Freud and Philosophy - Paul Ricœur
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Freud and Philosophy (1970) is a seminal work by renowned French philosopher Paul Ricœur. It offers a profound re-examination of Sigmund Freud's psychoanalytic theory, positioning it not as mere clinical psychology, but as a crucial development in the philosophy of interpretation.
Whereas René Descartes practiced radical doubt and took refuge in the cogito, later thinkers cast doubt over the will. These "masters of suspicion" (identified as Freud, Nietzsche, and Marx) allege hidden ulterior motives (desire, resentment, and economic interest, respectively) that falsify and stigmatize intuitive self-understanding.
Ricœur contrasts their "hermeneutics of suspicion" with a "hermeneutics of faith" (ala Biblical exegesis and Hegelian idealism) which, rather than leading to disillusionment, is generative of sacred insight. But he doesn't simply pit the two methodologies against each other. Instead, he seeks to bridge the divide between manifestation and meaning through a post-critical "second naiveté" that embraces symbol, language, and human nature at its fullest.
For this meetup, we will read Book 1 of Freud and Philosophy.
Freud and Philosophy:
Supplemental:
- The Masters of Suspicion lecture by Rick Roderick
- Partially Examined Life podcast
Extracts:
- "All visible objects, man, are but as pasteboard masks. But in each event—in the living act, the undoubted deed—there, some unknown but still reasoning thing puts forth the mouldings of its features from behind the unreasoning mask. If man will strike, strike through the mask! How can the prisoner reach outside except by thrusting through the wall? .... I see in him outrageous strength, with an inscrutable malice sinewing it. That inscrutable thing is chiefly what I hate" (Moby-Dick, 36)
- "Doubts of all things earthly, and intuitions of some things heavenly; this combination makes neither believer nor infidel, but makes a man who regards them both with equal eye." (Moby-Dick, 85)
This meetup is part of the series Circuses and Snake Oil.