1

SOME REFLECTIONS ON THE RELATIONSHIP

BETWEEN FREUDIAN PSYCHO-ANALYSIS
AND HUSSERLIAN PHENOMENOLOGY'
Esben
Hougaard
This
paper
is an
attempt
to thematize some
aspects
of the rela-
tionship
between
psycho-analysis
and
phenomenology.
Such
thematization is in the first
place justified
from the status the two
theories
occupy
in modern
psychology.
Freud and Husserl should
be considered
among
the chief sources of
inspiration
for 20th cen-
tury psychology.
The
significance
of Freud is obvious and
hardly
needs much
comment,
his work still
making
out the core of
modern
psycho-analysis
and
being
a cornerstone of academic
per-
sonality psychology.
The influence of Husserl on modem
psychology perhaps
is less evident. In a historical
perspective
Husserl should be
placed
in the circle of
theoreticians,
who
op-
posed
classical mechanistic and elementaristic
psychology.
Originally,
Husserl won his fame
among psychologists
with his
"Logical Investigations"
from
1900/1901,
which
played
a
major
part
in
making
the word
"phenomenology"
fashionable in Euro-
pean psychology
after the turn of the
century. According
to
Spiegelberg (1972)
Husserlian
phenomenology
functioned
foremost as a
general
source of
inspiration
and
philosophical
legitimation
for the "new
psychology"
in its revolt
against
associa-
tionistic
psychology.
The influence was
general
and diffuse and
2
no direct
application
of the Husserlian
principles
were drawn to
psychology. Pleading
the Husserlian motto "zu den Sachen selbst"
direct
psychological description
was called
upon
in
competition
with constructive
explanations
of classical
psychology.
In such a
general way
Husserlian
phenomenology
can be seen as a source of
inspiration
for
psychological
traditions like Gestalt
psychology,
organismic psychology
and existential
psychology,
all in
important
ways being
forerunners of the modem version of humanistic
psychology,
which as a "third force" made its entrance in the
psychological
arena besides the two other
major
forces,
psycho-
analysis
and
behaviorism,
after about 1950.
Moreover,
the
significance
of Husserl for modem
psychology
is not
merely
historical. Husserl was a
thorough-going
thinker,
especially
keen
on
methodological problems
and
many
of his detailed
analyses
of
cognitive phenomena
could still be of central
importance
for
psychology today.
The
attempt
to treat the
relationship
between
psycho-analysis
and
phenomenology, secondly,
could be
legitimized
from
general
theoretical considerations. In the scientific era of
logical
positivism
both
psycho-analysis
and
phenomenology
have been
the
target
of criticism from dominant circles inside academic
psychology, charging
the two movements for not
being "really
scientific."
Following
the criticism of
positivism, especially
in con-
tinental
philosophy,
and the
attempts
to work out a
"hermeneutic-dialectic"
paradigm (Radnitzky, 1968)
as an alter-
native frame of
understanding
for
psychology
and the social
sciences,
both
psycho-analysis
and
phemomenology
seem to call
for a
re-evaluation,
and the
relationship
between the two cor-
respondingly
a re-consideration. The hermeneutic-dialectic
paradigm,
which has
especially
been worked out
by
hermeneutical
phenomenology
and the so-called Frankfurter
School of social
science,
should be considered a
necessary
background
for the
following comparative study, making up
its
meta-theoretical
platform.
I shall not in the
present
connection
dwell
upon
an
explication
of this
paradigm,
but
only
refer to
works,
which have been of central
importance
for its
develop-
ment ;
e.g.,
Ricoeur
(1965),
Habermas
(1968),
Lorenzer
(1970),
Apel (1971).
The
relationship
between
psycho-analysis
and
phenomenology
is a
complex
one. It is
possible
to consider it from
different
points
of
view,
just
as
psycho-analysis
and
3
phenomenology
each have been the
subject
of
divergent,
mutual-
ly competing interpretations.
In the
following comparative study
I have tried in a triad of
expositions,
three
"themat1Jations",
to
show how it is
possible by accentuating
different sides of the two
theoretical
projects
to come to different conclusions
regarding
their mutual interrelations. The sum total of these three
thematisations,
I
hope,
should
provide
a
complex
and nuanced
frame of reference for the
interpretation
of the
relationship
be-
tween
psycho-analysis
and
phenomenology, escaping
the nar-
rowminded
rejection
of the one at
expense
of the
other,
but also
skipping
the
easy
solution to the
problem interpreting
the two
theories as harmonious
partners,
both
attempting
to
decipher
the
human existence in
fundamentally
the same
way. Psychoanalysis
and
phenomenology
are neither
mutually contraditory,
nor are
they just trying
to state the same conclusions in different
languages. Psycho-analysis
and
phenomenology
both
disagree
and
agree
in what should turn out to be a rather
complicated
manner.
* * * * *
Psycho-analysis
and
phenomenology
were founded as scien-
tific
disciplines
in
Germany
about the turn of the
century.
In both
cases one could talk of achievements
fundamentally being
the
work of a
single
man,
respectively
Freud
(1856-1939)
and Husserl
(1859-1938).
Moreover,
the
persons
in
question
were not
actually
psychologists
from the start of their career.
Freud,
who
practical-
ly
alone conceived the new scientific method and
psychological
theory
called
psycho-analysis,
was
qualified
as a
physician
with a
background partly consisting
in
physiological laboratory
work,
partly
in
psychiatric training
and
experiences
from his
private
praxis
as a nerve
specialist.
Husserl,
who could claim
copyright
for the notion
"phenomenology"
in the modern sense of the word
with almost as
good
reason as could Freud for the notion
"psycho-
analysis,"
was a mathematician and
philosopher.
These two cen-
tral
figures
not
only
in
psychology,
but in modern cultural life as
a
whole,
had as
persons
much in common.
Both,
as
mentioned,
came late to
psychology.
Freud
primarily
in an
attempt
to under-
stand the neurotic cases
emerging
in his
praxis.
Husserl from a
philosophical
interest to reach a fundamental
understanding
of
the nature of consciousness. Both were scientists inside the classic
4
German tradition with a firm belief in the scientific
method,
a
belief which is reflected in Freud's demand on
psychology,
that it
should be a natural
science,
and in Husserl's characterisation of
his own
philosophical project
as an
attempt
to make
philosophy
a
"rigorous
science." Both were bred inside the German univer-
sity system
with its
emphasis
on the
master-pupil
relation,
something clearly
seen in their relations to their own followers. In
spite
of the master's
authority
in such a relation both Freud and
Husserl met with
early
dissidents.
Interestingly
from the
present point
of view both Freud and
Husserl
frequented
Brentano's lectures on
philosophy
and
psychology
at the
university
of Vienna. Freud as
early
as
1874-76,
Husserl ten
years
later,
1884-86. While the influence of Brentano
on Husserl is
evident,
and Husserl himself mentions Brentano as
his
teacher,
the influence of Brentano on Freud is more difficult
to demonstrate. This in
spite
of the
fact,
that the lectures of Bren-
tano were the
only philosophical
lessons Freud received in his
study,
and that Freud
perhaps
had some
personal
contact with
Brentano at that time
(Merlan,
1945,
1949).
Brentano is Husserl's
teacher,
but not
directly
Freud's. The
scientific
self-understanding
of Freud seems to be borrowed from
the
very
mechanistic and
positivistic
movement of nineteenth cen-
tury
science,
which Husserl criticized
extensively. Apparently
this
contact with the forerunner of
phenomenological psychology
does
not
guarantee
a common basis for a
co-interpretation
of
psycho-
analysis
and
phenomenology.
On the
contrary,
from a
superficial
consideration there does not seem much
ground
for such co-
interpretation.
Freud and Husserl themselves never
sought
a con-
frontation. This of course is
partly
due to the two scientists' oc-
cupation
with the task of
grounding
their new scientific
disciplines,
none of them
being
interested in scientific
pole-
mics,
but it also reflects marked
discrepancies
in their scientific
self-understanding,
which at a first
glance
it
hardly
seems
possi-
ble to
bridge.
It is
especially
the
phenomenologists
of the French
language,
who have contributed to a
clearing
of the
relationship
between
psycho-analysis
and
phenomenology.
Sartre,
Merleau-Ponty,
De
Waelhens and foremost
Ricoeur,
whose
great interpretation
of
Freud,
"De
l'Interpretation, Essay
sur
Freud,"
have been an
essential source and
inspiration
for this
comparative study,
all
thoroughly
have dealt with
psycho-analysis.
While
Husserl,
in
5
Freud,
would
apparently, primarily
see an
example
of a
naturalistic
misconception
of
consciousness,
Merleau-Ponty
(1969, p. II)
is
generously reckoning
Freud
among
the
phenomenologists.
The
problem
of an
interpretation
of the
relationship
between
psycho-analysis
and
phenomenology
is
complicated by
the fact
that both movements can be seen to involve a rather
imprecise
content.
Already
at Freud's time new
psycho-analytic
schools
were founded
by Jung,
Adler, Rank,
Reich and
others,
which on
essential
topics disagreed
with Freud's
original
doctrines.
Perhaps
phenomenology
is in an even worse
position.
A
good many
resear-
chers with a rather loose attachment to Husserl's
thoughts
have
used the notion
"phenomenology"
to indicate their
system
of
thought
or
psychological
method. Even
among
the direct
pupils
of Husserl considerable
divergencies
of
opinion
are
seen,
and it is
perhaps
no
grave exaggeration
to
claim,
that
only
one Husserlian
phenomenologist
has
existed,
Husserl himselfl This state of affairs
I think is a reason for much confusion
concerning
the
relationship
between the so-called "first" and "third force" in
psychology,
that
is,
psycho- analysis
and
humanistic/ phenomenological psychology,
in modem discussions of the
problems.
It should therefore be
preferable
to
keep
in close contact with the founders of the
respective
movements,
Freud and
Husserl,
in order to
escape
in-
surmountable
difficulties,
establishing
the
conceptual
content of
the movements.
But even in Freud and Husserl the content of the theories is
not
clearly
outlined. Also in the
interpretation
of Freud and
Husserl we should meet with difficulties. It is still not
easy
to find
out what Freud and Husserl
"really" taught.
Is for
example
psycho-analysis
an
understanding discipline
inside the moral
sciences,
or rather an
explanative
natural science? The discussion
has been
going
on since the
early
debate between
Jaspers
and
Hartmann in the
twenties,
and there has still not been reached a
conclusion
generally agreed upon. Correspondingly,
an influen-
tial discussion inside the
phenomenological
circle has concerned
the
problem
of whether the
phenomenological philosophy
in
Husserl
implied
an idealistic
worldview,
or whether Husserl's late
thoughts concerning
the "Lebenswelt" was an
expression
of a
break with his idealistic
point
of
departure going beyond
both
idealist and realism. These and related
problems
are not
easily
overcome,
but
necessarily require
an
interpretation.
It holds
good
6
for Freud as it does for
Husserl,
that
every re-reading
is a re-
interpretation.
* * * * *
The
following attempt
to
interpret
the
relationship
between
psycho-analysis
and
phenomenology
is centered around three suc-
cessive
points
of
view,
each of which is made the
point
of
depar-
ture for a
special
thematisation.
Every
new thematisation should
be seen as a further
development
and
re-interpretation compared
to the former.
Accordingly
the three sections should not be con-
sidered three
separate points
of view
serially replacing
each other.
More
aptly they
are seen as a "dialectical
unity"
where the con-
tradictions between the first and the second thematisation are
"lifted
up" ("aufgehoben")
in the
synthesis
of the third thematisa-
tion.
I: In the first thematisation the basis for the
exposition
is
Freud's and Husserl's views of the
psyche
as
respectively
"psychical apparatus"
and "intentional
consciousness,"
as
a
"machine
which in a moment would run of
itself,"
and
as consciousness
"constituting" meaning
in its "lived
world." These
notions,
which
play a
central role in the
respective
theories,
are the basis for the first confronta-
tion of
psycho-analysis
and
phenomenology.
The result of
this first confrontation leaves little
hope
to establish a
fruitful
co-interpretation.
The
relationship
between
psycho-analysis
and
phenomenology
seems to reflect that
great controversy"
in relation to the old
question
in
psychology
of
subjectivism,
idealism,
and rationalism on
the one
hand,
and
objectivism,
materialism,
and
positivism
on the other.
II: A
rapprochement
between
psycho-analysis
and
phenomenology
demands a
change
on both
sides,
taking
into consideration their mutual criticism.
Psycho-analytic
criticism of
phenomenology
is that it attaches too much
weight
to man's conscious
selfunderstanding
in accor-
dance with an untenable idealistic tradition. Pheno-
menological
criticism of
psycho-analysis
is that it reduces
the
meaning
of conscious life to a
passive
result of
an
unconsciously passing
mechanical
causality.
Both
7
forms of criticism must to a certain extent be
recognized
as
legitimate
in order to
provide
for a
meeting.
The
possibility
of such a
meeting
is on the one hand
implicitly
present
in Freudian
psychology,
which contains a fun-
damental
ambiguity
often called attention to. While
Freud in his theoretical
writings continually speaks
of the
absolute determinism of the
psychic,
his clinical works
more often seem to deal
with a
deep interpretation
of the
implicit meaning
of the
pathological phenomena.
The
Freudian
sentence,
"the
symptom
has a
meaning,"
has
often
been
quoted
in this connection. - On the other
hand,
ideas are
implied
in Husserl's late doctrine of the
anonymous
constitution of the lived world
independent
of
the active intentions of
consciousness,
which makes a
break with idealistic
philosophy plausible
if not
required.
It is
especially Merleau-Ponty
who has drawn attention to
the fruitfulness of such
re-interpretation
of
phenomenology away
from "transcendental idealism."
The second
phase
of the
interpretation
deals with this
rapprochement
made
possible by cutting
off the
mechanistic
parts
of
psycho-analysis
and
freeing
phenomenology
from its idealistic
ingredients.
This
second thematisation of the
relationship
I have termed an
"encounter." between
psycho-analysis
s and
phenomenology,
and it
appears
to
provide
for a
happy
marriage
between the two.
III: And
yet
more detailed reflections should show the
connection to have been too
superficial.
It is
especially
Ricoeur's
epoche-making interpretation
of
Freud,
which
has
brought
this to
light.
Ricoeur has followed the few
hints of the late
Merleau-Ponty, according
to which it
should be
necessary
to read Freud as a
classic,
that
is,
one
should
try
to
empathize
into the total
vocabulary
of the
works without too
hasty attempts
to criticize or re-
formulate. We have to take Freud on his word. Freud's
rough,
mechanistic
metaphors
have to be taken
seriously,
because
psycho-analysis through
these,
escapes any
idealistic distortion of its discoveries. The Freudian "un-
conscious" is not identical with these hidden dimensions
of
meaning phenomenology
is
explicating. Psycho-
8
analysis
and
phenomenology
are not
identical,
Freudian
psychology
is not to be dissolved into some sort of "ex-
istential
psycho-analysis."
Rather we should conclude
with Ricoeur that
psycho-analysis
and
phenomenology
are
implying
each
other,
at the same time
making up
each others'
limitations,
the
relationship having
to be
likened to that of a dialectic. This third thematisation
should be "the last word" in the
interpretation
of the rela-
tionship
between
psycho-analysis
s and
phenomenology- at
least in the
present
connection. The
relationship
between
psycho-analysis
s and
phenomenology,
as that between two hermeneutical
disciplines, might
well turn
up
to call for an
ongoing
dialogue
rather than a final clarification.
* * * * *
The three
phases
in the
interpretation
can be seen
historically
to reflect a
development
inside the
phenomenological
movement,
each
phase corresponding
to a new
generation
of
pheno-
menologists :
the first
phase
to the mature
Husserl,
the second
to
Merleau-Ponty
and the third to Ricoeur. Yet such historical
perspective
is not central to the
presentation,
its
purpose
being primarily
a thematic one. I believe the threefold thema-
tisation of the
relationship
between
psycho-analysis
and
pheno-
menology
with its
succeeding
results:
duality, identity,
dialectics,
is of salient
importance
for the central
problem
in
psychology,
that of the
subject-object
relation. The
subject-matter
of
psychology
is man himself. Is man not
essentially
conscious,
free,
and able himself to define his values and choose his
purposes?
And if
so,
how is it
possible
for the
psychologist, being
only
a human
being
himself,
to
study
human
beings
with
objec-
tive methods? This
problem-"the anthropological
dilemma" of
psychology
(Strasser, 1963)-should
be illuminated
by
the con-
frontation of
psycho-analysis
and
phenomenology,
and in this
way
the
study
intends to contribute to a fruitful self-
understanding
of
psychology.
Methodically
this
study
should be termed a hermeneutical
analysis.
What is concerned is an
interpretation
of
psycho-
analysis
and
phenomenology, especially
with basis in the texts of
Freud and Husserl. The mode of
exposition
is
going
to be il-
9
lustrative rather than
argumentative, attaching
more
weight
to
the
unfolding
of some central themes of the
respective
theoretical
movements than to a
thoroughgoing
discussion of detail
prob-
lems in the confrontation. The
paper
intends to show some-
thing, following
the
phenomenological
rule to let the
things
appear
in themselves.
Partly
as a
consequence
of this method of
exposition
the reader
might
find
many
loose ends in the
text,
detailed
problems brought up
without
being
discussed at
length.
It should be
possible,
I
think,
to use the
general
scheme of inter-
pretation
of the
global relationship
between
psycho-analysis
and
phenomenology,
to
explore
the
relationship
between the
respec-
tive
approaches
of Freud and Husserl with
regard
to selected
topics.
With
regard
to the level of
analysis
it should be
noted,
that
the
study
is
taking place
on a
highly
abstract level. It is an at-
tempt
to
explicate
the
general
meta-theoretical frame of
understanding,
which is
implied
in the
theories;
that
is,
to
bring
forth the view of man and the scientific
self-understanding
behind the two
psychological projects.
Thus I shall not
attempt
to
deal with the
many
concrete
problems
on the
empirical
level,
which are
facing
the two scientific
disciplines.
FIRST THEMATISATION: THE GREAT CONTROVERSY
Husserl: "Bewusstsein
(...) Quelle
aller Vernunft und
Unvernunft,
alles Rechtes und
Unrechtes,
aller Realitat
und
Fiktion,
alles Wertes und
Unwertes,
aller Tat und
Untat."
(1913, p. 213)
Freud: "In der
Masse,
als wir uns zu einer
metapsy-
chologischen Betrachtung
des Seelenleben durchdrin-
gen
wollen,
miissen wir
lemen,
uns von der
Bedeutung
des
Symptoms
'Bewusstheit' zu
emanzipieren." (1915a, p.
291)
.
The first
stage
in this
comparative study
of Freud and Husserl
seeks
primarily
to
bring
out the
discrepancies
as
clearly
as
possi-
ble. The confrontation shall
try
to
show,
how on the one hand it is
possible
to read Husserl's
phenomenology
as
implying
a
psychology attaching importance
to consciousness and self-
reflection,
looking
inside the immanent
sphere
of
pure
con-
10
sciousness ;
on the
other,
to read Freud's
psycho-analysis
as a
psychology reducing
the role of consciousness in
psychology,
be-
ing
left with a mechanical model of the
psyche
as a machine ruled
by
laws of nature. I shall
try
to arrive at this
interpretation by
first
mentioning
a central
point
of Freudian
metapsychology,
the con-
struction of the
"psychical apparatus;"
next
by providing
a short
account of Husserl's doctrine of the
"intentionality"
of con-
sciousness. These two notions have a central
place
in relation to
the
respective
theories,
and could be
compared
to what Kuhn
(1962)
has termed
"paradigms."
Their
importance
for the
theories as a whole seems to make them a convenient
point
of
departure
for this first thematisation of the
relationship
between
psycho-analysis
and
phenomenology.
The tentative conclusion
from this first thematisation is
going
to
be,
that Freudian
psychology
is materialistic and
mechanistic,
while Husserlian
phenomenology
is a variant of rationalistic and idealistic
philosophy,
the two
approaches
to
psychology
thus
being
con-
nected with
opposite poles
in relation to the dilemma of Cartesian
dualism. This
interpretation might
well seem to be an over-
simplification,
which is in fact what I
hope
to
prove
in the next
section of the
juxtaposition:
thus,
neither is Freudian
psychology
limited to the doctrine of the
"psychical apparatus;"
nor is
Husserl's
teachings
to be reduced to classical idealistic
philosophy.
Yet I shall
try temporarily
to
suppress
these
complica-
tions,
attempting
at first to
provide
a
simple, preliminary
frame
of reference for the
comparison.
Freud's
"Psychical Apparatus"
It has often been
pointed
out,
that Freud's
psychology
is
mechanistic,
or with Husserl's favourite terms naturalistic or ob-
jectivistic. Many
of the
psycho-analytic
models or
metaphors
have
been taken from the
physical
sciences. From classical mechanics:
the view of the
psychical
as a
system
of
interacting
forces. From
thermodynamics:
the
"principle
of
inertia,"
which
might
be com-
pared
to its second
law,
the law of
entropy.
