). —ISBN 0-415-18040-6 (pbk.: alk. paper)
1. Freud, Sigmund, 1856–1939. 2. Psychoanalysis and philosophy.
I. Levine, Michael P. (Michael Philip)
BF109.F74A84 1999
150.19’52–dc21 99–24182
CIP

ISBN 0-415-18039-2 (hbk)
ISBN 0-415-18040-6 (pbk)
ISBN 0-203-00648-8 Master e-book ISBN
ISBN 0-203-20047-0 (Glassbook Format)
When there are so many we shall have to mourn,
When grief has been made so public, and exposed
To the critique of a whole epoch
The frailty of our conscience and anguish,
Of whom shall we speak? For every day they die
Among us, those who were doing us some good,
And knew it was never enough but
Hoped to improve a little by living.
W.H.Auden, In Memory of Sigmund Freud,
d. September 1939

CONTENTS

Contributors ix
Acknowledgements xii
Introduction: how right does psychoanalysis have to be? 1
MICHAEL P.LEVINE
PART I
Mind 9
1 Psychoanalysis, metaphor and the concept of mind 11
JIM HOPKINS
2 How far down does the will go? 36
GRAEME MARSHALL
3 Freudian wish-fulfilment and sub-intentional explanation 49
TAMAS PATAKI
4 Keeping time: Freud on the temporality of mind 85
MARCIA CAVELL

5 Subject, object, world: some reflections on the Kleinian
origins of the mind 101
DAVID SNELLING
6 Freud’s Theory of Consciousness 119
PAUL REDDING
vii
CONTENTS
PART II
Ethics 133
7 Aristotelian akrasia, weakness of will and psychoanalytic
regression 135
MICHAEL STOCKER with ELIZABETH HEGEMAN
8 Emotional agents 154
NANCY SHERMAN
9 Moral authenticity and the unconscious 177
GRANT GILLETT
PART III
Sexuality 193
10 Freud on unconscious affects, mourning and the erotic mind 195
AMÉLIE OKSENBERG RORTY
11 Love and loss in Freud’s Mourning and Melancholia:
a rereading 211
JENNIFER RADDEN
12 Lucky in love: love and emotion 231
MICHAEL P.LEVINE
PART IV
Civilization 259
13 Sublimation, love and creativity 261
MARGUERITE LA CAZE

14 Freud and the rule of law: from Totem and Taboo to
psychoanalytic jurisprudence 277
JOSÉ BRUNNER
15 The joke, the ‘as if’ and the statement 294
EDMOND WRIGHT
Author Index 312
Subject Index 316
viii
CONTRIBUTORS

José Brunner is Senior Lecturer at the Buchmann Faculty of Law and the
Cohn Institute of the History and Philosophy of Science and Ideas, Tel Aviv
University. He is the author of numerous publications on the history and
politics of psychoanalysis and contemporary political theory. His Freud and
the Politics of Psychoanalysis was published by Blackwell in 1995.
Marcia Cavell is Visiting Associate Professor in the Department of Philosophy
at the University of California, Berkeley. She was formerly a Research
Candidate at the Columbia Psychoanalytic Institute for Training and Research
in New York City, and is now a Candidate in Training at the San Francisco
Psychoanalytic Institute. She is the author of The Psychoanalytic Mind: From
Freud to Philosophy (Harvard 1993), and of numerous articles on
psychoanalysis and the philosophy of mind.
Grant Gillett is Professor of Medical Ethics at the University of Otago and a
practising neurosurgeon. He is a founding editor of the journal Philosophy,
Psychiatry and Psychology and author of Representation, Meaning and
Thought (Oxford University Press); Reasonable Care (Bristol University
Press); and recently The Mind and its Discontents (Oxford University Press).
He is co-author of The Discursive Mind (Sage) and Medical Ethics (Oxford
University Press).

Elizabeth Hegeman is a Professor of Anthropology at John Jay College,
CUNY, and a practising psychoanalyst. Her writings focus on trauma, memory
and dissociation, and cross-cultural issues in psychoanalysis.
Jim Hopkins is Reader in Philosophy at King’s College, London, and an
Editor of Mind. His publications on psychoanalysis include work in
Philosophical Essays on Freud (Cambridge University Press), co-edited with
Richard Wollheim, and Psychoanalysis, Mind, and Art: Perspectives on
Richard Wollheim (Blackwell) co-edited with Anthony Savile.
ix