Paul Ricoeur, Freud and Philosophy
Ricoeur, Paul. Freud and Philosophy: An Essay on Interpretation. Trans. Denis Savage. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1970 (1965).
Whew! It's an admirable book, painstaking in its appreciation and critique of Freud and ascetic in its rejection of glib generalities; these same qualities also made it intermittently hard going for someone like me who am not much of a Freudian. I got the most out of the introduction and conclusion, which put Freud first next to Marx and Nietzsche, then with and against Hegel, and end up sketching a project for a combined phenomenology and hermeneutics. Meanwhile, the middle 400 pages are all about taking Freud on his own terms. And those terms - you know, I really respond to him with a unique combination of fascination in broad strokes and monumental indifference in matters of detail. I can only take the feces-penis-money-mother complex so far.
Whew! It's an admirable book, painstaking in its appreciation and critique of Freud and ascetic in its rejection of glib generalities; these same qualities also made it intermittently hard going for someone like me who am not much of a Freudian. I got the most out of the introduction and conclusion, which put Freud first next to Marx and Nietzsche, then with and against Hegel, and end up sketching a project for a combined phenomenology and hermeneutics. Meanwhile, the middle 400 pages are all about taking Freud on his own terms. And those terms - you know, I really respond to him with a unique combination of fascination in broad strokes and monumental indifference in matters of detail. I can only take the feces-penis-money-mother complex so far.
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