Also the first law of
thermodynamics (the
law of the
constancy
of
energy)
is
represented, namely implicitly
in the so-called "economic" view-
point, according
to which it is
possible
"to arrive at least at some
relative estimate" of the
quantity
of
psychic energy
used for dif-
ferent
purposes (Freud,
1915b,
p. 181).
From
hydraulics:
the
11
view of the
psyche
as a
system
of
pipes through
which
energy
is
floating
like a fluid
(cf. Colby, 1955).
From
electrodynamics:
thus
the
"quota
of affect" was likened to "an electric
charge spread
over the surface of a
body" (Freud,
1894,
p. 60).
The mechanistic trend in
psycho-analysis
is most
pro-
nounced in Freud's
general
theoretical
statements,
the so-called
"metapsychology, "2
where it is
given
a condensed
expression
in
the notion of the "mental" or
"psychical apparatus.
"
The
import-
ance of this notion for Freudian
psychology might
be seen from
Freud's own
pronouncement
at a solemn occasion when he was
nearly seventy: "My
life has been aimed at one
goal only:
to infer
or to
guess
how the mental
apparatus
is constructed and what
forces
interplay
and counteract in it."
(Jones,
1954,
p. 49)
With the doctrine of the
"psychical apparatus"
Freud
sup-
ported
a mechanic materialistic
ontology expressing
the view that
the
psyche
could be
explained
like a machine
admitting
the
general
laws of motion.
Indeed,
what Freud defined as a
metapsychological presentation including
the
topographical,
the
economic and the
dynamic points
of view
might
be seen as an at-
tempt
to answer the three
questions
essential to the
study
of
any
machine: how is it built? what makes it run? what function does it
serve?
(Stewart,
1967,
p. 182)
Freud's most detailed and
systematic exposition
of the
psychical apparatus
is to be found in a
posthumously published
sketch for a
neurological psychology,
which Freud sent to his close
friend in the
nineties,
Wilhelm
Fliess,
on October
8th,
1895.
Freud did not
give
his work
any
title,
but in a letter from
April
27th the same
year,
he
speaks
of his
pre-occupation
with his
"psychology
for
neurologists."
When it was first
published
in 1950
in an edition of letters to Fliess called "Aus den
Anfangen
der
Psychoanalyse,"
it
got
the rather neutral title "Entwurf einer
Psychologie,"
which in later
English
translations became
"Project
for a scientific
psychology" (henceforth
referred to as the "Pro-
ject").
Freud's
''psychology for neurologists"
The
"Project"
is Freud's first
attempt
to conceive a
general
psychology.
In this
attempt
Freud has
kept
near the
supposed
neurological
correlate to the
psychic using
the
newly
obtained
knowledge
of the neurone as the unit of the central nervous
12
system. Identifying
the
psychological
with the
neurological,
and
viewing
the nervous
system
as a material
apparatus
characterized
by
mass and
energy supply,
Freud
hoped
to make
psychology
a
natural science:
"The intention is to furnish a
psychology
that shall be a
natural science: that
is,
to
represent psychical processes
as
quantitatively
determinate states of
specifiable
material
particles,
thus
making
those
processes perspicuous
and
free from contradiction. Two
principal
ideas are involv-
ed :
(1)
What
distinguishes activity
from rest is to be
regarded
as
subject
to the
general
laws of motion.
(2)
The neurones are to be taken as material
particles."
(Freud,
1895a,
p.
295)
Concerning
the first
assumption,
the
concept "Q"
seems to be
made in
simple analogy
to the
concept
of
energy
in
physics.
The
quantity
has its source in external or internal
stimuli,
the
purpose
of the notion is to
unify
instinctual and sensuous stimuli in a
single concept.
The
quantity
is
streaming, occupies
neurones,
is
filling
or
emptying
them. One
quite naturally
thinks of a fluid
floating through pipes
or of
electricity
in a circuit. It has been
supposed (e.g., by
Pribram,
1962a)
that the
"Q"
was meant to be
electric
energy,
but this is not
supported by
Freud's own text.
3
Rather
" Q'
is a
general
abstraction like the
energy concept
of the
natural sciences.
Freud next divides the neurones in three classes with different
functions. The first class is called ?o
(phi)-neurones; they
make
out a
system
of
permeable
neurones,
which allows
energy
from
the outside world to
pass
unhindered into the second class of
neurones,
the ?
(psi)-neurones.
This class of neurones con-
stitutes most of what
might
be called the
psychical system.
The
neurones here are not
quite permeable,
but
equipped
with
"contact-barriers,"
thus loaded with resistence and
holding
back
"Q' (1895a, p. 298f).
These contact-barriers are altered
per-
.
manently by
the
passage
of an
excitation,
so that the resistance to
succeeding
excitations is lowered with a
resulting
"facilitation" of
the
passage
between the ? -neurones in
question.
This facilita-
tion
following
the
lowering
of contact- barriers is
serving
the func-
tion of
memory. Finally
the last class of
neurones,
the W
(omega)-neurones,
is
responsible
for the
quality
of
consciousness,
mostly
stimulated from the external
world,
not
by
the direct
13
transportation
of
"Q' through
w ,
but
by
what Freud
speaks
of
as "the
period
of the neuronal motion"
(ib. p. 310).
It is the
quantity "Q:'
that makes the machine
go.
The
quanti-
ty
in the
apparatus
is
striving
for absolute reduction of
tension,
towards
"level= 0,"
thus
attempting
to follow what Freud calls
the
"principle
of inertia"
(ib. p. 296-97).
This absolute reduction
is however not
possible.
Because of the continuous
production
of
energy
from the internal sources
(about
=
the
"instincts")
and the
conditions the
surroundings
are
providing
for
discharge (a
rela-
tion Freud refers to as "Not des
Leben")
the
apparatus
is
obliged
to
replace
the
principle
of inertia with the
"principle
of constan-
cy,"
that
is,
an
attempt
to
keep
the
quantity
of excitation "at least
as low as
possible."
Yet the
principle
of inertia must be seen as the
most
profound tendency
of the
apparatus,
the model
being
thus,
not as sometimes claimed a homeostatic
model,
but fundamental-
ly
a mechanic
equilibrium
model
(cf. Laplanche,
1974,
p. 166f.).
These are the few
preliminary assumptions
for the
psychical
apparatus
in Freud's
"project."
Later in the
exposition
the
machine is elaborated
further,
being
at last
very
detailed and
complicated, supposed
to account for all
psychical
functions in-
cluding "higher"
functions like
attention,
learning, judgement,
thinking
and
speech- an
elaboration which it is not
possible
to
discuss in the
present
context.
Although
the model is based
upon
speculations
deduced from
neurological theory,
it is
important
to
note,
that it is not
ultimately
a reflection of rationalistic
materialism. Rather the
apparatus
should be seen as an
attempt
to fit the clinical material Freud met with in his
early
studies of
neuroses;
a fact which is underlined
by
the French
psycho-analyst
Laplanche (1974, p. 85).
Hence even for the
perhaps
most
abstract notion of the
"project,"
the
quantitative conception "Q,"
it holds
good according
to
Freud,
that it was "derived
directly
from
pathological
clinical observation"
(1895a, p. 295).
We
might
close this short
exposition rendering
the
very precise
description
Freud himself
gives
of the
neurological apparatus
in a
letter to Fliess dated October
20th, 1895,
at a time when Freud
still seems
very
enthusiastic
concerning
his
"psychology
for
neurologists" :
"Everything
fell into
place,
the
cogs
meshed,
the
thing
really
seemed to be a machine which in a moment would
run of itself."
(Freud,
1954,
p. 129)
14
The
Significance of
the
"Project"
The
publishing
of Freud's
"Project
for a scientific
psychology"
must be considered an
outstanding
event in the
history
of
psycho-
analysis, giving opportunity
for a
clearing
of some rather confus-
ing
sides of Freudian
psychology
and
allowing
for a better
understanding
of Freud's
development
in the
nineties,
a
period
in
which Freud's
genius according
to
Jones (1954)
was at its
highest,
and where the cornerstone of
psycho-analysis
was laid down.
Without doubt the
"Project"
is Freud's most difficult
paper.
It is
very
condensed and schematic and makes
great
demands on the
reader,
having
to be
read,
as Stewart
(1967, p. 3) expresses
it,
not
only
sentence
by
sentence,
but even word
by
word.
Jones (1954, p.
420) proposed,
that the work
might supply inspiration
for a
number of
special
studies,
and
quite
a few have seen the
light
in
the last decades.' Yet it
might
be too
early
to
give
the final
evaluation of Freud's
neurological psychology.
What
place
can the
"Project"
be said to have in relation to
Freud's later
psychology? According
to
Jones (1954,
ch.
XVII)
Freud soon
gave up
his
neurological speculations
and moved into
the field of
pure psychology. Strachey
believes,
that Freud in 1895
when
writing
both the
"Project"
and,
in collaboration with
Breuer,
"Studies on
Hysteria,"
"was at a
half-way stage
in the
process
of
moving
from
physiological
to
psychological explana-
tions,"
and that his initial reluctance to
give up
the
attempt
to
describe mental events in
pure neurological
terms was due to his
early training
as a
neurologist (SE,
II,
p. XIV). According
to this
point
of
view,
the
"Project"
is
only reflecting
a transient
phase
in
the
development
of
psycho-analysis,
and is later
given up by
Freud. Freud himself seems to
verify
this.
Shortly
after his en-
thusiastic account of "the
psychology"
in letters to
Fliess,
he re-
jected
his whole line of
thought,
no
longer understanding
the
state of mind in which he had conceived it
(letter
from
29/11,
1895).5
He never mentioned the
neurological
model in his
published
works,
and in the
metapsychological chapter
of "The
Interpretation
of Dreams" he
explicitly
declared: "I shall remain
upon psychological ground" (1900, p. 536).
And
yet
one
might speculate
if Freud
really gave up
the "Pro-
ject,"
or
only
tried to rewrite in
psychological terminology,
what
originally
had been
neurological speculation (MacIntyre, 1958).
15
In the same
way
it is
possible
to
ask,
if Freud
only gave up
his
early
attempt
because of the insufficient status of
neurological
science
of that
time,
and
presume
that Freud would have behaved dif-
ferently
in the
light
of
present-day neurobiology (Pribram, 1962).
Anyway
it seems safe to conclude that the
thoughts developed
in
the
"Project"
did not come to life as chance
events,
soon to be sur-
passed by
new
insights.
On the
contrary
Freud discussed here
most of the central
topics
which he dealt with in his later scientific
career.
Jones (1954, p. 430) gives
a list of 24 central
topics
from
the
"Project"
all
except
three of which occurred
again
in Freud's
later
writings,
some of them after an interval of more than 30
years.
It is
possible
to follow the central ideas
through
such
pro-
minent works as "The
Interpretation
of Dreams"
(1900),
"The
Two
Principles
of Mental
Functioning" ( 1911 a),
the
metapsy-
chological papers
of
1915,
"Beyond
the Pleasure
Principle"
(1920a),
"The
Ego
and the Id"
(1923a),
the
"Mystic Writing-Pad"
(1925a),
and
finally
the "Outline of
Psycho-Analysis" (1940).
As
Strachey puts
it: "the
Project,
or rather its invisible
ghost,
haunts
the whole series of Freud's theoretical
writings
to the
very
end."
(SE,
I,
p. 290)
When it is
added,
that
many
of the
topics, carefully
dealt with
in the
"Project,"
never
again got
a
comparable, satisfactory
treat-
ment,
s so that the reader is
obliged
to
go
to this unofficial source
for a
thorough explanation,
the central
position
of the
"Project"
might
seem to have been established. The machine from the
"Project"
seems to have
played
the role of an
implicit
model in
Freud's later
writings,
and the reader is often
brought
to
feel,
that
Freud writes as if he
supposed,
that since he had treated the
topic
elsewhere he did not need to
go through
it once
again - even
though
this "elsewhere" was an
unpublished manuscript,
which
Freud himself had
rejected
and the
publishing
of which he later
opposed.'
Even those
topics,
which later
got
an extensive treat-
ment,
were
mostly
not dealt with in such consistent and
precise
a
way,
as was the case with the
early
machine model.
Although
sometimes less
rigorous
and
narrowly
mechanistic,
Freud's later
metapsychological
models often seem more difficult to visualize
and
correspondingly
less
stringent
and
precise.
In the
light
of the above-mentioned it
might
be no
exaggera-
tion to characterize the
"Project
for a scientific
psychology"
as
perhaps
Freud's most considerable
metapsychological paper.
Its
16
central
position
in relation to Freud's whole
psychology
should
make it a convenient
point
of
departure
for an evaluation of the
psycho-analytic project.
Evaluation: Mechanical Materialism
There can be no
doubt,
that the
system "
I.{) ,J
W" Freud ex-
posed
in the
"Project"
is a material model
subject
to mechanistic
determinism,
and that it exercised an
enduring
influence
upon
Freud's later theoretical formulations. Freud himself on several
occasions
mentioned,
what he termed a
"prejudice" concerning
the strict determinism of
psychical processes,
as a decisive factor
behind his
epoch-making
discoveries
(e.g.,
1910a,
p.
29; 1920b,
p. 264).
Freud
surely
was a scientist of the late nineteenth cen-
tury,
which meant a
strong
commitment to materialism and
determinism. The
strange impression
which the
project
is
making
upon
the modem reader is no doubt due to the distance in
time;
Freud's
contemporaries might
have been accustomed to such am-
bitious
attempts
to make a
"Himmechanik,"
which
according
to
Freud were then
frequent (1895a, 295).
There have been
many attempts
to establish the connections
between Freud and the
positivistic
and mechanistic trends in
biological
and
psychiatrical
science in
Germany
in the second half
of the last
century.
Dorer
(1932)
in an
early study, especially
underlined the influence from the Herbartian
"Vorstellungsmechanik,"
which had been a
great inspiration
for
Meynert,
Freud's teacher in
psychiatry
and one of
Germany's
foremost neuroanatomists of that time. Bernfeld in a brilliant
paper
from 1944 even comes close to
hypothesizing
the existence
of Freud's
neurological speculations, although
unknown to him at
that
time,
by examining
the theoretical section written
by
Breuer
of his and Freud's
joint
work,
"Studies on
Hysteria," pointing
out
the influence on both authors from the mechanistic
physiology
of
the Helmholtzian
school,
well known to them
through
their work
in Brucke's
laboratory. Among
later studies
might
be mentioned
Amacher's
(1965)
detailed account of ideas seen in Freud's con-
temporaries
Briicke,
Meynert
and
Exner,
which are
directly
reflected in the Freudian
"project."
Especially
the mechanistic and
physicalistic physiology
which
arose as a
strong
movement from about 1840 in
Germany,
in-
cluding
Du
Bois-Raymond, Ludwig,
Briicke and most famous
17
Helmholtz,
from whom the movement
got
its
name,
might
have
had a
very important
influence
upon
Freud. So the
young
Freud
spent
6
years
from 1876 to 1882 in the
physiological laboratory
of
Briicke
together
with the latter's two
assistants,
Fleisch-Marxow
and
Exner,
scientists who Freud later recalled as "men whom I
could
respect
and take as
my
models"
(Jones,
1954,
p. 49).
Besides the direct influence from Brucke as a
teacher,
one
might
recall,
that the
physicalistic
ideas were a
general property
of the
scientific climate at the dawn of the last
century.
The
positivistic
movement had combated
very keenly
and
successfully
the old
metaphysical
tradition with its vitalistic and romantic
ideas,
call-
ed
"Naturphilosophie",
which flourished the first decades of the
century,
and
might
now
generally
be called a victor in the scien-
tific arena. One
gets
a
very convincing impression
of the
ideological
climate from which Freud's scientific career
started,
by reading
a
passage
written
by
Du
Bois-Raymond
in
1842,
quoted by
Bernfeld in his before-mentioned article:
"Briicke and I
pledged
a solemn oath to
put
in
power
this
truth: No other forces than the common
physical
chemical ones are active within the
organism.
In those
cases which cannot at the time be
explained by
these
forces one has either to find the
specific way
or form of
their action
by
means of the
physical
mathematical
method,
or to assume new forces
equal
in
dignity
to the
chemical
physical
forces inherent in
matter,
reducible to
the forces of attraction and
repulsion." (cit.
from Bern-
feld, 1944,
p. 348)
Freud's mechanical model of the
psychic apparatus might
be
compared
to the later behavioristic
attempts
of Watson to
make
psychology
a "branch of natural science"
by eliminating any
talk about the "so-called consciousness" from its scientific enter-
prise (Watson, 1914). Although
Freud still
speaks
of con-
sciousness in the
"Project,"
he reduces it to a mere
appendage
of
some mechanical
processes
in a certain
group
of
neurones,
not
essential to the
functioning
of the
psyche.
Also,
Freud later states
the
opinion,
that consciousness is an unreliable basis for
general
psychology,
as the
opening quotation
of this section indicates: in
the
metapsychology
consciousness is to be treated like a
"symp-
tom"
(Freud,
1915b,
p. 181).
Freud's solution to the anthro-
pological
dilemma"8
might
be
seen,
as Strasser
(1963)
is view-
18
ing
Watson's scientific
project,
as a
cutting
off of the human sub-
ject
from
psychology by
a reduction of
consciousness,
thereby
be-
ing
left with man as
only object.
We
might
close this
paragraph by
simply rendering
Dorer's short conclusion: "Freud's
psycho-
analysis
is
positivistic,
materialistic,
naturalistic."
(1932, p. 179)
HUSSERL'S "INTENTIONAL CONSCIOUSNESS"
As was the case with
Freud,
Husserl was interested in
psychology
from the
beginning
of his
career,
Husserl's interest
coming
from a
philosophical
and not as did Freud's from a
medical concern. Husserl's "habilitation" thesis on the
concept
of
number which he wrote under the
guidance
of Carl
Stumpf,
was
subtitled
"psychological analyses" (Spiegelberg,
1966,
p. 92).
The
term
"psychology"
was also included in the title of Husserl's first
book,
which was
published
in 1891:
"Philosophie
der Arithmetik:
Psychologische
und
Logische Untersuchungen."
Later
psycho-
logical analyses acquired
a
prominent place
in Husserlian
phenomenology
to which Husserl laid the foundation in the
second volume of his
"Logische Untersuchungen,"
first
published
in
1901,
one
year
after the work which is often said to mark the
beginning
of
psycho-analysis,
Freud's monumental "Die
Traumdeutung."
In the
"Logical Investigations,"
the work first to
ground
Husserl's
fame,
phenomenology
was even characterized as
"descriptive psychology," although
this characterization was
changed
as rather
misleading
in the revised edition from 1913
(Spiegelberg,
1971,
p. 104).
The
descriptions
of the
"Logical
In-
vestigations"
are pure,
eidetic
analyses
and no concrete
empirical
psychology.
Instead Husserl
thought
them to be the
"necessary
foundation" for
any psychology
(1901,
II/ 1,
p. 18),
a
topic
which
is dealt with below.
Although, according
to
Husserl,
the
descriptive analyses
of
the
"Logical Investigations"
was not
empirical psychology they
are
spiritually
close to the
descriptive psychology
of that
time,
and,
on the other
hand,
sharply opposed
to the
causal-genetic,
physiological-explanative psychology
of Freud. Not
only
in this
comparison
are the two
approaches
seen to
differ;
rather one
might
describe Husserl's basic view of
psychology
as
apparently
the direct
opposite
to that of Freud. To
Husserl,
who in accor-
dance with a
longstanding
tradition defined
psychology
as the
19
study
of
consciousness,
it
certainly
would make little sense to
reduce consciousness
away
from
psychology viewing
man as a
mechanical
apparatus.
In fact Husserl from the
beginning
of his
career criticized the
positivistic
trend in the
philosophy
of science
with its materialism and
mathematization,
especially
when ex-
pressed
in
psychology
and the humanities
(e.g.,
Husserl,
1911).
Following
Kant,
Husserl
thought
it
impossible
to use the
mathematical method in relation to
consciousness,
as
impossible
as it would be to think of a mathematic which used
concepts
like
"jagged," "chipped"
and the
like,
that
is,
concepts
which are
"essentially
and not
accidentally
inexact and therefore also un-
mathematic"
(1913,
p.
170).
He also
thought
it
meaningless
to
treat consciousness as a material
thing,
an issue which will be
dealt with more
thoroughly
in the
following.
According
to
Husserl,
psychology
should withstand the
temp-
tation to follow in the
footprints
of the successful natural sciences.
Instead he
thought,
as
Dilthey
had done
before,
that
psychology
should
join
the moral sciences
("Geisteswissenschafte"),
and he
hoped
to
give
both a
rigorous
scientific basis in
phenomenology
(see esp.
Husserl,
1962).
It is
important
to notice that Husserl
when
speaking
of
making psychology,
or even
philosophy,
"a
rigorous
science" did not think of an
empirical
and
certainly
not a
natural science.9 What he had in mind was
something
similar to
aprioric
sciences like mathematics or
logic, although
he did not
mean to use
any
of these
disciplines.l
Husserl's most
profound
in-
tention
regarding psychology
was to
provide
for it a non-
naturalistic foundation in a
rigorous phenomenological descrip-
tion of consciousness. Such a
descriptive phenomenology
he
thought might play
the same role for
psychology,
as mathematics
had
played
for the natural sciences
(Husserl,
1962,
p. 49).
Cer-
tainly
neither Husserl
himself,
nor
any
of his followers could be
said to have realized this
project-as
little as Freud or his
followers have succeeded in
making psycho-analysis
a natural
science.
Yet,
Husserl's
attempt
is in
retrospect
to be
seen,
not to
have been in
vain,
but to have
brought
fruitful
insights
to
light.
The most
permanently
valuable
concept
which Husserlian
phenomenology
has
given
to
psychology might
turn out to be that
of the
"intentionality of
consciousness. "
According
to Diemer
(1956)
there is one basic
principle
behind the whole
philosophical
work of
Husserl,
namely
the
peculiar understanding
of the
relationship
between
subject
and
20
object,
which Husserl evolves under the name of
intentionality,
the clarification of which was not
only
meant to
provide
psychology
with a fruitful
self-understanding,
but
also,
and more
fundamentally,
to found a "first
philosophy."
In the
following
ex-
position
I shall
try
to read Husserl's
theory
of
intentionality
with
special
focus on its
implications
for
psychology,
not
digging
too
deeply
into Husserl's
epistemology
and
metaphysics, although
it is
impossible
here to draw a
sharp
line. Husserl never
thought
it
possible
to
separate psychology
from
philosophy,
and in the end
he concluded that
any consequent phenomenological psychology
is to flow into a
phenomenological philosophy (Husserl, 1936).
Intentionality
Husserl took over the
concept
of
intentionality
from his
teacher
Brentano,
who in his celebrated
"Psychologie
vom em-
pirischen Standpunkt"
first
published
in
1874,
had
given
the old
scholastic notion a new
philosophical dignity.
We
might
render
Brentano's famous
definition,
the first
part
of which Husserl
himself
quotes
in his
"Logical Investigations":
"Every psychic phenomenon
is characterized
by
that
which the Scholastics of the Middle
Ages
have called the
intentional
(or mental)
inexistence of an
object,
and
which
we,
in somewhat
ambiguous
terms would call the
reference to a
content,
the direction towards an
object
(which
need not be a real
thing),
or an immanent
objec-
tivity. Every (psychic phenomenon)
contains
something
as .
its
object,
but not
every psychic phenomenon
does so in
the same manner. In
presentation, something
is
presented;
in
judgement, something
is affirmed or
denied;
in
love,
something
is
loved;
in
hate,
something
is
hated;
in
desire,
something
is desired and so on."
(Bren-
tano, 1959,
p.
124. Translated in
Sullivan, 1966,
p. 256).
The
general
formula of Brentano Husserl takes over as his
starting point.
Yet,
he is from the
beginning giving
the
concept
of
intentionality
a new content and later he
departed
from Bren-
tano's
teachings
in a radical
way.
We cannot in this short
exposi-
tion deal
more fully with
Brentano's notion of
intentionality,
nor
can we elaborate
upon
the
discrepancies
between Brentano's no-
tion and that of Husserl. 11
Yet, it should be convenient
initially
to
21
mention a few
points,
where Husserl
explicitly departs
from Bren-
tano.
For Brentano
intentionality
was meant to be a mark that
distinguished
the
psychic
from the
physic. Characterizing
con-
sciousness as
intentional,
Brentano
hoped
to
give
a fruitful defini-
tion of the
subject
matter of
psychology,
thus to
provide
for a
pro-
per
distinction between
psychology
and the
physical
sciences.
Husserl contested that
intentionality
is such a distinctive mark for
the
psychical. According
to Husserl not all
experiences ("Erleb-
nisse")
are
intentional,
although they properly
should be called
psychic.
For
instance,
sensations and
complexes
of sensations are
psychic experiences,
but
they
are not intentional
(Husserl,
1901,
II/1,
p. 369).
In the
"Logical Investigations"
Husserl makes some comments
on the somewhat
misleading terminology
of Brentano. 12
First,
Husserl
objects
to the use of the notion "immanent
object."
It is
misleading
to think of the
object
of consciousness as "contained"
in consciousness. The
object
of consciousness is not a real
("reell")
content of
consciousness,
an "immanent
objectivity,"
but that
towards which consciousness is directed.
Secondly,
Brentano's
preferred
characterisation of consciousness as "related" to its ob-
ject might give
rise to
misunderstandings regarding
the relation as
a real relation between two
beings,
consciousness and the con-
scious
thing.
In
my experiencing
an
object
there are not
given
two
things, my experience
and the
object
in
my
consciousness,
nor a
third
thing,
the relation between the
two,
but
only my
experience-
of-
an- object.
Besides these
terminological
comments on Brentano's notion
of
intentionality
Husserl
gives
a rich and detailed account of in-
tentional
experiences
in the fifth and sixth
Logical Investigations.
Husserl did not
explicitly give any
fundamental criticism of Bren-
tano's doctrine here.
Later, however,
he dissociated his own
theory decisively
from Brentano's. Most
significantly
he criticized
Brentano for still
being
inside the limitations of naturalistic
psychology,
because he did not know about the
phenomenological
reduction
(Husserl, 1962).
This criticism is
related to Husserl's later transcendental
interpretation
of inten-
tionality,
which should be seen as the most salient
departure
from
Brentano's doctrine. To understand the full
implications
of
Husserl's doctrine of
intentionality
the
phenomenological
reduc-
tion therefore has to be taken into account.
22
The
Phenomenological
Reduction
Husserl's "transcendental turn" took
place
after the
period
when he wrote his
"Logical Investigations."
In five lectures he
gave
in
1907,
which were
published posthumously
under the title "Die
Idee der
Phanomenologie,"
he first
spelled
out the
program
for
phenomenology
as a transcendental
enterprise (Husserl, 1973).
The
phenomenological
reduction was here characterized as a
method of intuition to reach a firm
grasp
of the
"pure" psychic
in
its
adequate selfgivenness.
According
to Husserl the
phenomenological
reduction is the
necessary
basis for an
understanding
of
intentionality
in its full
sense
(1913, p. 216).
The
exposition
of the
phenomenological
reduction in Husserl's works is
highly complicated.
Thus it
might
be
possible
to
distinguish
between six different forms of reduc-
tion,
or
maybe
rather six
layers
in the
process
of
reduction,
although
Husserl himself did not
clearly distinguish
between
these
(Lauer,
1958,
p. 50f).
In the
following
short sketch I shall
concentrate on what
might
be called "the Cartesian
way"
to con-
sciousness,
which
plays
a
prominent part
in most of Husserl's ex-
positions, although
this
way
of
stating
the reduction
possibly
was
not Husserl's last word on the
topic.
Thus in his last
published
work Husserl himself
pointed
out the
shortcomings
of this
way
to
carry through
the reduction
(1936, p. 1 57-58), 13
To understand the
phenomenological
reduction,
it is
expe-
dient first to look at what is
reduced,
namely my
belief in the
everyday
world
surrounding
"me" 1' in the "natural attitude" of
normal life
(Husserl,
1913,
p. 57f).
As an
everyday
man in the
natural attitude I
always
find
myself
surrounded
by
a
firmly
structured,
undoubted world of
things. Any
doubt inside this
"universal worldbelief'
only
touches details in the world and not
the world itself.
Yet,
according
to Husserl it is
possible
to attach a
fundamental "doubt" to the
reality
of the
surrounding
world,
as
can be seen from the
experiment
of doubt made
by
Descartes, 15
This Cartesian doubt must be seen as a method and not as a
nega-
tion of the real world.
Doubting,
that is
accomplishing
the
phenomenological
reduction,
I do not
deny
the existence of the
world. Rather I am
withholding
the conclusion
regarding
ex-
istence or
non-existence,
viewing
what
appears
in
my experience
exactly
as it
directly appears,
as
"phenomenon"
in
my "pure
con-
sciousness" bracketed from all transcendent
parts.16
Still the world
is
there,
not as a real world but as the intentional correlate of
my
23
pure experience, put
in inverted commas as Husserl also
says.
The
phenomenon
"world" must be
distinguished
from the world
as real. Thus for
example
a tree in the real world
might
burn,
yet
it has no sense
talking
of the
experienced
"tree"
burning (ib. p.
220f).
In this Cartesian
sphere
of the
pure "cogito,"
Husserl
thought
it
possible
to arrive at absolute
certainty,
or as he
says
"apodictic
evidence,"
thus
providing
the basis for "the
principle
of all
principles":
"That
every originary giving
intuition is a
legitimate
source of
knowledge,
that
everything
which
presents
itself
to us
originally
in
'intuition,'
so to
speak
in its
bodily
presence,
has to be taken
simply
as what it
presents
itself
to
be,
but
only
within the limits in which it
presents
itself."
(ib. p.
52;
translation from
Kockelmans, 1967a,
p.
29-30).
In the
phenomenological
reduction the natural world is
reduced. What the reduction is a reduction
to,
is the
pure,
transcendental
consciousness,
which Husserl describes with the
expression
of
James
as the "stream of consciousness." This stream
of consciousness is the true
subject-matter
for
phenomenological
research. And
yet
the concrete
description
of this flow does not-
provide
scientific
knowledge.
For this to
happen
there have ac-
cording
to Husserl to be
insights
into "essences" of
experience,
thus to render
necessary
the so-called "eidetic reduction." Husserl
makes extensive use of this eidetic
reduction,
maybe
better called
eidetic
analysis,
from the
beginning
of his scientific
enterprise,
sometimes
using
the ill
reputed
notion "Wesensschau"
(which
might
seem to
imply
some
mysterious seeing
behind the
things),
but not until rather late did he
give
a clear
description
of the
method. Husserl
(1962, p. 72f)
describes the eidetic reduction as
simply
a method
using
free ideational
variation,
systematically
varying
in
imagination
the
thought-object, being
left with the
essence as the invariant in the different
representations,
that
is,
with that without which the
thing
would not be the
thing
in
ques-
tion.
The Noetic-Noematic Correlation
Instead of Brentano's notion "reference" Husserl later came to
favour the characterization "correlation" as the mark of inten-
tionality.
Thus Husserl in a late
retrospect
describes the
great
im-
24
pression
the revelation of this "universal a
priori
of correlation"
between mode of
presentation
and
object
of
experience,
which
broke
through
while he was
working
on his
"Logical Investigations"
about
1898,
and which
discovery
"shuttered" him so
deeply
that
he dedicated his whole life of work to a
systematic
treatment of
the
topic (Husserl,
1936,
p.
169,
note).
The notion comes to the
front in the "Ideen zu einer reinen
Phanomenologie
und
phanomenologischen Philosophie"
from 1913
(henceforth
refer-
red to as the
"Ideas")
where it is evolved under the name of
"noetic-noematic" correlation. This intentional correlation is ac-
cording
to Husserl that which most
"pregnantly"
characterizes
consciousness and is therefore the main theme of
phenomenology
(1913, p. 213).
The distinction between noesis and noema is that between ex-
perience
and the
experienced,
between act and content. I
may
perceive, imagine,
evaluate etc.
something. My perceiving,
im-
agining, evaluating
etc. is the
noetic,
the
"something" perceived,
imagined,
evaluated the noematic correlate of
my
conscious act.
Although
it is
possible analytically
to
distinguish
between the
noetic and noematic
component
or
phase
of the
experience
in
reality they always go together.
Moreover,
according
to Husserl
there is to be found a
systematic
correlation between the noetic
and noematic
phase
of
any
conscious act: "no noetic
phase
without a noematic
phase
that
belongs specifically
to it"
(1913, p.
232).
In this
two-layer conception
of consciousness Gurwitsch has
seen a radical break with traditional idealistic theories. Con-
sciousness for Husserl is no
longer,
as it was for
Hume,
a one-
dimensional
stream,
but instead "a
correlation,
or cor-
respondence,
or
parallelism
between the
plane
of
acts,
psychical
events, noeses,
and a second
plane
which is that of sense
(noemata)" (Gurwitsch,
1967,
p. 135).
It is
important
to notice
that the correlation is such that to each act there
corresponds
a
specific
noema,
but on the other hand the same noema
may
cor-
respond
to
many
noeses
making
it
possible
for instance to
perceive,
remember or
imagine
the same
object.
The above
general description
of the noetic-noematic cor-
relation could be
brought
forward on the basis of natural
psychological
reflection.
Yet,
the
analysis
in the "Ideas" takes
place
within the brackets of the
phenomenological
reduction in
the realm of
pure
consciousness. I shall
try
to
spell
out some con-
sequences
of this in the
following.
25
The noema could be described in somewhat
imprecise
ter-
minology,
as the
object
of consciousness." The
object
of con-
sciousness,
of
course,
has to be
distinguished
from the real
object,
which is bracketed with the
phenomenological
reduction. The
noema is the
experienced object
"as
such,"
the
object
in inverted
commas
or,
as Husserl also
puts
it,
the
object
as
"meaning."
On
the other
hand,
although
the noema is a
legitimate
theme of
phenomenological investigations
inside the
purified sphere
of
consciousness,
strictly speaking
it is not to be reckoned as the real
("reell")
content of the
experience.
The real
components
of the
experience
are on the one hand the noetic
act,
that in the ex-
perience
which makes consciousness direct itself towards that
which it is conscious
of,
on the other hand the
"hyle" by
which no-
tion Husserl understands some sort of raw sense data without
meaning.18
The relation between noesis and
hyle
is
according
to
Husserl to be likened to that between form and matter. Con-
sciousness is seen to be made
up
of this "remarkable
duplicity
and
unity"
of sensuous
"hyle"
and intentional
"morphd,"
of "formless
matter" and "matterless form"
(1913, p. 209).
The
"morph6"
of
consciousness,
the
noesis,
is the active
component
of
experience
giving meaning
to the
hyletic
material,
thus
providing
the
cognitive unity
of the noematic correlate. Diemer
(1956, p. 48)
has likened the threefold
unity
of
hyle,
noesis and noema to the
dialectical scheme of
thesis,
antithesis and
synthesis.
Intentionality
as Constitution
The intentional
object
as it is dealt with in the
analysis
above
has to be considered a result of consciousness's constitutive activi-
ty.
It is not
possible
after the
phenomenological
reduction to refer
the intentional
object
back to the real
object,
for the relation to
this is bracketed.
According
to Husserl's
analyses
in the "Ideas"
the
object
of consciousness is not
simply
"there" to be found as a
finished correlate of the conscious act. Rather it is the result of a
complicated
achievement
("Leistung")
where the
hyletic
material
is bestowed with
meaning
from the noetic act. Consciousness in
the sense of
meaning-bestowing ("Sinngebender")
acts thus
becomes the constitutive source of all intentional
objectivities,
as
the
opening quotation
of this
chapter
indicates.
For Husserl then the intentional
object
is not
directly present-
ing
itself in consciousness as a finished
object.
The
object
of
26
perception
for instance is achieved from a
complicated
"synthesis"
which makes the different
"profiles"
fit
together
so
that the
object
is seen as an intentional
unity
of its
many perspec-
tives. The house seen from front and
rear,
or even from
inside,
is
always
seen as the same house. This
constitution
of the
object
as
identically
the same is
necessarily going
to
happen
in time. The
object only acquires
its intentional
meaning
as
object according
to the horizon of
temporality,
which lets the same
object appear
as the result of
an,
perhaps anonymous, "synthesis
of identifica-
tion"
(Husserl,
1913,
p.
94)
of different conscious acts.
This
interpretation
of
intentionality
as constitutive is Husserl's
most fundamental
departure
from Brentano's doctrine.
According
to
Landgrebe (1963)
this
departure
was
already
foreshadowed in Husserl's
early
notion of
intentionality
from the
"Logical Investigations",
which
diverged
from Brentano's notion
in two
ways.
First,
Husserl saw in
intentionality
the character of
the act that allows different acts to have the same
object,
and se-
cond,
he considered it an active achievement rather than a mere-
ly
static directedness.
Landgrebe
sees in Husserl's
original
notion
of
intentionality
the
germs
of his later idealistic turn.
In his
"Ideas,"
where Husserl for the first time used the term
"constitution" in a
published
work,
he
mostly
dealt with constitu-
tion in relation to the
meaning-bestowing activity
of the conscious
act.
Husserl, however,
later came to radicalize the notion of con-
stitution not
only regarding
the intentional
object
as
constituted,
but also the immanent
components
of the
act,
the noesis and the
hyletic
material. This radicalization of Husserlian
subjectivism,
which was foreshadowed in Husserl's lectures on the
phenomenology
of inner time-consciousness from 1904/5 and
shortly
mentioned in the
"Ideas,"
paradoxically
in some
ways
meant a
departure
from
philosophy
of consciousness. Some
aspects
of this
widening
of the
concept
of
intentionality beyond
the
sphere
of the conscious act will be dealt with in the next
chapter.
Evaluation: Rationalistic Idealism.
This short account
surely gives
a
fragmentary picture
of
Husserl's doctrine of
intentionality.
Yet it
might
suffice to
give
an
impression
of Husserl's fundamental
purpose
with his
project,
suited for this first
juxtaposition
of Freud and Husserl.
27
In
opposition
to
Freud,
Husserl thinks that
psychology ought
to start with a
reduction,
not
of
consciousness
making
the
psyche
a sort of
apparatus,
but to
consciousness,
in the
purified sphere
of
which he
hoped
to find a scientific basis for
psychology
in the
realm of eidetic evidences.
Psychology
should
according
to
Husserl not
begin
with some constructive model of the
psyche,
but instead with
phenomenological description,
such a
descrip-
tion
showing
consciousness as
intentional,
that is
according
to
Husserl's later
interpretation,
as
constituting meaning. Certainly
Husserl's
teachings
of the
phenomenological
reduction and of
consciousness as constitutive have idealistic
implications.
Thus in
an
ontological perspective
the fundamental
principle
of
phenomenology might
be
expressed:
"the
being = 'meaning
for'
"
("Seindes
=
'Sinn fiir'
", Driie, 1963,
p.
246). Only
so far as
an
object
has
meaning
for a
perceiving subject,
can it be said to
exist as
object.
All transcendent
being
is constituted in the
transcendental
sphere
of
pure
consciousness. Husserl himself
(1929)
calls this view "transcendental
idealism,"
and
although
he
thought
it
going beyond
both traditional idealism and
realism - as did Kant with his earlier version- it
surely
situates
Husserl in the tradition of idealist
philosophers.
Though
Husserl did not seem to have read
widely
in the
history
of
philosophy,
and used to
present
himself as some kind of
a
philosophical
autodidact
founding
a
quite
new
approach
to
philosophy,
he did not theorize outside
history,
which of course is
not
possible.
Husserl as much as Freud was a child of his
time,
although
their
breeding grounds
can be said to
diverge.
The em-
pirical
sciences in the last decades of the nineteenth
century
were
won
by
the
positivistic
and materialistic
movement;
yet
a
very
vigorous
idealistic trend thrived in academic
philosophy, mostly
leaning upon
the
metaphysical
idealism which one
might
read in-
to the
philosophy
of Kant.l9
Perhaps
the
contemporary
influence
upon
Husserl should be
sought
in this so-called
"neo-Kantianism,"
which included
philosophers
like
Windelband,
Natorp,
Rickert and
(maybe
not
so
closely
related to Kantian
philosophy) Dilthey,
who all
ap-
proached psychology
in
ways
similar to Husserl-at least in the
sense that
they
tried to
distinguish psychology
from the natural
sciences.
Having
at first been hostile to
Kant,
like Brentano
was,
Husserl himself later
recognized
his debt to Kantian
philosophy
(Kem, 1964). Although
the
phenomenological
movement attach-
28
ed
weight
to the
discrepancies
between itself and neo-Kantianism
(see
Fink,
1933),
in broad
retrospect
the two movements
might
be
seen to be
part
of the same
"Zeitgeist."
Besides Kantian idealism there
might
be reason for mention-
ing
Cartesian rationalism as
very
influential for the Husserlian
points
of view. Thus in the
paragraph
on the
phenomenological
reduction,
the
"cogito, ergo
sum" of Descartes was stated as a
source of
inspiration.
Husserl
always
valued
very highly
the
philosophy
of
Descartes,
whom he saw as the founder of modem
philosophy,
and the forerunner for his own
philosophy,
which he
himself in turn claimed to be the true fulfillment of the
implicit
intentions of Cartesian
philosophy (Husserl, 1929).
It is
hoped
that this short evaluation suffices
preliminarily
to
conclude,
that Husserl's
attempt
to make a foundation for
psychology
in contrast to Freud's materialism and
positivism,
is
loaded with
presuppositions stemming
from idealistic and ra-
tionalistic
philosophy.
In fact such characteristics were attributed
to him
already
in Husserl's lifetime
(see
Diemer, 1956,
p. 10-11).
FREUD AND HUSSERL: MUTUAL CRITICISM
Freud never mentioned Husserl's name or the
phenomenological philosophy
in his works. Brentano's name is
found
once,
in "Der Witz und seine
Beziehung
zum
Unbewussten,"
but
only casually,
mentioned as an author of a
book on humour. Yet it
might
not be difficult to see from the
works of
Freud,
that he was
skeptical concerning
the
phenomenological project.
So what in Freud's works
appears
as
the
general opponent against
the
psychoanalytic assumption
of
"the unconscious" - under the name of
"psychology
of con-
sciousness" or
simply
"the
philosophy" - might
lead the
thought
in direction of
phenomenology.
It is
possible,
that Freud here
thinks of his own
philosophical background
in the
teachings
of
Brentano,
in whom is found a criticism of the doctrine of the un-
conscious
(Merlan, 1945).
Most
philosophers, according
to
Freud,
define the
psychic
as the
conscious,
thus
begging
the
question
concerning
unconscious
psychic activity (Freud, 1925d).
The
philosopher,
who does not
get
into contact with such facts as
hyp-
nosis,
interpretation
of dreams and
psychopathology,
but
only
29
knows one form of
observation, "self-observation,"
might easily
overlook the
disturbing findings
that made the
assumption
of the
unconscious
necessary (ib.).
Certainly
Husserl
might
not
easily,
on the
background
of what
is said in the
foregoing exposition,
free himself from the accusa-
tion of
being
an idealistic
philosopher. Although
as we shall see in
the next section of the
paper,
the
story might
turn out to be a lit-
tle more
complicated,
at first
glance
it would not seem
unreasonable from the
standpoint
of Freud to criticize Husserlian
phenomenology
for
being
idealistic,
identifying
the extension of
the
psychic
with that of
consciousness,
and for
being
rationalistic,
only using
the
pre-empirical
methods of Cartesian reflection and
eidetic
analysis
of essence.
Neither did Husserl deal
extensively
with
psychoanalysis,
although
he sometimes
spoke
of the
new "depth psychology"
and
at least once in his
unpublished writings
cited Freud
by
name
(Holenstein,
1972,
p. 322).
Yet in a
general way
Husserl's
criticism of
contemporary psychology
for "naturalisation of con-
sciousness"
(1911, p. 14)
seems
directly applicable
to
psychoanalysis.
Thus
experimental psychology according
to
Husserl had succumbed to the
"temptation
of
naturalism,"
trying
to imitate the successful natural
sciences,
thereby treating
con-
sciousness as
only object,
not
allowing
for the central
characteristics of
consciousness,
its
intentionality,
that
is,
its be-
ing subject for
the world rather than
simply
an
object
in the world
(Husserl,
1962,
p. 4f.).
This failure of
empirical psychology
Husserl
thought
had taken
place exactly
because
psychology
had
not thematized its
point
of
departure:
consciousness. Here one
might
recall Freud's insufficient treatment of
consciousness,
to
which fact there has often been drawn attention. So Freud's
theoretical
exposition
of that
topic
in his
metapsychological
papers
from 1915 is
missing, being among
the seven Freud never
published
and
probably
himself
destroyed (Jones,
1955,
p. 209).
One of Freud's latest comments on the
topic might
have been
this:
"Nevertheless,
if
anyone speaks
of consciousness we know im-
mediately
and from our most
personal experience
what is meant
by
it."
(Freud,
1940,
p. 157)
To this
expression stemming
from a
scientist in the natural
attitude,
Husserl could have answered
with
weight,
as did in fact his assistant
Fink,
although
not to the
Freudian
phrase
in
question (which
was then not
published),
but
30
to the whole
psychoanalytic project:
"Not
knowing
what con-
sciousness
is,
one
principally
mistakes the foundation of a
psychology
of 'the unconscious'. "20
According
to
Husserl,
Freud
might
fit
very
well into the
naturalistic tradition of modem science with its mechanization
and technification of the lived world
(see
Husserl,
1936).
Follow-
ing
Galileo,
the scientists
attempted
to make of the universe an all-
including
mathematical
formula,
often
mistaking
the formula for
the
fact,
seeing
what Husserl called natures "cloathes of ideas" as
nature
itself,
thus
reaching
a
cosmology, considering
the world to
be made
up
of material
particles
in external interaction- a world
picture
which others have likened to a universe of
tiny
billiard
balls. 21
Certainly
the Freudian
psychical apparatus might join
this mechanical
cosmos,
being
as Freud himself
expresses
it "real-
ly
a machine"
nearly being
able to run of itself.
CONCLUDING REMARKS
Is it not
possible
from this fictitious
dialogue
between Freud
and Husserl to
conclude,
that the two men with their theoretical
systems
are
diametrically opposed
around the axis
materialism/idealism,
and does the reader not
recognize
the cen-
tury
old
psychological dispute
between
objectivists
and
subjec-
tivists,
playing
such a
prominent
role in the
history
of
psychology?
(cf. Boring,
1950)
Taking
Cartesian
metaphysics,
which has had such a far-
reaching
influence
upon
modem
psychology,
as the
point
of
departure,
is it not then
possible
to see Freud's
psychical ap-
paratus
and Husserl's intentional consciousness as extreme views
in relation to Cartesian dualism? Descartes
split up being
into the
material world in which
things
were defined
by
extension in
space
as "res
extensa,"
and the
soul
which was an immaterial "res
cogitans."
Descartes
thought
that animals and the human
body
could be described as extensive bodies like
machines;
yet
the
mechanical laws did not include the human
soul,
which was in-
extensional and free. This substantial schism soon
brought
with it
two
psychologies.
One
following
La Mettrie extended Descartes'
machine model also to include the human
psyche
thus
giving
rise
to the notion of "L'homme machine." The other
taking
its basis
in the Cartesian doctrine of the human soul as a realm of imma-
nent truths
layed
bare to
introspection
for the
pure ego,
conceiv-
31
ed man as
essentially self-transparent spirit.
Freud and Husserl
might
be seen to
join
each of these
psychological
traditions,
thus
being opposed
in their
attempted
solutions to the Cartesian
dilemma.
This
might
be the
first,
tentative conclusion
regarding
the
relationship
between Freudian
psychoanalysis
and Husserlian
phenomenology: psychoanalysis being
an
objectivistic psychology
in the
positivistic
and materialistic traditions of
science,
while
phenomenology
is a
subjectivistic psychology (though
of course no
"arbitrary" subjectivism),
connected with rationalism and
idealism.
In this
way, psychoanalysis
and
phenomenology
seem to make
up
antithetical answers to the
question
raised
by
the an-
thropological
dilemma,
the
problem
of how it is
possible
to
study
man as
subject
with
objective
methods. For
Freud,
as he was
presented
above,
there does not seem to be
any problem
at all.
The
psyche
as an
apparatus
should be considered
part
of the
material
universe,
following
the
general
laws of
motion,
thus
allowing psychology
to be an
objective discipline
on a
par
with
natural science.
Husserl,
on the
contrary,
thinks the
quality
of
consciousness makes man
essentially depart
from
physical
nature.
Psychology
therefore should not
primarily try
to
study
man from
"without" with
help
from
empirical
methods
(although
Husserl of
course does not
deny
the
importance
of
empirical psychology).
Rather reflexive consciousness should
try firstly
to
decipher
its
own "inner" structures with
help
from the
phenomenological
reduction.
Does this first
interpretation
hold? It does notl
Why
not,
I
hope
to show in the next section of the
paper.
SECOND THEMATISATION: THE ENCOUNTER
Husserl: "durch alles Leben des Geistes hindurch
geht
die
'blinde' Wirksamkeit von
Assoziationen, Trieben,
Geffhlen als Reizen und
Bestimmungsgrnden
der
.
Triebe,
im Dunkeln auftauchenden
Tendenzen, etc.,
die
den weiteren Lauf des Bewusstseins nach 'blinden'
Regeln
bestimmen."
(1962a, p. 277)
Freud: " ... denn schliesslich ist die
Eigenschaft
bewusst
32
oder nicht die
einzige
Leuchte im Dunkel der Tiefen-
psychologie." (1923b, p. 245)
At first
sight psycho-analysis
and
phenomenology might ap-
pear
to be antithetical. From a
superficial
consideration it does
not seem
likely,
that Freud and Husserl could be
brought
together, clearing
the
way
for a fruitful
dialogue.
Freud
appears
to be a mecha.nical
materialist,
Husserl a rationalist and
idealist;
it does not seem
possible
from these
polar viewpoints
to
arrange
for an encounter. And
yet many phenomenologists
have come to
the
conclusion,
that
psycho-analysis
and
phenomenology
have
essential characteristics in common.
Especially
the
phenomenologists
of the French
language,
Sartre,
Merleau-
Ponty,
De Waelhens and
Ricoeur,
who have all been interested in
psycho-analysis,
have
pointed
at the
relationship. According
to
Merleau-Ponty (1969a, p. II)
Freud even has to be reckoned
among
the
phenomenologists. Psycho-analysis
and
phenomenology
are both
attempting
to unveil the same fun-
damental human
conditions,
and
are,
as
Merleau-Ponty puts
it
(1960a, p. 9),
not
parallels
but both
aiming
at the same
latency.
In the same
spirit
Ricoeur
(1965, p. 367)
claims,
that no move-
ment inside the
philosophy
of reflections has ever come closer to
the Freudian notion of the
unconscious,
than Husserlian
phenomenology.
To understand this
point
of
view,
that
psycho-analysis
and
phenomenology
are
congenial, making possible
a
synthesis,
it is
necessary
to re-consider the two theoretical
movements,
this time
from a different
perspective accentuating
some
aspects
deliberately suppressed
in the first
juxtaposition.
On the one
hand we
might
accentuate Husserl's
gradually increasing
interest
in the
anonymous background
of consciousness seen from his
analysis
of constitution
taking place
from about
1917,
but ac-
celerating
in relation to his late thematisation of the
"Lebenswelt,"
a notion whose fruitful
implications
have
especial-
ly
been
brought
forth
by Merleau-Ponty.
On the other
hand,
the
interpretation
will demand a
re-reading
of Freud that weakens
the
importance
of the mechanical
metaphors
in Freud's meta-
psychology
in favour of the
profound analyses
of the mean-
ingfulness
of
pathological phenomena,
seen in Freud's clinical
papers.
The
exposition
so to
speak
shall
try
to read Freud with the
glasses
of
phenomenology,
and Husserl in the
light
of the
33
discoveries of
psycho-analysis.
The text will show how far such a
project
is
possible.
I shall start with an
attempted interpretation
of Freud as a
phenomenologist.
Then I shall
try
to sketch some
phenomenological
themes,
leading phenomenology
on the track
of the unconscious. The final facet of this second
phase
of the
jux-
taposition
is
going
to be an
attempted synthesis
of
psycho-analysis
and
phenomenology, filtering
out the mechanistic dissonances of
the one
together
with the idealistic overtones of the
other,
thus-it is to be
hoped-being
left with a fruitful
harmony.
THE PHENOMENOLOGY OF FREUD
A
reader,
even
sparsely acquainted
with Freud's own
writings,
might certainly
have found himself a bit
uneasy
about the onesid-
ed mechanistic
interpretation
of Freudian
psychology
met with
above in the first
juxtaposition
of
psycho-analysis
and
phen-
omenology.
Was it not Freud who
taught
that
phenomena
hitherto considered accidental or senseless-like
dreams,
parapraxes,
neurotic
symptoms-could
be made understandable
by
the
psycho-analytic interpretation?
Freud
perhaps
did not so
much
prove
the causal determination of the
psychical
life,
as
demonstrated the
possibility
of
extending
the frame of mean-
ingful understanding
to include much more of the human ex-
istence,
than had been considered
possible
before. Thus the
dream is
according
to Freud no
meaningless product
of somatic
processes,
nor are the
apparently
absurd
symptoms
of neuroses.
Both can be
analysed,
that is
interpreted;
their
meaningful
rela-
tion to the
patients' psychic
life can be established.
Although
a child of the mechanistic
physiology
of
Helmholtz,
Freud
surely
could be characterized as an
illegitimate
child.
Perhaps
Freud,
rather than
being
a
naturalist,
has with
psycho-
analysis grounded
a
discipline
in the humanistic tradition
(see
e.g., Zilboorg,
1954; Holt, 1972; Sterba,
1974).
It
might
even be
possible
to show a massive influence
upon
Freud's
thoughts
stem-
ming
from the
very
romantic tradition of
"Naturphilosophie,"
fought
so
vigorously by physicalistic physiology.
Thus Freud's
psychology
has been likened to
thoughts
found in romantic
philosophies
like that of
Carus,
von
Schubert,
Schopenhauer
and
34
others
(Ellenberger, 1970).
Even Freud's choice of vocation
might
have been
inspired,
not so much
by
a motive for
becoming
a
"Naturwissenschaftler,"
as
by
a romantic wish to
penetrate
into
the essence of
things, trying
to answer "the last
questions."
Freud
in his
"Autobiography"
mentions his
hearing
of Goethe's
essay
on
Nature read aloud at the
"Gymnasium" shortly
before his
gradua-
tion,
as a decisive
factor,
for him to become a medical student
{1925b, p. 8).
In letters to
Fliess,
Freud at an
early
date states his
fundamental interests to be of a
philosophical
nature
(1954, p.
141),
an interest since realized in Freud's own late
"philosophy
of
nature,"
reaching
its most marked
expression
in the final vital
dualism,
the doctrine of life- and death
instincts,
which Freud
himself termed a sort of
"mythology" (1933a, p. 95).
In the
history
of
ideas,
things
are often more mixed
up
than
one should like them to be for the sake of
simplicity. Although
generally
considered as defeated
by
the
positivistic
movement,
the
old
philosophy
of nature was still
part
of the intellectual climate
in the late nineteenth
century,
its romantic and vitalistic notions
often
cropping up
like weeds in the
supposedly antimetaphysical
texts of hard science. So the
attempts
to make a
general
ex-
planative
model of the central nervous
system (a
"Hirnmechanik") by Meynert
and
others,
was
suitably
characterized as
examples
of
"Himmythologie" (Ellenberger,
1970).
Even in Freud's
"project"
the mechanistic intentions
might
sometimes be seen to
miscarry,
thus
opening
for vitalistic con-
cepts (Holt, 1968).
In this connection Fechner
might
also be men-
tioned,
who
although generally appointed
the founder of ex-
perimental psychology
was in fact a
daring metaphysician
devoted to
mythological
and
religious speculations (Boring,
1950,
p. 275f.),
and who with
many
of his ideas had a
large
influence
upon
Freud.
Yet there is
another,
more
direct,
line
connecting
Freud with
old
romantics,
namely
the line from romantic medicine or
psychotherapy grounded by
Mesmer in the last
part
of the
eigh-
teenth
century,
and
attracting
considerable interest from the
"Naturphilosophie"
in the
beginnings
of the nineteenth
century
(see Ellenberger,
1970).
This
early
"animal
magnetism"
or
"hyp-
notism" as it was later to be
called,
was to be almost
forgotten
with the rise of
physicalistic physiology, only
to be revived in
modified form around 1880
by
French
psychiatrists
like
Libeault,
Bernheim and foremost the famous
Charcot,
whom Freud visited
35
at the
hospital
of
"Salp8tri6re"
on a
scholarship
in 1885-86. This
line of influence from old
hypnotism
via French
descriptive
psychiatry might
have had an
importance
for Freud
comparable
to that of the influence of the Helmholtzian school. Freud himself
verifies its
magnitude:
"It is not
easy
to over-estimate the
impor-
tance of the
part played by hypnotism
in the
history
of the
origin
of
psycho-analysis
"
(1924, p. 192).
Besides,
the influence of the
clinical
descriptions
of Charcot on Freud
might
have a
special
in-
terest
here,
and shall be mentioned below.
The Clinical Attitude
Freud himself in his
report
from 1886 of his
study
tour to
Paris,
describes one of his motives for
choosing
Charcot's
Salp?tri6re,
as the main aim of his
journey
as
having
been a wish
to learn from "the French school of
neuropathology" (1886, p. 5).
Although
not
quite
clearcut,
the difference between the French
school of
psychiatry,
whose
unquestioned
leader was
Charcot,
and the German school with
among
others
Meynert
and Wer-
nicke as
outstanding representatives, might
be seen in the
former's more
pronounced tendency
to use clinical
description
in
its own
right, defending
its
independence against
"theoretical
medicine"
(Andersson, 1962).
Charcot as a man and as a scientist
made a
great impression upon
the
young
Freud,
and
Ellenberger
(1970, p. 436)
even likens its
importance
to that of an "existential
encounter." Freud in his
travelling report
describes the clinical
attitude of the master in these words: "one could observe with sur-
prise
that he never
grew
tired of
looking
at the same
phenomenon,
till his
repeated
and unbiased efforts allowed him
to reach a correct view of its
meaning." (1886, p. 10)
This at-
titude of Charcot
might
be seen reflected in Freud's own contact
with the
pathological phenomena
he met in his clinical
praxis.
This
lasting
influence was later
acknowledged by
Freud:
"I leamt to restrain
speculative
tendencies and to follow
the
unforgotten
advice of
my
master,
Charcot: to look at
the same
things again
and
again
until
they
themselves
begin
to
speak." (1914,
p. 22)
Is there not to be seen in this
description
of the clinical at-
titude a
parallel
to the
phenomenological "epoch6,"
the
"holding
back" of
prejudices letting
the
things appear
in their "self-
36
givenness"
without
unduly trying
to
press
them into some
theoretical
fore-knowledge?
Here we
might
also mention another characteristic of the
clinical situation of
psycho-analysis
which draws it
away
from
natural science-its character of
being
a
linguistic
interaction
between
analyst
and
patient.
Freud learned from the account of Breuer of the "Cathartic
cure" of his
patient
called "Anna O."
taking place
in
1881-82,
to
listen to the
patients, letting
their own direction of
thoughts
be
decisive for the course of the
communication,
thus
giving psycho-
analytic therapy
its character of a
"talking
cure." In fact
psycho-
analysis
is
exclusively
characterized as a verbal interaction:
"Nothing
takes
place
in a
psycho-analytic
treatment but an inter-
change
of words between the
patient
and the
analyst." (Freud,
1916/17,
p. 17)
Thus the "model of
psycho-analytic
technics"
might
turn out to be
ordinary
conversation,
rather than scientific
observation
(Bernfeld, 1941).
As Lorenzer
(1970)
has
pointed
out,
its
dialogical
character makes the
psycho-analytic
method of
investigation essentially depart
from that of
psychologies
observ-
ing
behavior. In the
psycho-analytic
situation the
analyst
is
sitting
half turned
away
from the
patient, listening
in a certain alert in-
attentiveness
("evenly suspended attention")
to the
patients'
free
associations
trying
from these to
interpret
the
underlying
un-
conscious
phantasies.
The attitude of the
analyst
in
analysis
is not
very compatible
with
objective
observation. The central role of
interpretation
in
psycho-analysis
on the other hand
might
con-
nect the
psycho-analytic enterprise
to
philologists'
hermeneutics.
Clinical
Description
Versus
Metapsychological Explanation
The
unprepared
reader
might
be
very surprised
if,
after hav-
ing
read Freud's
"Project"
from
1895,
he shifted to another work
from the same
year,
the "Studies on
Hysteria,"
which Freud wrote
in collaboration with Breuer
just
a few months earlier. In Freud's
contributions to this
book,
there does not seem to be
many
traces
of his so-called "naturalistic
prejudice" - especially
not in the four
case-histories included. In these case-histories Freud shows an
empathic understanding
of the
patients' problems, seeing
the
situation from their
point
of
view,
even to the extent of
risking
to
be "fooled"
by
his
patients. 22
Far from
being examples
of the
mechanical use of the
principles
of
metapsychology,
Freud is here
37
pulling psycho-analysis
in the direction of the
literary insight
of
the
poet, sharply
in contrast to his ambitions from the
"Project"
to make
psychology
a natural science. Freud
might
have felt a bit
uneasy
about this
discrepancy,
since he
thought
the
following
apology necesary:
"I have not
always
been a
psychotherapist.
Like other
neuropathologists,
I was trained to
employ
local
diagnoses
and
electroprognosis,
and it still strikes me
myself
as
strange
that,
as one
might say, they
lack the
serious
stamp
of science. I must console
myself
with the
reflection that the nature of the
subject
is
evidently
responsible
for
this,
rather than
any preference
of
my
own. The fact is that local
diagnosis
and electrical reac-
tions lead nowhere in the
study
of
hysteria,
whereas a
detailed
description
of mental
processes
such as we are ac-
customed to find in the works of
imaginative
writers
enables
me,
with the use of a few
psychological
formulas,
to obtain at least some kind of
insight
into the course of
that affection."
(Breuer
&
Freud, 1895,
p. 160-61)
A difference
comparable
to that between the Freud of
the
"Project"
and the Freud of the "Studies"
might
be seen
throughout
his scientific works. Thus the kind of
theory
Freud
uses when in
praxis dealing
with his
therapeutic
cases can be seen
to differ from his more abstract
metapsychological
models. In this
way psycho-analysis
is
unique among psychological disciplines,
having
both a clinical
theory
and a
metapsychology,
or as
Rapaport (1959)
has
put
the
difference,
the "clinical
principles"
and "the
general psychological theory."
It is
especially
inside the
ego-psychological
tradition of
psycho-analysis
that the conse-
quences
of this
separation
have been
brought
out in an
attempt
to
develop
Freudian
metapsychology
so that it would be more
precise
and
consistent,
in this
way trying
to make
psycho-analysis
a
general psychology acceptable
to academic science
(e.g.,
Hart-
mann,
Kris &
Loewenstein, 1946; Hartmann, 1964;
Rapaport,
1959;
Brenner &
Arlow,
1964).
According
to the
ego-
psychological
view,
the clinical
principles
the
therapist
in
praxis
makes use of should be connected to
metapsychology
as a
general
theory
that
explains
the clinical
phenomena.
The clinical
prin-
ciples
have
only
a
descriptive
and not
really
an
explanative
func-
tion
(Rubinstein, 1967).
38
Although loyal
to Freud's
explicit
intentions to make
psycho-
analysis
a natural
science,
the
ego-psychological project
has now
come into considerable internal difficulties
(see
Klein, 1967;
Holt, 1968; Peterfreund,
1971).
It has not been
easy
to make
Freudian
metapsychology
a
systematic comprehensive theory.
Also some central
points
of
metapsychology, e.g.
the
energy
con-
cept,
do not seem to fit
very
well into modern
neurobiology.
We
might
therefore find
psycho-analysts
connected to the
ego-
psychological
movement now
throwing away
the mechanistic in-
gredients
of
metapsychology- as
was in fact
proposed by
phenomenological
and existential thinkers half a
century agol
Thus the late G.S. Klein
(1973a, b)
came to the
conclusion,
that
the
metapsychological
model had to be
given up. According
to
'
Klein,
it was the clinical
theory
that laid the foundation of
Freud's
fame,
and it still is the clinical
principles
that matter for
the
therapist.
Klein sees in
metapsychology nothing
but an unfor-
tunate
consequence
of Freud's
philosophy
of science in
opposition
to the essential character of
psycho-analysis: "Metapsychology
throws overboard the fundamental intent of
psycho-analytic
enterprise-that
of
unlocking meanings. " (1973a, p. 109)23
Sacrificing
the abstract
metapsychology
we
might
be left with
clinical
theory
on a more
concrete,
descriptive
level,
so
perhaps
coming
close to
phenomenology
as a
"descriptive psychology."
On
this
clinical/descriptive
level we
are,
as Flew
(1954)
has
pointed
out,
not so much confronted with the
determining
causes of the
psychic,
but rather with its
"purpose,"
"intention,"
"motive" and
"meaning."
Flew is
drawing
attention to some
very
phenomenologically sounding passages
in the 17th and 18th of
Freud's
"Introductory
Lectures" from 1916/17. So in the lecture
no.
17,
which bears the title "The sense of the
symptoms,"
Freud
starts in the
following way:
"-In the last lecture I
explained
to
you
that clinical
psychiatry
takes little notice of the outward form or con-
tent of individual
symptoms,
but that
psycho-analysis
takes matters
up
at
precisely
that
point
and has establish-
ed in the first
place
the fact that
symptoms
have a sense
and are related to the
patient's experiences." (1916/17, p.
257)
The "sense" or
"meaning"
of the
symptom
is situated in the
context of the
patient's
life
history.
The
"analysis, interpretation
and translation" has as its
purpose
"to
discover,
in
respect
to a
39
senseless idea and a
pointless
action,
the
past
situation in which
the idea was
justified
and the action served a
purpose." (1916/17,
p. 270)
The
meaning
of an action has
according
to Freud a dou-
ble
aspect,
its "whence" and its "whither."
Although
the first
aspect might
be seen to dominate in the neurotic
patients,
who
are "fixated"
and,
as Freud
expresses
it "alienated for the
present
and the
future,"
yet
there
might
still be seen to be
method,
or
even actual
purpose
in the madness. Thus with one of the two
pa-
tients Freud here is
bringing
as
evidence,
a
young phobic girl,
Freud is led to
"suspect
that she had become so ill in order not to
have to
marry
and in order to remain with her father."
(ib. p.
273)
The clinical
descriptions
and
interpretations
here
might
resemble the existential
analyses
in
psychopathology by
Binswanger, Minkowsky
and others
(see May
et
al,
1958).
Freud is
asking
for the
meaning
of the
symptom
in relation to the
patients'
experiences
inside their disturbed horizon of
temporality.
Non-mechanistic
Aspects of Metapsychology
Although being
dominated
by
mechanism,
Freud's
general
psychological theory
includes other
metaphors
than those stem-
ming
from natural science. So we
might
mention the
metaphors
of
language
and the
anthropomorphistic metaphors,
both of
which have
important implications
for a non-naturalistic re-
interpretation
of
psycho-analysis. Although important
this
topic
can
only
be hinted at in the
present
connection.
We owe to
Lacan, foremost,
the
coming
realisation of the
relationship
between
psycho-analysis
and the science of
language
(Lacan,
1966; Wilden,
1968). 24
Lacan and his followers have
tried to
show,
how on the one hand Freudian
theory might
con-
tribute to a
theory
of
language,
and on the other how structural
linguistics might
throw
light upon
the
psycho-analytic project.
Freud often used
analogies
from
languge
to illustrate theoretical
points
of view: so he likened the relation between conscious and
unconscious to that of a "dual
inscription" ("Niederschrift");
the
dream to a
message
written in
pictures
or
hieroglyphs; repression
to the censure in the Russian
newspapers,
etc. These
metaphors
of
language might
be
interpreted
as deviance from mechanism
and an
attempt
to let
psycho-analysis join
the humanities. The
French
philosopher
Derrida
(1967)
even
goes
so far as to
propose,
that the structure of the
psychical apparatus
should be
represented by
a
"writing apparatus"
or "Machine. "y5
40
The most
apparent
break with mechanistic
principles
in
Freudian
metapsychology
is, however,
seen in Freud's
personifica-
tion of the
agencies
of his
topographical
and structural models.
The
vocabulary
here often seems to be taken from a frame of
reference
comprising
the social
interplay
of
persons,
rather than
from
physical
science. This has led to ihe accusation of "an-
thropomorphism"
and the
tendency
to describe the
functioning
of the
psychical apparatus
in
analogy
of
persons
have been a
preferred target
of criticism. Thus
Hartmann,
Kris & Loewen-
stein
(1946)
in their classic
paper
on
psychical
structure think
Freud's
anthropomorphism
makes
up
an untenable
component
of
psycho-analysis,
which
ought
to be
replaced by
more exact for-
mulations. For
example they
believe,
that instead of
speaking
of
the
superego's approval
or
disapproval
of the
ego,
one should
speak
of different
degrees
of "tension" between the two
psychical
agencies (p. 16).
Yet it
might
be
possible
to see
something
more than
just
fail-
ing precision
in Freud's
anthropomorphism.
An
anthropomor-
phistic
mode of
expression
also has
advantages,
which in fact was
admitted
by
Hartmann,
Kris & Loewenstein.?s Thus it
might
be
seen to be closer to the common sense level of
understanding
on
which
personal introspection
takes
place.
In
everyday
life we are
often
conceiving
ourselves in
dialogical
terms,
we
carry
on a con-
versation with an inner
partner,
we
experience
conflict between
different
tendencies,
or we are
listening
to the
warning
voice of
conscience.
By way
of
anthropomorphism
the Freudian model
might preserve
the
psyche
on that intentional level of
meaning,
on which we are
giving
reasons for our
everyday
actions,
and thus
the
anthropomorphic
weft of Freudian
theory
of the
psychical ap-
paratus might
be considered an
expression
of the
problem
of
"meaning"
as an insurmountable obstacle to a
fully
mechanistic
conceptualization (Grossman
&
Simon,
1969).
Freud here himself
could be
brought
to
witness,
as
pointed
out
by
Grossman &
Simon,
by citing
a comment from the
meeting
of the
psycho-
analytic
association in 1906: "Our
understanding
reaches as far as
our
anthropomorphism" (see Nunberg
&
Federn, 1962,
p. 136).
Evaluation: Freud as a "Verstehende"
Psychologist
On the
background
of such features of Freudian
psycho-
analysis
as those mentioned
above,
it
might
seem reasonable to
join Jaspers (1923)
in his
conclusion,
that
psycho-analysis
is an
41
"understanding" psychology
inside the tradition of moral
science-and not as Hartmann
(1927)
would have
it,
an "ex-
planative"
natural science.2? Freudian
psycho-analysis might
be
read as an
attempt
to understand the
meaningful
coherence of
mental
life,
or in the words of
Jaspers
to
show,
"wie Seelisches aus
Seelischem
(...) hervorgeht" (1923, p. 18).
Such an
interpreta-
tion was
early given by
the existentialistic
psychiatrists,
besides
Jaspers (first
time
1913), among
others
Binswanger (1927)
and
Kunz
(1930).
Similar
points
of view have in recent time been
maintained
by psycho-analysts
like
Kuiper (1964, 1965), Rycroft
(1968),
Lomas
(1968),
Klein
(1973)
and others.
According
to this
view,
Freud in his
metapsychological speculations
succumbed to a
"scientistic
self-misunderstanding,"
as Habermas
puts
it
(1968, p.
300).
What Freud
factually
did,
was
according
to
Habermas,
to
ground
a new humanistic
science,
which he
erroneously thought
to be a natural science. Freud's "scientistic"
point
of
departure
in
physicalistic physiology provided
him with too narrow a
concep-
tual
apparatus
from which he
diverged,
however,
in his concrete
contacts with the
personal problems
of his
patients.
As Lomas has
expressed
this
point:
"Freud's discoveries transcend his
language"
(1968, p.
118).
The fundamental
project
of
psycho-analysis might
be that of
"unlocking meaning,"
the mechanistic theories
being
a
futile
appendage, blurring
the
understanding
of
psycho-analysis
as a
theory
of the
meaning
with and
motives for,
and not the
causes
of,
human action.
PHENOMENOLOGY IN SEARCH OF THE "UNCONSCIOUS"
The
point
of
departure
of
phenomenology
was the
philosophy
of consciousness. Like
Brentano,
who
directly
criticized the
assumption
of a
psychological
unconscious,
Husserl also
might
find it difficult to
get
into contact with the
problems
which led
Freud to
separate
the
psychic
from the conscious. On the other
hand,
the
phenomenology
of Husserl from its
very
start involves a
break with classical
philosophy
of
consciousness,
a break that
becomes more and more clear in the course of Husserl's
philosophical development.
Already
the
topics
dealt with in the first section of the
paper,
the reduction and
intentionality, might
show Husserl not to be a
"naive"
philosopher
of consciousness. Thus with his doctrine of
intentionality
Husserl teaches the
necessity
of
going
behind
42
natural,
unreflected consciousness. The
phenomenological
in-
sight
in consciousness as intentional is
only brought
forward on
the basis of careful reflection. For this reason
phenomenology
might join
the criticism of the doctrine of
introspection
as a
method
simply
to look inside consciousness to see what is there. 18
What
presents
itself to naive
introspection
is the final achieve-
ment of
consciousness,
the
object,
rather than consciousness as an
intentional act.
Moreover,
fully
to
grasp
the
implications
of inten-
tionality you
have
according
to Husserl to
purify
the reflective at-
titude in the
phenomenological
reduction.
Husserl's
departure
from classical
philosophy
of consciousness
is most obvious in his last thematisation of the "life world." In his
late
works,
Husserl
speaks
not
only
of a reduction to transcenden-
tal
consciousness,
but also of a reduction to the lived
world,
to the
concrete,
"close" world which is
present
to us
prior
to
any
scien-
tific
knowledge;
the world that surrounds our
daily projects
as an
intimate horizon- "the
only
real,
the
really sensuously given
(...)-our everyday
life world"
(Husserl,
1936,
p. 49).
The fruit-
fulness of this new
approach
to
phenomenological
reduction has
most
clearly
been
brought
out
by l\1erleau - Ponty,
who even went
so far as to
suggest,
that Husserl in his last
philosophy departed
from "transcendental idealism"
(Merleau-Ponty,
1969,
p.
V
f.).
Although
this view of
Merleau-Ponty hardly
holds
good
in rela-
tion to Husserl's
explicit
views
(cf.
Kockelmans,
1967b),
it
might
be considered a "fruitful
misunderstanding,"
or as Merleau-
Ponty
once
expressed
it
himself,
an
"optimistic" interpretation.
It
might
be difficult for Husserl after
recognizing
the historical life
world as the
point
of
departure
for
any
scientific
enterprise
to
situate the transcendental
"primal ego"
outside
history,
as an ab-
solute
"primal
source" to which the reduction is
ultimately
to lead
beyond
the historical relative lived world. Thus
Merleau-Ponty
might
have drawn the
right
conclusion from Husserl's
premises
fulfilling
the
implicit
intentions of the Husserlian
project,
like
Husserl himself
thought
he was
bringing
forth the true intentions
of the
philosophy
of Descartes.
Was there
any
external influences
catalyzing
this last turn of
Husserlian
philosophy?
This
question might
be difficult to
answer. The Husserlian
project might
be considered a rather clos-
ed
enterprise, developing mostly
for reasons internal to Husserl's
philosophizing.
Yet there was
possibly
some influence from
Husserl's own
followers,
most
notably
from
Heidegger. Although
43
the
partnership
between Husserl and
Heidegger
broke down with
Heidegger's writing
his "Sein und Zeit" in which Husserl saw
nothing
but an inferior
copy
of his own
philosophy relapsing
into
naturalism and
subjectivism (cf.
Diemer, 1956,
p. 29f.),
still the
influence from
Heidegger might
have
played
a role. Thus in the
years
of 1932-33 there
emerge
a number of terms in Husserl's
writings reminding
of
Heideggerian terminology (ib. p. 65).
Anyway
one
might
see an existential interest reflected in
many
of
the themes treated in Husserl's last
works,
perhaps indicating
a
movement
away
from idealistic rationalism in direction of "ex-
istential
phenomenology."
From this late
philosophy
of Husserl it is the treatment of the
problems,
that could be
grouped together
under the title of
"functioning intentionality",
that is most
directly
relevant in the
present
context. These
thoughts
in the late Husserl have
especial-
ly
been called attention to
by Merleau-Ponty,
who
developed
them further in his
philosophy
of the
"body-subject."
The
"Functioning Intentionality"
Already
the Husserlian notion of
intentionality
as evolved in
the "Ideas" could be seen to have some
affinity
to the
concept
of
"unconscious." As mentioned above
(p. 33a)
the
"synthesis
of
identification" could
be,
and
generally
is,
an
anonymously pass-
ing synthesis going
on without the awareness of the conscious I.
The notion of the
(inner)
"horizon" of the
perceived thing
could
also be called
upon. According
to Husserl
(1913,
p. 100),
a
thing
is
necessarily given
in its
appearances
surrounded
by
a horizon of
"uneigentlicher 'Mitgegebenheit'
"
which has a certain indeter-
minateness to be determined with a
pre-given style. Every ap-
pearance
of an
object
refers to other
appearances corresponding
to other
possible
acts. The backside of the
object
is thus "in-
authentically"
or
"unconsciously"
meant in
my
actual
perception
of the frontside.
The
affinity
between
intentionality
and the unconscious is
most
clearly
seen from the distinction between an
"intentionality
of acts"
("Aktintentionalitat")
and an
"operating"
or "function-
ing intentionality" ("fungierende Intentionalitat")
which is
found in Husserl's late works
(cf.
Fink,
1939).
Thus
prior
to the
intentionality
of
acts,
that is the
explicit
intentional
positing
of
meaningful objects,
one has to reckon with a first level of inten-
44
tionality constituting
the
"pre-thematic" ground
for
any single
standing experience,
its
pre-given temporal/spatial
"world" as its
most
comprehensive
"horizon." So what was
originally
seen as a
prominent
characteristic of
intentionality,
its
being
an
"activity"
of
consciousness,
does
only
hold
good
for the
intentionality
of
acts,
while the
functioning intentionality essentially
must be seen
as an
anonymously passing synthesis,
or as Husserl also
puts
it,
a
"passive
constitution." The notion of
functioning intentionality
comes close to
Heidegger's "being-in-the-world"
or
"transcendence"29 of which is
said,
that if
any relationship
to that
which is
("Seindes")
is characterized as
"intentionality,"
then in-
tentionality (that
is,
intentionality
of
acts)
is
only possible
because
of transcendence
(Heidegger,
1965a,
p. 15).
This
topic
of
passive
constitution Husserl
gives increasing
at-
tention in his last
phenomenological analyses. Although
not leav-
ing many
marks in the works
published
in Husserl's
lifetime,
it
was a
prominent
theme of
investigation
at least from about
1917/18,
which can be seen from the
posthumous manuscripts.
so
In the
published
works it
got
its most
explicit
thematisation in the
"Cartesian Meditations" from 1929. Here Husserl treats the
prob-
lem,
that the
subject always
is surrounded
by
"finished"
objects,
which
only
hidden in themselves
carry
their
history
of
origin,
be-
ing
a result of a
"passive genesis" (1929, p. 111).
The
passive
con-
stitution not
only
includes the
object
but also the
pure Ego,
the
center of the noetic act. Now the
phenomenological
"I" is no
longer
an
empty pole
of
identity- as
Husserl had
thought
in his
"Ideas" from 1913-but itself a
consequence
of its own
history.
So
every
act,
radiating
from the
Ego,
will contribute to the forma-
tion of a
lasting unity consisting
of what Husserl calls the
subject's
acquired
"habitualities,"
which
provides
the continuous
identity
of the I
throughout
its
changes,
a
"personal
character": "Das
ego
konstituiert sich fur sich selbst
sozusagen
in der Einheit einer
Geschichte"
(ib. p. 109).
Intentionality
as
functioning- the steady passing anonymous
synthesis-can
no
longer
be characterised as an affair
exclusively
or even
primarily,
attached to an active
constituting
"I." Neither
can it be tied to consciousness in a narrow sense. The world as
well as the
pure Ego
must foremost be considered a
consequence
of a
passive genesis, passing
behind the
activity
of the con-
sciousness. At this
background
it
might
be
possible
to substitute
for Husserl's
ill-reputed
"transcendental
Ego"
his own
expression
45
"world-experiencing
life"
("Welterfahrendes
Leben;"
see
Brand,
1955).
With the doctrine of
functioning intentionality
con-
sciousness seems reduced to a less
prominent place
in Husserlian
phenomenology.
Also
according
to Husserl there are
moments,
where the I is not foremost a free and conscious
I,
but is
governed
by
a "dark
underground" (1952, p. 276). Although
Husserlian
phenomenology
has not thematized the
problems occupying
Freud,
it seems
open
for the results of
psycho-analysis.
Thus
Husserl in his late masterwork "Die Krisis der
europaischen
Wissenschaften und die transzendentale
Phanomenologie"
draws attention to the
problem,
that there also is to be found "un-
conscious
intentionalities,"
namely
such as have been
pointed
out
by
"the
new 'depth psychology' " (1936, p. 240).
It seems
possible,
that there
might
here be
arranged
the
sought
for encounter bet-
ween
psycho-analysis
and
phenomenology.
The
"Body-subject"
In his constitutive
analyses
Husserl
(1952)
draws attention to a
field that
might
foremost demand a
thorough phenomenological
analysis.
This field is the human
body,
which as a dual
unity
of
mind and
body
is of central
significance
for the constitution of
both
physical
nature and the
psychical.
It is this
problem
Merleau-Ponty
has taken
up
in his
great phenomenological
work
from
1945,
"Ph6nom6nologie
de la
perception."
Without doubt it is the
phenomenology
of
Merleau-Ponty
which comes closest to the view of Freud.
Merleau-Ponty
is
carry-
ing
on Husserl's doctrine of the
functioning intentionality,
the in-
tentionality
which is
operating through
consciousness rather than
in virtue
off
consciousness. As to the
question
how an intention
could be effective without
being actively
intended
by
con-
sciousness,
Merleau-Ponty
answers,
that it is
being
mediated via
the
"body-subject."
The human
body
which is neither
wholly
sub-
ject,
nor
wholly object,
but the dialectical encounter between
consciousness and
world,
stands as a
guarantee
for
my
intentional
being-in-the-world31 prior
to
any actively
intended act of con-
sciousness. Thus it is in the
motility
of the
body, Merleau-Ponty
finds
the "original intentionality,"
consciousness is not
primarily
an "I
think,"
but an "I can"
(1969, p. 160).
With the doctrine of the human
body
as the intentional sub-
ject
it
might according
to
Merleau-Ponty
be
possible
to
give
back
46
to
sexuality
the status it deserves in human existence: "We
rediscover at once the sexual life as an
original intentionality
and
the vital roots for the
perception,
the
motility
and the
representa-
tions
by reposing
all these
'processes'
on an 'intentional arc'
"
(ib.
p. 184). Sexuality
is not an isolated
phenomenon,
but is included
in
any cognition
and action. Here
Merleau-Ponty
finds the most
lasting
discoveries of
psycho-analysis: by discovering
in
sexuality
the relations and the
attitudes,
which were earlier seen as the
relations and attitudes of
consciousness,
psycho-analysis
rediscovers in what was
thought
to be
wholly physical
a dialectical
movement
reintegrating sexuality
in human existence
(ib. p.
184).
Thus
according
to
Merleau-Ponty
Freud does not con-
tradict
phenomenology.
On the
contrary
he
(unknowingly)
is con-
tributing
to its
development
and affirmation. What Freud
taught
was,
that
every
action has a
meaning,
and he tried to understand
the
phenomena
rather than
attaching
them to mechanical condi-
tions.
Merleau-Ponty
has
seen,
that "Freud
himself,
in his con-
crete
analyses, quits
causal
thoughts,
when he shows that the
symptoms always
have several
meanings,
or,
as he
said,
are
'overdetermined' ".
(ib. p.
184,
n.)
Giving
the human
body
status as "intentional
body"
Merleau-
Ponty goes
farther than the existentialists
who,
following
Sartre
(1966, p. 86f.),
have
interpreted
the Freudian unconscious as
"bad
faith,"
that is false consciousness
disclaiming
its own
authentic content
(cf.
Pontalis,
1961).
The unconscious is-ac-
cording
to
Merleau-Ponty-not
found on the level of con-
sciousness,
but on the level of the
body.
It is the
body,
that makes
possible
the existence of the unconscious. In the same
way
as the
body normally
secures
my openness
to the
world,
it
might
shut off
the
world,
the
time,
my
fellow human
beings.
These
bodily
inten-
tions lie
beyond
both conscious volition and mechanical deter-
mination.
Merleau-Ponty
mentions an
example
taken from
Binswanger
of a
young girl,
who reacts with a
hysterical aphony
at the loss of her
beloved,
resulting
from her mother's resistance
to the connection
(ib. p. 187f.). According
to
Merleau-Ponty
the
aphony
is not so much to be considered a sexual fixation at an
oral
point
of
development-although
oral troubles were found in
the
patient's
childhood-but rather a
way
of
reacting
to the
pre-
sent situation. Of all the functions of the
body, speech
is the one
most
closely
connected to
being
with others. With her loss of
speech
the
patient
is
breaking
with her circle of
acquaintances,
47
which has
brought
about her
loss,
and more
generally
with her
life. What is concerned has as little to do with a willed omission as
with a causal
annulation;
instead the
aphony
is
brought
forth
by
the
functioning intentionality
of the
body-subject, passively pass-
ing
behind the free intentions of the sick and
yet
in some
way pur-
posively
related to her situation. The
patient
cannot
regain
her
ability
to
speak by
a
simple
act of volition. On the other hand the
aphony
is no causal
paralysis,
which
might
be seen from the
recovery following psychological
treatment and a
change
in the
meaning
of the situation
brought
about
by
a reunion with the
man she loves.
Including
the unconscious under the domain of the inten-
tional
body
we
might according
to
Merleau-Ponty escape
both
the idealistic and the mechanistic
fallacy
of
viewing
man as
respectively
consciousness and
freedom,
or as a machine
governed
by
the laws of nature
(ib. p. 196).
The
relationship
between con-
sciousness and the
anonymous
intentions of the
body
is neither ex-
pressed by
an
identity,
nor
by
a
dichotomy,
but rather
by
an
original
dialectic,
which
prior
to
any explicit
choice is
connecting
the
subject
with his world. If I chose to
depart
from the
intersub-
jective
world
trying
to
get
rid of
my personal
existence,
it is
only
to
refind in
my body
the same
power,
this time without
name,
through
which I am "condemned to
being" (ib. p. 193).
In ad-
vance of - and
eventually
in
opposition to - my
conscious inten-
tions,
my
own
body might
as a
pre-personal
adhesion to the
general
form of the
world,
as an
anonymous
and
general
ex-
istence under
my personal
life,
play
the role of an "innate com-
plex. "
It is with this
background
that the
problem
of
repression
must
be seen.
Repression
is
according
to
Merleau-Ponty
not a
simple
loss of
memory;
the oblivion has the character of an "act." Thus
in the
psycho-analytic
situation the
patient
"knows"
very
well the
phenomena
he will not
recognize,
otherwise he could not so ex-
cellently
avoid
meeting
them in the conversation with the
analyst.
But what is concerned is an
anonymous, "bodily" knowledge
and
not a
knowledge
on the level of
positing
consciousness. The man
Freud refers to in his
"lectures,"
who
mislays
the book he
got
as a
present
from his former
wife,
to refind it the moment he
again
is
reconciled with
her,
has not
absolutely forgotten
the
book,
although
he does not beforehand know where it is to be found
(ib.
p. 189).
After the break with his
wife,
that which is
concerning
48
her no
longer
exists,
it has been locked out from his
life,
and
might
thus be said to be
beyond
both
knowledge
and
ignorance.
When he does succeed to refind the
forgotten,
this is
according
to
Merleau-Ponty owing
to the fact that the
representation
of the
book has been
preserved
in
memory
in a
general
form without be-
ing
attached to a
precise
or determined act of consciousness.
Merleau-Ponty
earlier in the book made a
comparison
between
the act of
repression
and the
amputated's preservation
of the
representation
of his
"phantom
limb": "The sick thus realizes his
loss
precisely
in so far as he
ignores
it,
and
ignores
it
precisely
in so
far as he knows about it."
(ib. p.
97).
Evaluation:
Away from
Rationalistic Idealism
In the
interpretation
of
Merleau-Ponty,
Husserl's late
phenomenology might
be seen as a movement
away
from idealism
and rationalism. Also
phenomenology
is led towards a
conception
of an "unconscious"
reminding
of the
psycho-analytic
notion,
that
is,
not
only
an unconscious as the
perceptual
horizons,
but
an unconscious as the
functioning intentionality
of the
body.
When Husserl in his later works is often
replacing
the
concept
of
"Leben" for that of
consciousness,
the historical life-world for
transcendental
Ego,
etc.,
this
might
be
interpreted
as a
departure
from classical
philosophy
of consciousness- a
departure perhaps
not so
foreign
to the famous
psycho-analytic
dethronement of the
I.
The Merleau-Pontian
interpretation
also means a
departure
from the rationalistic
presuppositions
in
phenomenology,
most
clearly
seen in Husserl's doctrine of the
phenomenological
reduc-
tion as a method to reach evidences of absolute truth. As
Merleau-Ponty puts
it: "The most
important
lesson of the reduc-
tion is the
impossibility
of a
complete
reduction"
(1969, p. VIII).
Husserl's
attempt
to make eidetic
phenomenology
a sort of
pre-
empirical
foundation of
psychology
in
analogy
to the role
played
by
mathematics in the natural sciences
might
here be criticized.
As
Merleau-Ponty (1967)
has
pointed
out,
this view of
phenomenology
in relation to
psychology
is
untenable,
phenomenology having
instead to find a more narrow co-work
with
empirical psychology.
Perhaps
we
might
here venture to characterize Husserl's ex-
plicit
scientific
self-understanding,
in
analogy
to the former
49
characteristic of
Freud,
as in some
way
a sort of
"objectivistic
misunderstanding." Although correctly criticizing
naturalism
and
objectivism,
does not Husserl himself in his
attempt
to
ground psychology,
and even
philosophy,
in
a
rigorous
science of
essences take to a new
objectivism,
rationalistic instead of the
criticized
empiristic
forms?
(cf.
Habermas,
1969)
CONCLUDING REMARKS
With these
interpretations
of
psycho-analysis
and
phenomenology
it seems
possible
to
arrange
for an encounter. In
spite
of the
apparently
salient
divergencies
of
opinion psycho-
analysis
and
phenomenology might
be seen to have essential
points
of view in common. Thus neither seems to
posit
con-
sciousness as
sovereign spirit
defined
by
immediate
presence
to
itself.
Phenomenology,
like
psycho-analysis,
must reckon with the
possibility
of a "false consciousness." As Ricoeur
(1970) puts
it,
the
"cogito," although guaranteeing
with
apodictic
evidence that
I
am,
leaves me in a
nearly comparable uncertainty regarding
what I am.
Although phenomenology
is
taking
the immediate ex-
perience
as its
point
of
departure,
this does not make the
phenomenological project
in
any
decisive
way depart
from that of
psycho-analysis.
Also Freud states on several
occasions,
that con-
sciousness,
although
unreliable,
is the
only possible starting point
even for
psycho-analysis. Phenomenology,
like
psycho-analysis,
has to include the unconscious into its
sphere
of thematisation.
In the words of De Waelhens
(1959,
p. 194) psycho-analysis
and
phenomenology
would
agree,
"that the
expressed
and immediate-
ly
manifest
meaning
never exhausts what we
really
are
saying."
Psycho-analysis
and
phenomenology
come from different
points
of
departure
to notions of the
unconscious,
that if not iden-
tical at least
apparently
could be
placed together
on a common
level,
this level
being
the
body-subject,
the
place
for
my pre-
predicative being-in-the-world.
With the doctrine of the
body
as
the
place
for
the "original intentionality," phenomenology might
be seen to make common cause with
psycho-analysis
in the latter's
fight against
the idealistic view of man as abstract
spirit.
The doc-
trine of the "flesh" of the
body
as the dialectical
point
of intersec-
tion between
subject
and world is at the same time a clash with
dualistic
philosophy seeing
consciousness as
transparent spirit
and
50
the
body
as a bundle of mechanical relations:
every
consciousness
is incarnated in a
body, every body
is animated
by intentionality.
At this
point Merleau-Ponty
sees in Freud an affirmation of
phenomenology:
with
psycho-analysis
the
spirit
invades the
body,
like
correspondingly
the
body
invades the
spirit (1960b).
This
re-interpretation
of
psycho-analysis
and
phenomenology
could,
as it
seems,
provide
the basis for a fruitful
synthesis.
We
might
see the initial resistance
against
such a
synthesis,
as it was
expressed
in the
juxtaposition
of the first
section,
as an indication
of the
complementary prejudices
from which the two movements
started. Both the Freudian
point
of
departure
in the
physiology
of
Helmholtz and the Husserlian'
starting point
in traditional
philosophy
of consciousness turned out to be too narrow for a
concrete
project trying
to
give psychology
a scientific foundation.
In the course of their efforts to realize their
projects they
both
break with their
original
frames of reference.
Although
we
might
find theoretical
inspirations
for this break in former traditions of
thought,
it is in both cases without doubt more
correctly
said to
have
happened
under the device of the
phenomenological
motto:
"zu den Sachen selbst" - the
"things
themselves"
being
for Freud
the neurotic cases from his clinical
praxis,
for Husserl the
pro-
blems of his concrete
descriptive analyses.
Because this break is
not
always clearly
reflected in their
conceptual apparatus, they
both
might
be said to
carry
a certain "unconscious" in their own
theories.
Psycho-analysis
and
phenomenology
both in their inter-
pretation
of the human condition are
reaching
further than their
explicit
intentions. To
paraphrase
De
Waelhens,
one
might say,
that the
expressed
and immediate manifest
meaning
of their
theories,
never exhausts what
they really
are
saying.
THIRD THEMATIZATION: THE FINAL WORD-?
"Du moins les
metaphors 6nerg6tiques
ou m6canistes
gardent-elles
contre toute idealisation le seuil d'une intui-
tion
qui
est une des
plus pr6cieuses
du freudisme: celle de
notre
arch,6ologie" (Merleau-Ponty,
1960a,
p. 9)
While in the first section of this
paper
I tried to make
plain
"the
great controversy,"
which one
might
read into the relation-
ship
between Freud and
Husserl,
in the second section I
attemp-
ted to iron out the
disagreement coming
to the
conclusion,
that
51
psycho-analysis
and
phenomenology might
learn from each
other,
in this
way trying
to overcome some of their
historically
determined
prejudices.
In the second section of the
juxtaposition
we found rich material for a
dialogue,
and it even seemed
possible
to find a common
ground
for a
synthesis
in the
philosophy
of
Merleau-Ponty.
Yet the encounter
might
turn
up
to be
superficial
not
allowing
for the central characteristics of
psycho-analysis,
obliging
the Freudian
project
to
depart
from that of
phenomenology.
Thus it could be
necessary
here to make a final
separation
in search of a more
adequate interpretation
of the con-
nection.
In fact we should start with
Merleau-Ponty,
who seemed to
provide
a suitable basis for the encounter.
Merleau-Ponty,
in the
last
piece
he was to write about
psycho- analysis -
a short foreword
to a book on
psycho-analysis
of Hesnard-made certain reserva-
tions
concerning
his former
interpretation
of the
relationship
between
psycho-analysis
and
phenomenology. According
to
Merleau-Ponty (1960a)
it
might today
be as
important
to avoid
any
idealistic as
any objectivistic interpretation
of Freud.
Exactly
that which was found most untenable in Freudian
psychology,
namely
its
energetic
and mechanistic
metaphors,
has been
guard-
ing psycho-analysis against any
idealisation in
advantage
of the
intuition
Merleau-Ponty
finds the most valuable in Freudianism:
that of our
"archaeology. " According
to
Merleau-Ponty you
have
to
escape
the
temptation
to let the
"phenomenon" say clearly,
what
psycho-analysis
has said in an obscure
way. Although
Husserl in his last
writings speaks
of the historical life as a
"Tiefenleben,"
he does not like Freud
point
out with his
finger
"das Es" or "das Uberich"
(ib.). According
to
Merleau-Ponty
it is
necessary
to read Freud as a
classic,
attempting
to
empathise
into
the total
vocabulary
of the works without
hasty attempts
to
criticize or
reinterpret.
Here we
might bring
in a new
phenomenologist
of the French
tradition in the
arena,
namely
Ricoeur,
who in his
great
work on
Freud "De
1'Interpretation"
has followed the few hints of these
last remarks on
psycho-analysis by Merleau-Ponty.
In the inter-
pretation
of the
relationship
between
psycho-analysis
and
phenomenology
we have to steer somewhere between the
scylla
of
seeing
the
relationship
as a dichotomous
opposition,
and the
charybdis
of
viewing
the two theories as a harmonious
identity.
In
this
navigation
we shall use Ricoeur as our
pilot, although
the er-
rand of Ricoeur is another than that of the
present paper,
his
52
work
being primarily
concerned with
psycho- analysis
as a cultural
philosophy,
and not so much with its contribution to the scientific
selfunderstanding
of
psychology. 32 According
to Ricoeur
(1965)
what foremost characterizes
psycho-analysis
as
against any
at-
tempt
to make of it a
phenomenological
or hermeneutical reinter-
pretation,
is its
emphasis
on "force" rathet than
"meaning;"
or to
put
it another
way,
the "discour
6nerg6tique"
of
psycho-analysis
is
not to be
replaced by
a "discours
herm6neutique."
This
fact,
however,
does not
legitimize any
dichotomous
opposition
between
psycho-analysis
and
phenomenology.
Rather we should with
Ricoeur see the
relationship
as dialectical.
I shall
try
to
justify
this last
interpretation by
first
briefly
showing why psycho-analysis
must be seen to transcend
phenomenology.
Then we shall have a brief look at the two
theories,
interpreted
as dialectical
theories,
finally trying
to ex-
plicate
the relation under the
metaphorical
notions borrowed
from
Ricoeur,
respectively
of an
"archeology"
and a
"teleology"
of the
subject.
PSYCHO-ANALYSIS IS NOT PHENOMENOLOGY
Although phenomenology
in its treatment of the
problems
of
passive genesis
and the
body
came near a
conception
of an un-
conscious,
it
might
turn
out,
that the unconscious in its most
pro-
per psycho-analytic
sense is the unsurmountable limit for the
phenomenological understanding.
This
was,
I think
correctly,
pointed
out
by
Hartmann
(1927)
in his
dispute
with
Jaspers,
although
I do not
agree
with Hartmann's
conclusion,
that
psycho-analysis
therefore is a natural science:
"Unconscious connections as well as unconscious in-
fluences
upon
conscious states and
processes
are,
however,
not
experienced (erlebt)
and therefore cannot
be
sympathetically experienced (nacherlebt). They
evade
the
sympathetic understanding
of others
just
as
they
evade
self-understanding." (ib. p. 390)
The unconscious must be considered the central theme of
psycho-analysis,
Freud
defining psycho-analysis
as "the science of
unconscious mental
processes" (e.g.,
1925c,
p. 264). Although
53
the
concept
of "the unconscious" in Freudian
psychology
is in
many ways
unclear,
being perhaps
the
heading
of a collection of
different
themes,
it has
good meaning
inside the
psycho-analytic
enterprise. Psycho-analysis
is the
study
of the
unconscious,
the
unconscious is what is
brought
to
light
in the
psycho-analytic
in-
vestigation.
We should better
skip
the
many problems
of a more
exact delimination of the
concept
of the
unconscious,
trying
to
thematize it inside the frame of reference of
psycho-analysis
itself-psycho-analysis being,
as Freud
declares,
not
only
a
therapy,
but also a scientific method of
investigation
and a
general psychological theory,
thus
making up
a
relatively
in-
dependent
scientific area.
(1923c, p. 235)
The Unconscious
To show in which
way
the
psycho-analytic
and the
phenomenological
notions of the unconscious are
different,
it
might
be convenient to return to the above mentioned views of
Merleau-Ponty.
In his
dealing
with the
topic
in the
"Phenomenology
of
Perception," Merleau-Ponty
states,
that re-
pression
is an act rather than a mechanism. At another
place,
Merleau-Ponty (1960b)
finds the formulations of Freud concern-
ing
the unconscious in some
ways confusing
or even
misleading.
Thus
according
to
Merleau-Ponty
the unconscious cannot be a
process
"in third
person."
Rather than
being
a
"not-knowing,"
Merleau-Ponty
thinks it should be described as a
"not-recognized,
unformulated
knowledge," perhaps
even better called "am-
biguous perception"
than "unconscious"
(p. 291).
But
exactly
such an
interpretation
of the unconscious must be
contested from the
standpoint
of the
psycho-analyst.
The Freud-
ian unconscious is
not,
as
Merleau-Ponty expounds
it,
a "zone of
experience
not
integrated,"
a
pre-reflexive project
even on the
level of the
body.
The unconscious
by
Freud is
fundamentally
not
a horizon of
implicit meaning waiting
for
deciphering,
but exact-
ly
that which
Merleau-Ponty
denies: a
process
in third
person.
Freud
clearly distinguishes
between the notion of unconscious in
descriptive
sense,
and the unconscious as a
dynamic system
of
forces able to exercise
"strong
effects." The unconscious in its
systematic
sense is described as an
"agnostified"33 system.
It does
not
recognize any
contradiction,
no
negation,
it is without
time,
and it is
functioning according
to the laws of the
primary process
54
of the free
mobility
of
energy (1915b).
In his
metapsychological
descriptions
Freud owes much to his mechanical
metaphors
of
force: "In the Ucs. there are
only
contents,
cathected with
greater
or lesser
strength." (ib. p. 186)
Although
Freud
continues,
at least
casually
to use
expressions
like "unconscious
act,"
he is more
aptly speaking
of
"processes"
and "mechanisms" in relation to the unconscious in its
systematic
sense. Even if much of what Freud
spoke
of, when
using
the no-
tion of
repression, might
be included under the Merleau-Pontian
description
of the intentional
act,
repression
in its most
proper
psycho-analytic
sense is missed
(cf.
Pontalis,
1961).
This fact is
perhaps
most
clearly
seen from a
change
in Freud's own doctrine
of
repression, taking place very early
in his scientific career.
The first
appearance
of the words
repression
and defense in
Freud's works indicated in a clinical and
phenomenological
sense
an intentional
suppression taking place, initially
at
least,
as a
result of the
patient's
conscious act of will
(cf.
Freud, 1894,
p.
51;
Breuer &
Freud, 1895,
p. 167).
Hence Freud used
expressions
like
"intentionally" ("absichtlich")
and
"deliberately" ("wilkJrlich")
repressed.
About the end of the
year
1895 a
change
is
gradually
introduced,
which
decisively
is
going
to
separate repression
from
the conscious act of will
(cf.
Andersson, 1962,
p. 205f.).
This
change,
which Andersson
among
other
things
sees reflected in a
more
frequent
use of the
expression "repression"
and a less fre-
quent
use of the former favourite term
"defense,"
should be seen
in relation to the clinical discoveries Freud had made in the
etiology
of neurosis. Freud found
namely,
that
pathological
repression only
occurred under two
circumstances,
both
having
to
be fulfilled:
first,
the ideas to be
repressed
had to be of a sexual
nature;
and
second,
they
had to have some connection with an
unpleasant experience
in the
patient's
childhood. Of these condi-
tions at least the last is in
general accepted by
later
psycho-
analysis (Jones,
1954,
p. 308), although they
were
initially put
for-
ward in the context of a
theory,
that turned out to be
wrong,
the
theory
of infantile seduction. Thus
any repression
in adult life
should
according
to
psycho-analysis
be seen to have a forerunner
in an infantile
repression.
This first institution of the unconscious
by
what Freud later calls
"primal repression" (1911b, 1915d)
in
early
childhood,
certainly
makes
repression
a mechanism
passive-
ly
released
by
an
unknown,
and
perhaps
even
unknowable,
con-
55
nection of
thought
between an actual and infantile
idea,
thus far
away
from
any
actual,
purposive
intention.
We
might
here return to the
example
from
Merleau-Ponty
of
the
young girl developing
a
hysterical aphony,
mentioned in the
second section of the
paper (see
above
p. 56).
In his
description
of
the case
Merleau-Ponty quickly passes
over what from the Freu-
dian
point
of view must be seen as the essential
part
of the
history,
the
early
oral troubles found in the
patient's
childhood. If the
Freudian discoveries are to be taken
seriously,
the
"intentionality"
of the
aphony
is not so much a break with life and
future,
the
symptom's "purpose"
rather should be
sought
in relation to a
magical
world made
up by
the infantile
phantasies
of the
patient's
unconscious. Freud coined the notion
"compulsion
to
repeat"
to account for the rather
stereotype
and mechanical rela-
tion between the
present symptom
and
past phantasy.
Exactly
its character of
being
a mechanism
subject
to force
rather than
meaning
is the essential characteristic of the Freudian
unconscious. The
phenomenological
unconscious as a horizon of
not
explicated meaning
does not
correspond
to the Freudian un-
conscious,
where the essential
thing is force,
resistance
against
be-
ing
known. The
phenomenological
unconscious-even that of
Merleau-Ponty-is
a
pre-psycho-analytic
unconscious. In Freud's
systematic
model it should be situated in the
"system
sub-
conscious,"
the
phenomenological "repression" taking place
at
the
boundary
between subconscious and
conscious,
where Freud
placed
a second
censorship (1915b, p. 192).
This
point
of view I
shall
try
further to
legitimize, putting
the unconscious in relation
to its method of
investigation,
the
analytic technique.
The
Analytic Technique
What foremost
guarantees
the irreducible character of the
Freudian unconscious is the
psycho-analytic
method as a
special
technique
of
investigation.
The
phenomenological
reflection will
forever be locked out from an
understanding
of the
system
of
forces,
Freud named the
systematic
unconscious,
because such an
understanding
is
only
reached
by
means of the
analytic
techni-
que.
This difference between
psycho-analysis
and
phenomenology
has been underlined
by Laplanche
& Leclaire
(1961). According
to these authors the
"prise
de conscience" in
56
the
psycho-analytic
situation
rarely,
or even
exceptionally,
has
the
character,
which
might
be
suggested by
the
phenomenological
notion of
"unveiling,"
that is a sudden
reconversion of the ensemble of
meaning (p. 90).
Rather the
pro-
cess is charcterized
by patient
work,
a revision of
systems,
a
laboured
restructuring
of the
subject's self-apprehension,
which
Freud termed a
"working through."
The unconscious is
only
reached
by
the
analyst's
skilled use of
the
psycho-analytic technique.
This fact
justifies
the
sharp
separation
made
by
Freud between
conscious-preconscious
on the
one
hand,
and the unconscious on the
other,
which is the basis for
the
topographical
division. The notion of the
therapy
as a
"work,"
which Freud used
extensively, might
further
legitimize
the use of
dynamic
and economic
metaphors.'The therapist
not
only
has to use his technical
skill,
but also to
work,
trying
to
remove the
patient's
"reslhtance,"
the force directed
against
the
emergence
of the unconscious idea. This Freud
pointed
out
already
in his "Studies on
Hysteria":
"I had to overcome a
resistance,
the situation led me at
once to the
theory
that
by
means
of my psychical
work I
had to overcome a
psychical force
in the
patients
which
was
opposed
to the
pathogenic
ideas
becoming
conscious."
(Breuer
&
Freud, 1895,
p. 268)
This characteristic of the
therapeutic investigation
as a
work,
on
overcoming
of
forces,
might
be seen most
clearly
from the
psycho-analytic theory
of the
handling
of "transference."
Transference,
the
phenomenon
that the
patient
is
acting
out his
infantile wishes in a
magical relationship
to the
therapist,
was
observed
by
Freud
already
in 1895. In the
beginning
it was con-
sidered
simply
a sort of
resistance,
but from about 1909 its use as
a
positive
tool in the
psycho-analytic investigation
was
recognized
(Sandler,
Dare &
Holder, 1973,
ch.
4).
The
analyst
himself as the
target
of the transference has to
play a
role in that
game
of forces
made
up by
the instinctual
organization
of the
patient's
un-
conscious,
and Freud
states,
that the
analyst
in the
therapy
has to
take care of an economic function in relation to the
patient's
in-
stincts,
taking
the libidinal cathexis
away
from the
symptom
and
turning
it
against
his own
person.
The correct
handling
of the
57
transference situation
might
be considered the central theme of
psycho-analytic therapy:
"The decisive
part
of the work is achieved
by creating
in
the
patient's
relation to the doctor- in the
'transference' - new editions of the old
conflicts;
in these
the
patient
would like to behave in the same
way
as he did
in the
past,
while
we,
by summoning up every
available
mental
force,
compel
him to come to a fresh decision.
Thus the transference becomes the battlefield on which
all the
mutually struggling
forces meet one another."
(Freud,
1916-17,
p. 454)
The technical
ingredients
of the
psycho-analytic
method
makes
psycho-analysis
transcend
any ordinary
reflection or
hermeneutical
understanding.
This fact is
perhaps
underrated
even
by
the
very ingenious interpretation
of
psycho-analysis
as a
"depth
hermeneutic"
("Tiefenhermeneutik") by
the "Frankfurter
School" of social science
(e.g.,
Habermas, 1968; Lorenzer,
1970).
Although
it
might
be
correct,
as Bernfeld
(1941)
thinks,
that
much of what
happens
in
psycho-analytic therapy
could be liken-
ed to an
ordinary
communication,
some
parts
of it
certainly go
beyond, perhaps
even to the
point
of
resembling
a detached
observation of "verbal behavior." Thus the French
psycho-analyst
Leclaire has
pointed
out,
that
although
the
patient
in
analysis
is
invited to
speak,
this is done not so much to
open
a maieutic
dialogue,
but is rather akin to the
situation,
where a
physician
asks a
patient
with
speech
disorders to
repeat
some difficult
phrase,
in this
way
to
investigate
the nature and
degree
of the
pa-
tient's disabilities
(Leclaire,
1971,
p. 156).
The Place
of Metapsychology
in
Psycho-Analysis
We
might
from the above
conclude,
that even the mechanical
parts
of
metapsychology
have an essential function in
psycho-
analysis.
The
topographical
and economic
metaphors
are based
upon
clinical facts.
Metapsychology
is not
merely
an accidental
appendage
to clinical
theory- on
the
contrary
much of Freud's
most valuable clinical
insights
are included in his
metapsycho-
logical
formulations.
Summarily
we could
say
with
Ricoeur,
that
metapsychology preserves
the
insight
into the force behind
58
our
purposive
and
meaningful
actions: the
psychical apparatus
is
"man insofar he has been and remains a
thing" (Ricoeur,
1965,
p.
119).
And
yet metapsychology
is no natural science. I believe it a
misunderstanding
with Freud's followers to
try
to make meta-
psychology
a
general systematic theory. Metapsychology
is more
aptly
seen as a bundle of similes or
metaphors,
which Freud does
not seem
very
keen on
trying
to
systematize,
even
occasionally
let-
ting
some of them
appear
in mutual
competition.
I think the
description
of Nash
very precise:
"Not
primarily
concerned to ar-
rive at a
neat,
unitary, all-embracing system,
Freud
developed
a
patchwork
of
metaphors,
often
deep
and
complex,
not
always
clearly
related to each other."
(Nash,
1962,
p. 54).
The
metaphorical
status of
psycho-analytic theory
has often
been
pointed
out,
sometimes as a
general
criticism of
psycho-
analysis
as a science. Thus
Nagel (1959), although
he states that
he has no
objection
to the use of
metaphors
in science as
such,
thinks that
psycho-analysis
here has
gone astray, using metaphors
without even
half-way
definite rules for
expanding
them,
such
that
they
are
bearing
no
specific
content and can be filled out
after one's
fancy (p. 41).
I think
Nagel might
be
right
in his
criticism,
if
psycho-analysis
should be measured
by
the
general
standard of theories of natural science. Yet I do think the lesson
should
be,
not that
psycho-analysis
is a bad
attempt
to found a
natural
science,
but that
psycho-analysis
is not a natural science.
Freud's use of
metaphors
is not to be seen as a mark of
imperfec-
tion,
it is rather essential to the
way
Freud is
theorizing.
Rather
than the idealized
hypothetical-deductive
method of natural
science,
Freud is
inscribing
the clinical
problems
met with in his
praxis
into a more or less
permanent repertoire
of similes. Thus
metapsychology might
be termed a series of
interpretative aiding
constructions or hermeneutical
figures,
a
viewpoint drawing
psycho-analysis
in the direction of the "hermeneutic-dialectic"
disciplines
rather than towards the "naturalistic" sciences
(cf.
Radnitzky,
1968,
for this
distinction).
This
interpretation
of Freudian
theory
does not
mean,
of
course,
that it is of no value
trying
to
give psycho-analysis
a more
precise
content. A better
theory might very
well be the result of
the
attempts
to link
psycho-analysis
to
bordering disciplines
like
for
example linguistics (Lacan), neurobiology (Pribram)
and
social
psychology (Lorenzer). Psycho-analysis
should
certainly
59
also
gain
from a more intimate contact with
today's general
psychology.
Yet
perhaps
the lesson we
might
learn from the
history
of
psycho-analysis
after Freud should
be,
that one should
be careful with
attempted
reformulations,
lest one is
risking
to
gain perhaps
a more reasonable
theory,
but at the
expense
of the
wealth of
meaning
and
depths
of
insights
included in the Freud-
ian
metaphors.
PSYCHO-ANALYSIS AND PHENOMENOLOGY:
TWO DIALECTICS
Both the
disciplines
of
psycho-analysis
and
phenomenology
are,
I
think,
best
approached
within a dialectical frame of
reference. 34 This in contrast to Freud's and Husserl's
explicit
in-
tentions to make
psychology
a
rigorous
science a la natural science
or even mathematics. The dialectical
perspective,
which was the
basis for the second
juxtaposition,
is seen reflected
everywhere
in
the two
theories,
including
both their method of
investigation
and
conceptualisation,
and the theoretical thematisation of their
subject
matter. The method of
psycho-analysis
and
pheno-
menology
should be considered a dialectical
uncovering.
Accordingly
the
subject
matter of both theories is conceived
along
dialectical
dimensions,
e.g.
of
body-mind,
self-world,
past-
future. In what follows I shall make a sketch for such a dialectical
interpretation.
The dialectical
ingredients
of
psycho-analysis
were
early
pointed
out-from different dialectical
perspectives-by
Mor-
timer Adler
(1927)
and Wilhelm Reich
(1929). Contemporary
dialectical
interpretations
of Freud owe much to the
epoch-
making
examination of Ricoeur
( 1 965) . 35
That Freud's method of
investigation
and
therapy
is related to dialectics
hardly
needs
comment,
psycho-analysis being
a verbal
interaction,
a
dialogue
between
analyst
and
patient
aimed at the
uncovering
of hidden
dimensions of the
patient's psychic
life and
trying
to
reintegrate
the
missing
links in the lacunaes of his
selfunderstanding.
Thus
Freud's dialectical
approach
as a whole
might
be seen as
simply
the result of his method of
study
and
therapy (Rychlak,
1968,
p.
326).
As
pointed
out
above,
one
might
in Freud's
preference
for
metaphor
see a reflection of dialectics in Freudian
theory.
I shall
shortly
sketch how such a dialectical
reading might
be carried
60
through
in relation to the three dimensions mentioned above.
First,
in his
conception
of the
mind-body problem
Freud
might
indeed be
interpreted
as both a materialist and an
idealist,
depending
on the text of Freud
you
consult
(Jones,
1954,
p.
402).
The indecision of Freud on this
topic
is
reflected
in his failure to
distinguish
between
biology
and
psychology
in his theoretical for-
mulations,
letting
central terms as for instance "instinct" and
"energy"
oscillate in what from a
superficial
consideration seems
to be a
very confusing way.
Yet this
apparent imprecision might
turn out to have
good meaning.
Thus,
for
instance,
Freud's fluc-
tuation between
using
the
concept
of instinct for the
biological
source and for the
psychical representative
is
according
to
Strachey owing
to the
concept's
own inherent
ambiguity, being
as
Freud
declares,
"on the frontier between the somatic and the
mental"
(SE,
XIV,
p. 111-12).
Ricoeur has
very convincingly
tried to
interpret
this
ambiguity
as an
expression
of a dialectical
thematisation of the relation between
psyche
and
soma,
centered
around the Freudian notion of "the
psychical representative"
of
the instinct
(Ricoeur,
1965,
p. 120-53).
The instinctual
represent-
ative is an "idea"
("Vorstellung"),
that is
something meaningful,
and
yet
its most decisive function is to "stand for" the
instinct,
presenting
the
biological
"demand for work" of the instinct for
the
psychical apparatus.
Thus,
there
might
be seen in this
point
of the
"representative"
a
conception
of a dialectical
unity
of force
and
meaning.
Although
Freud's notion of the
psychical apparatus
seems to
imply
a
"solipsistic"
view of man as a rather closed
system,
even
the
apparatus
of the
"project"
is an
apparatus
in a world. It has to
get
rid of the
"Q" produced
from its internal sources in interac-
tion with its
surrounding
world,
and
this,
Freud
asserts,
can
only
be
accomplished
with
help
from another
person.
Thus Freud in
"the initial
helplessness
of human
beings"
is
seeing
the
"primal
sources of all moral motives"
(1895a, p. 318).
The infant from the
start is situated in not
only
a
physical,
but in a social world. Cor-
respondingly,
in Freud's later
theory
of the
development
of the in-
stincts,
this
development
is
primarily
seen to be a
development
of
the instinct's "aim" and
"object."
With this
background
it is
possible
to read the
"genetic" point
of view of
psycho-analysis,
not
only
as a series of "vicissitudes of the
instinct,"
but also as one of
the "vicissitudes of the
object,"
in this
way finding
in
psycho-
61
analytic theory
of socialisation a "dialectic between nature and
culture"
(Lorenzer, 1972).
In a similar
way, although
Freud often seems to naturalize
time,
seeing
it as a one-dimensional succession of
points,
there
also
might
be found the
germs
for a dialectic of time in Freudian
theory.
This was
pointed
out in the second section of this
paper:
in his clinical
analyses
Freud is
situating
the
patient's symptom
in
the horizon of
time,
its
meanings having
to be found in its
"whence" and its "whither." In this
connection,
we should also
point
at the Freudian notion of "deferred action"
("Nachtrglichk?it"),
to which Lacan has drawn attention
(see
Laplanche
&
Pontalis,
1973, p. lllf.).
This
term,
frequently
us-
ed
by
Freud, indicates,
that the
memory
of earlier events could be
revised at a later
stage
to fit in with fresh
experience
or with a
later
stage
of
development. According
to
Laplanche
&
Pontalis,
"The first
thing
the introduction of the notion does is to rule out
the
summary interpretation
which reduces the
psycho-analytic
view of the
subject's history
to a linear determinism
envisaging
nothing
but the action of the
past upon
the
present." (p. 111-12)
The notion of "deferred action" should be likened to that
perspective
of the
phenomenological
doctrine of
time,
which has
been called
"meaning
retroaction"
(Kvale, 1974),
and
might
perhaps
even
suggest
a
conception
of
temporality, according
to
which the
subject
constitutes its own
past, constantly subjecting
its
meaning
to revision in
conformity
with its
'projects' (Laplan-
che &
Pontalis, 1973,
p. 112).
The theme of dialectics could be said to have been
pressed
upon
Husserl,
as it was
upon
Freud,
by
the nature of the
object
of
investigation,
which for Husserl was the
intentionality
of con-
sciousness. Yet Husserl tried to
escape
the dialectical
implications
of his
thought object, searching
in the reduction for a rather
static basis for
absolutely
secure
knowledge.
But Husserl
might
here be seen to transcend his intended
"objectivism"
in his con-
crete
phenomenological analyses,
also in this
respect resembling
Freud,
who broke with his
objectivistic
frame of reference in
praxis.
The dialectical
implications
of the
phenomenological
methods was first
clearly brought
out
by Heidegger
in his notion
of
phenomenological analysis
as an
"unveiling"
of
meaning (cf.
Strasser, 1963,
p. 233).
The
"phenomenon" according
to
Heideg-
ger
is what foremost does not show
itself,
but is hidden and has to
be
brought
to
light,
that is uncovered
(Heidegger,
1963,
p.
34f.).
62
Thus,
naive intuition must
according
to
Heidegger
be
replaced
by
the
process
of
un-covering phenomena,
in this
way giving
phenomenology
its character of
interpretation
or hermeneutics.
In the modem version of "hermeneutical
phenomenology,"
the
Husserlian
paradigm
of
perception
is
partly replaced by
the
models of
language
and
dialogue, bringing
the dialectical im-
plications
of
phenomenology
to full
light (cf.
Gadamer,
1965).
We
might try
to sketch dialectics in
phenomenological theory
in relation to the same three
topics brought up
in relation to
Freudian
theory: mind-body,
self-world,
past-present.
Yet for the
clarity
of
exposition,
we shall
proceed
in a different
order,
preser-
ving
until last what was mentioned first
by
Freud,
the
mind-body
dialectic. In fact we should start with the notion of
intentionality,
being
the central theme of Husserlian
phenomenology,
and hard-
ly
describable
except
in a dialectical
language.
Thus,
although
we still meet with
expressions
like "immanent" and "transcen-
dent"36 in Husserl's
writings,
these
expressions
can no
longer
have
the
meaning they
had in traditional idealistic
philosophy.
In de-
nying intentionality
both as an "immanent
objectivity"
and as a
"real" relation between consciousness and
object,
Husserl seems
to
place
the
phenomenological object,
the
"noema,"
neither in
consciousness, nor outside,
thus-as it
seems-being
left with the
only possibility
of a dialectical
interpretation.
This
interpretation
also seems the
only possible
one in relation to Husserl's assertion
that his
philosophy
transcend? both idealism and realism. In the
phenomenological
dialectic between
subject
and
world,
aptly ex-
pressed
in the
Heideggerian
notion of
"being-in-the-world,"
we
should not
give
the
subject any priority.3?
Rather we should
put
subject
and world at the same
level,
as does
Merleau-Ponty (1969,
p. 491):
"The world is
inseparable
from the
subject,
but from a
subject
which is
nothing
but a
project
of the
world,
and the sub-
ject
is
inseparable
from the
world,
but from a world which it
pro-
jects
itself." It should be
underlined,
that this world is a world of
intersubjectivity.
Thus even Husserl's
ill-reputed "primordial
Ego"
does not
imply any "solipsism."
On the
contrary,
Husserl in
his constitutive
analyses
states,
that the
subject necessarily
is con-
stituted in relation to the world and to the other
subject:
"So
I,
we, world,
belong together" (Husserl,
1952,
p. 288).
As was
pointed
out in the first section of the
paper,
inten-
tionality
is
only intentionality
in
time,
thus
making
it fundamen-
63
tally
a
dynamic
and not a static
concept.
In each
experience,
in-
tentionality
is
functioning
at the same time as an
implicit project
("Vorwurf')
and as a
retrospect ("Riickschau") (cf.
Brand, 1955,
p. 23f.),
thus
situating
the constitution of the
object
in the dialec-
tical horizon of time. To
speak
with
Heidegger (1963),
the
"ecstatic
unity"
of
temporality
is
connecting present, past
and
future,
constituting
the
subject's
own
past
in relation to
present
understanding projected
towards the future. This
phenomenological
thematisation of
temporality,
initiated
by
Husserl in his lectures held 1904-5
(Husserl, 1966a),
and further
developed by Heidegger
and
Merleau-Ponty, might
turn out to be
very
useful for
psychology (cf.
Kvale,
1974).
The last
topic
focused
upon
in this short sketch of the lines
which should be followed in a dialectical
interpretation,
the
mind-body
interaction,
has not had such extensive treatment in
phenomenology
as it has in
psycho-analysis.
This
might legitimize
its
placement
here as last in line.
Surely phenomenology
as an off-
spring
of idealistic
philosophy might
not find it obvious to treat
the
problem
of the influence of
biological
substrate
upon
con-
sciousness. And
yet
we need not even
go
to
Merleau-Ponty's
"philosophy
of the
body"
in search of a treatment of the mind-
body problem
akin to dialectics. In
fact,
this is found in Husserl's
own constitutive
analyses.
The human
body
in its dual
unity
of
body
and soul has
according
to Husserl a central
place
in relation
to the
problem
of constitution
(Husserl,
1952,
p. 143f.).
Husserl
(ib.)
denies both a
psychophysical
determinism and a
psychophysical parallelism.
Neither is mind and
epi-phenomenon
to
bodily processes,
nor is the relation between
body
and mind a
dualistic relation between two substances.
Body
and soul are
closely
intertwined,
the
body being
"animated"
("beseelt")
the
soul
being
"localised"
(p. 185).
Husserl uses the simile of a rela-
tionship
between
"expression" ("Ausdruck")
and the
"expressed"
(p. 236),
that is between
"sign"
and "content."
OPPOSED DIALECTICS:
ARCHAEOLOGY AND TELEOLOGY
Psycho-analysis
and
phenomenology
both have dialectic im-
plications.
And
yet
their dialectic
perspectives
can be said to dif-
64
fer in a radical
way.
Thus in the
Ego-world
dialectics of
psycho-
analysis,
the
Ego
is not identical with the
fundamentally
free and
conscious
Ego
of
phenomenology;
it is as Freud
declares,
an
"armes
Ding," struggling
to fulfill the demands of its three
masters,
the
biological
needs,
the external
reality,
and its inter-
nalized
morality (1923b, p.
286). Correspondingly
the
body
of
psycho-analytic theory
is not like Husserl's
"body-subject,"
primarily
an "animated"
body,
or even a
"sign"
for the
psychical
"annex." It is
fundamentally
a
body
of
force,
a reminder of the
close connection of the human
subject
to
physical
nature.
Finally,
the
perspective
of
temporality
in
psycho-analysis
is most
pro-
foundly
a dominance of the
past
over the
present,
as
against
the
phenomenological
notion of consciousness's
openness
towards
future.
I think a confrontation of
psycho-analysis
and
phenomenology along corresponding
lines could be made in
detail. This I shall not
attempt
in the
present
context. Instead I
shall
try
to characterize the
relationship
in a
global way, using
the
metaphorical expressions
of Ricoeur
(1965, p. 407f.),
of
respec-
tively
an
"archaeology"
and a
"teleology"
of the
subjects. 38
The
subject
of
psycho-analysis
is conceived as
being
ruled
by
the
mechanical,
the
irrational,
the
infantile,
the unconscious. Thus
the dialectic of
psycho-analysis might
be considered a stiffened
dialectic
possessed by
the
past, aptly
characterized
by
Freud
himself with the notion of
"archaeology."
In
contrast,
the
phenomenological subject
is
fundamentally
conscious,
free and
responsible,
directed towards the future in its
projects
of mean-
ing, legitimizing
Husserl's
expression
of a
"teleology"
of the sub-
ject. Accordingly
we
might
characterize the two
psychological
projects
in relation to their
anthropological presuppositions
as
respectively
a
regressive
and a
progressive
dialectic,
pulling
in dif-
ferent directions in their
conceptions
of the
subject.
And
yet
the
relationship
between
psycho-analysis
and
phenomenology
is not a
simple polarity.
It is
possible
to
show,
how the
progressive
perspective implicitly
is
present
in Freudian
archaeology,
and
how a
regressive perspective
is
implied
in the
phenomenological
doctrines. The
relationship
between
psycho-analysis
and
phenomenology
is thus neither to
be
likened to a
polar opposi-
tion,
nor to an
identity,
but rather to that of a
dialectic,
the two
theories both
implying
and
opposing
each other in what could be
called a
"unity
of
oppositions."
65
Freudian
Archaeology
Freud himself often refers to
archaeology
as a simile for the
psycho-analytic project.
The first allusion
might
have been in a
letter to
Fliess,
dated December
12, 1899,
where Freud
speaks
of
his
discovery
of some infantile sexual memories in a
patient:
"It is
as if Schliemann had
dug up
another
Troy
which had hitherto
been believed to be
mythical." (1954, p. 305)
In "Gradiva" from
1907 he likens the unconscious to the buried relics of
antiquity
found in the ashes of
Pompei,
which were both covered
up
and
preserved (1907a, p. 51).
In "Konstruktionen in der
Analyse"
from 1937 he likens the
therapeutic
reconstructions of the
pa-
tient's
past
to that of
archaeologists'
reconstructions
(1937a, p.
259).
This
archaeological metaphor
is not restricted to the
psychoanalytic technique
of
"excavation;"
also what is found in
psycho-analysis might
be termed "archaic": "Dreams and
neuroses seem to have
preserved
more mental
antiquities
than we
would have
imagined possible" (1900, p. 549).
The dream accord-
ing
to Freud is a
regression
to the
childhood,
a revival of in-
fantile instinctual
impulses
and modes of
expression. According
to
Freud,
it even
goes
behind the childhood of the individual and
promises
a
picture
of
phylogenetic
childhood,
of the
history
of the
human race. Freud refers to the assertion of
Nietzsche,
that in
dreams "some
primeval
relic of
humanity
is at work which we can
now
scarcely
reach
any longer by
a direct
path" (ib. p. 549).
Thus
the
analysis
of dreams
might according
to Freud lead us to a
knowledge
of "man's archaic
heritage" (ib.).
Freud's
archaeology,
however,
goes
further than the limited
phenomena
of dream and neurosis. The archaic content of the
unconscious is
present
as a weft in
every
conscious
thought
or ac-
tion,
the unconscious
being
as Freud
declares,
"the true
psychical
reality" (ib. p. 613). Beginning
with the
study
of what is
excep-
tional and abnormal from the
standpoint
of natural understand-
ing,
Freud
might
be said to have made a hundred and
eighty
degree
volte-face,
coming
to
problematize
the normal from the
standpoint
of the
pathological,
thus
wiping
out
any
clear
marking
line between
normality
and
pathology.
Even what we consider
our
highest
cultural achievements like
art,
morality, religion,
does not
escape
the
regressive analyses
of Freud. In his
great
writings
in cultural
critique,
Freud
interprets
the foundation of
66
civilization with his
interpretation
of dreams as a model. Cultural
ideology might
be seen as a result of
phantasies attempting
a
wish-fulfillment. Thus
religion
has its individual
origin
in the little
child's
"longing
for the father"
(1912-13, p. 148).
In a broader
perspective
of cultural
history,
Freud is
viewing
the formation of
Christian
religion
in
analogy
to the
genesis
of neurosis:
trauma-repression-return
of the
repressed (1939, p. 185).
The
"applied psycho-analysis"
as
psychology
of
religion,
shows
religion
as the archaic inheritance of the human
race,
likened
by
Freud to
"a universal obsessive neurosis"
(1907b, p. 126-27).
Husserlian
Teleology
The central theme of Husserlian
teleology might
be seen to be
contained in the doctrine of
intentionality.
The noetic
directedness of consciousness has as its task from a
"teleological
point
of view" to
provide
the
synthetic unity
of
experience
(Husserl,
1913,
p. 213).
The noetic act so to
speak
"transcends"
the
actually given
material of consciousness
(its hyle)
into a
pro-
ject
of
understanding open
towards the future fulfilment of
meaning.
In the dialectical tension of
intentionality
between "ex-
pectation"
and "fulfillment" the future has
priority
over the
past.
It is
precisely
the directedness of consciousness towards
future,
which is the condition
making possible
the
subject's
existence as
subject.
This
point
has been underlined
by Heidegger
in his doc-
trine of "transcendence" as an "existentialization" of "Dasein"
(Heidegger,
1963,
1965a). According
to
Heidegger
the
subject
does not
only
exist as a
completed reality ("Vorhandensein"),
but
also,
and
foremost,
as
possibility.
It is the
subject's possibility
for
transcendence-Husserl would
prefer
to
speak
of his
being
able to
strive for fulfilment of intentional acts-which
guarantees
the
human existence as a
subject open
towards the
world,
and not on-
ly
as an
object among
other
objects
in the world.
In the
light
of the transcendence of
intentionality
the
phenomenological ego appears
in a
perspective radically differing
from that of
psycho-analysis.
Far
away
from
any "poor thing"
be-
ing
ruled
by
forces
beyond
its own
power,
the
"pure
I" of Husserl
is
subjective pole
for
any
intentional act. The I "lives" in its
acts,
not as a
passive component,
but more
aptly
characterized as the
center from which the intentional acts "radiate"
(Husserl,
1913,
p. 213).
Intentional
expectation
is fulfilled
by
the
ego's
free
ap-
67
proach
to the
object. According
to the
'free spontaneity
and ac-
tivity"
of the
I,
it must be considered the first
part
in the constitu-
tion,
functioning
as a
"primal
source" of the constitutive
achievements
(ib. p. 300).
In the same
way
as Freud's
archaeological
intentions
present
themselves
clearly
in his cultural
interpretations,
Husserl's
teleological pretentions
are
markedly
seen in his thematisation of
culture and
history.39
In his late masterwork "Die Krisis der
europaischen
Wissenschaften und die transcendentale
Ph3nomenologie"
Husserl considers
European history
as a
teleology attempting
to fulfill the
"Entelechie",
which he sees im-
plied
in the
origin
of
European
civilization in Greek
antiquity.
According
to Husserl a new
thought
of a "scientific" mode of life
was hatched in
Greece,
according
to which true
knowledge
("episteme")
was
everywhere
to
replace
what was
only supposed
("doxa"),
the critical
philosophical self-understanding
to
replace
the
dogmatic
handed-down tradition. This
thought
Husserl
believes is telos for the historical
development
of
Europe,
the aim
of which is to realize a life under the
leadership
of
rationality.
Science,
respectively philosophy,
obtains its full
meaning through
its contribution to this historical
development, fulfilling
the
general
task to make it
possible
for man to
give
his
individual,
as
his social
life,
sensible
meaning.
Like the
intentionality
of the in-
dividual,
history
is "a
living
movement
(... ) of originary
for-
mation and sedimentation of
meaning" (Husserl,
1936,
p.
380),
an
ongoing development
towards a
growing
realisation of the im-
manent
rationality
of
history: "History
thus
provides
the
teleology
of the
development
of the ever more
complete
truth."
(1936, p.
491).
MUTUAL IMPLICATIONS
But the
relationship
between
psycho-analysis
and
phenomenology
is not antithetical. As was shown in the second
section of this
paper,
the two theories contain
ingredients
which
might bring
them near to each other.
Psycho-analysis
does not
only
deal with mechanistic
determination,
but also with the
meaning
of the
symptoms, thoughts
and actions-and
phenomenology
does not
only
deal with the transcendental
ego,
but also. with the intentional
body.
In
psycho-analytic
ar-
68
chaeology
is
implied
a
rudimentary teleology-in phenomeno-
logical teleology
an
implicit archaeology.
The
teleological implications
of
psycho-analysis
are
apparent
in Freud's clinical
descriptions,
where
expressions
like
"meaning,"
"intention" and
"purpose"
have
replaced
the machine model of
the
psychical apparatus.
But even
metapsychology
in Freud's own
version could
hardly
be considered a
general explanative theory.
Rather,
what is concerned is a number of models or
metaphors,
of which most have been taken from
physics,
but some also from
philologies
and
dramaturgy.
As was
pointed
out
above,
psycho-
analysis
is never a one-dimensional deterministic
theory reducing
man to a
passive product
of his infantile
past.
If
archaeology
might
be said to be the
figure
of attention for the
psycho-analytic
enterprise, teleology
makes
up
its unthematized
ground,
surroun-
ding
it like an
implicit
horizon.
Attention has often been drawn to the fact that
Freud,
far
from
being
the
preacher of
irrationality,
which he was accused of
by early
conservative
critics,
on the
contrary
is a sober
represent-
ative for
European
rationalism
(cf.
Rief,
1959).
Here there
might
be little difference between Freud and
Husserl,
also Freud's
hopes
for the future
go
to a life
beyond
illusions ruled
by
reason.4
Perhaps
the clearest
expression
found in Freud of the
possibility
for the telos of reason to raise above the
compulsion
of the
psychical
forces is found in his discussion of the
therapeutic
cure,
which
hardly
ever
gets any satisfactory metapsychological
ex-
planation. Psycho-analytic therapy
is
striving
to
help
the
patient
gain insight
into the latent
meaning
of his conflicts and
symp-
toms,
thereby making
it
possible
for him to free himself from irra-
tional coercion.
According
to Freud it is
possible
to substitute for
neurotic
repression
the conscious "condemnation"
("Verurteilung")
of the
process
in
question (1909, p. 145).
The
analysis
has as its task to make
possible,
to use "the normal
method of
warding
off what is
painful
or
unbearable,
by
means of
recognizing
it,
considering
it,
making
a
judgment upon
it and
taking appropriate
action about it"
(1936, p. 245-46).
As Freud's
famous motto for the
psycho-analytic therapy
reads: "Wo Es war
soll Ich werden."
(1933b,
p. 86)
Correspondingly
the
teleology
of
phenomenology
involves an
implicit archaeology. Although
the future
occupies
a
superior
place
in the
phenomenological
doctrine of
temporality,
phenomenology
is never blind for the influence of the
past upon
69
the
present.
The handed over
meaning- from
tradition or from
individual
experience-is serving
the role as
material,
"hyle,"
for
new intentional achievements.
Every experience
is covered
by
layers
of "sedimented"
meaning.
The
uncovering
of these con-
stitutive
layers
is the task for the
phenomenological deciphering,
which therefore
also,
as Husserl himself
points
out,
might
be
likened to an
"archaeology" (see
Edie,
1967).
In Husserl the
regressive
moment is most
clearly
seen in his late
teachings
con-
cerning passive
constitution.
Intentionality
as
"functioning
inten-
tionality"
is here no
longer,
as it was in his
"Ideas,"
the "free and
spontaneous activity"
of the
I,
but an
intentionality passively
passing through
the
subject,
rather than
"radiating"
from the
subject.
Before
any
active
approach
to the
objects,
the "T' finds
itself in a
pre-constituted
world,
a
spatial-temporal,
inter-
subjective
world. Even the I itself is a result of the intentional
achievements of the
past,
a residium of
"acquired
habitualities."
We
might
with
Heidegger
conclude,
that even if the
phenomenological subject
is defined
by
his
projects
towards the
future,
he is at the same time "thrown" into the
present
from his
past,
existence
being
thus,
as
Heidegger expresses
it
(1965b, p.
18), fundamentally "geworfener
Entwurf."
CONCLUDING REMARKS
Psycho-analysis
is the doctrine of man's obsession
by
the ar-
chaic,
of the
precedence
of childhood above
adulthood,
of the
dominance of the
regressive perspective.
On the other
hand,
phenomenology
is an
expression
of man's inherent
possibility
for
transcendence,
of the
primacy
of future above
past.
The two
perspectives
are, however,
not
contradictory,
but
dialectically
in-
tertwined.
Phenomenology implies psycho-analysis,
like
psycho-
analysis presupposes phenomenology.
At the same
time, however,
the two theories make
up
the
complementary
limitations of each
other.
Psycho-analysis presupposes
the
phenomenological
doc-
trine of
consciousness,
but it never reaches an
adequate
understanding
of consciousness itself. This failure
might
turn out
to be no
simple
omission,
but a result of the fundamental
psycho-
analytic approach. Thematizing
man as a "bundle of instincts"
playing
out their
phantasmagorical game
on the
imaginary
scene
of the
psycho-analytic
situation,
psycho-analysis
would seem to be
70
excluded from an
understanding
of man in his free and conscious
being.
In fact the
problem
of consciousness
hardly
ever enters in-
to the field of vision of
Freud,
psycho-analysis being,
as he
declares,
fundamentally
a
study
of the unconscious. And
yet
the
possibility
of consciousness and free condemnation of
unaccep-
table
impulses
seems to be a
necessary ground
for the
psycho-
analytic project, legitimizing
its
therapeutic enterprise. Psycho-
analysis
is the
study
of man as
object,
but with the
purpose
to
overcome the
subject's
reification,
making possible
his future ex-
istence as more
truly
a
subject.
Phenomenology
on the other hand never reaches an
explica-
tion of the
problems
that lead Freud to the
conception
of the un-
conscious,
which in its
proper
sense is not
only
a latent
meaning,
but a
system
of forces. It
cannot,
because
phenomenological
reflection does not involve the
analytic technique,
which is the
proper guarantee
for the unconscious as an
"agnostified" system.
Perhaps
we could
say,
that
phenomenology
in its scientific
project
is
fundamentally thematizing
man as
subject, although
not
deny-
ing
his existence as an
object
besides. This could be the
meaning
of Husserl's characterization of the
subject
as
"subject-object"
(1952, p. 195).
With this
background
it
might
be
suggested
that
psycho-
analysis
and
phenomenology imply
each
other,
at the same time
setting up
mutual
presuppositions
and limitations. Such a rela-
tionship
could
aptly
be characterized as that of a dialectic or a
dialogue. Originally
dialectics was-for Plato and Socrates-the
name for the art which
through exchange
of
opinions
tried to
reach a common
co-understanding.
This
co-understanding
should not be a
simple compromise,
but an
expression
of the
movement,
which
through argument
and
counterargument
lets
the cause come to words. The result of such dialectical com-
prehension
should not
necessarily
be a final
clarification,
but in
some
way
an
uncovering
or
un-veiling
of the
problem by viewing
it from different
perspectives.
In this
way
the
dialogue
between
psycho-analysis
and
phenomenology
could be seen as an
attempt
to clear the
problem
of the
subject
from different
points
of view.
And
yet
the
relationship
between
psycho-analysis
and
phenomenology
is not
only dialogical
but also in some
ways
in-
compatible.
The
discrepancies
between
psycho-analysis
and
phenomenology
are not
only
the result of theoretical
prejudices
sticking
to the
projects
from their scientific
origins;
nor are
they
71
simply
a result of a division of
labour,
owing
to the two
disciplines
thematizing
different sides of human existence. Neither of the
two theories could be said to be restricted to their immanent
sphere
of
investigation. They
are both
making projects
for a
psychology
and more
generally
for a
philosophical anthropology.
Psycho-analysis
is of course not
merely
a
theory
of neurotic
pa-
tients'
imagination
inside the
psycho-analytic
situation of in-
vestigation.
To claim this would mean a
grave underrating
of the
range
of
implication
of Freud's discoveries. Nor is
phenomenology
restricted to Husserl's favourite theoretical
model,
the
perception
of
objects
in external
space.
Both
phenomenology
and
psycho-analysis
claim a certain
universality,
Husserl and Freud
taking part-as
do in fact all
psychologists - in
the
great dialogue
of
humanity, attempting
to define the nature
of man.
Therefore,
although
the differences in theoretical
presuppositions
and in
preferred subject-matter
of
investigation
should be taken into consideration for a correct
interpretation
of
the
relationship
between
psycho-analysis
and
phenomenology,
we
cannot close this final
juxtaposition, simply putting
the two
theories side
by
side as two
complementary approaches
to
psychology
each with a delimited
authority.
Rather the final word
should be a mutual criticism on the level of
anthropological
assumptions.
Psycho-analysis might
from an
anthropological perspective
be
considered a "criticism" of the
selfunderstanding
of Western
man. What
generally
is considered the kernel of
identity,
the con-
scious
I,
is
according
to
psycho-analysis mostly
to be
recognized
as
a facade of our instinctual life. The
crippled Ego
of civiliza-
tion- Freud's "armes
Ding" - is
not the "true" center of
subjec-
tivity,
an
expression perhaps
more
aptly
reserved to the
bodily
ground,
to that
sphere
of
life,
Freud termed with the neuter "Es"
(id).
In this
light
Freud
might
be seen as the radical
making up
with Cartesian
anthropologies,
which have defined man as
prin-
cipally
conscious
ego.
Such a criticism also touches the
phenomenological project,
which as its
point
of
departure posits
consciousness's immediate
presence
to itself. We must with Freud ask the
question:
is not the
phenomenological
"I"
undertaking
the reflexion a victim of illu-
sions
resulting
from the
structuring
of the
subject's
instinctual
economics. Freud was
always skeptical concerning philosophical
speculations.
He sometimes even likened
philosophy
to the delu-
72
sionary systems
of
paranoia,
and he even offered
philosophy
a
psycho-analytic
cure
(1913, p.
178-79). According
to
Freud,
philosophy
is
risking
with
religion
to resort to an animistic word
magic, believing
that the real
processes
of the world are
taking
the route
pointed
out
by
our
thoughts (1933a, p. 165-66).
Philosophy
is
risking
in its narcissistic overestimation of
thought
to
oppose
that
"copernican
revolution,"
Freud
(1917) thought
was
implied
in the
development
of modern science.
Copernicus
first drew attention to the
fact,
that the earth was not the center
of the universe. Next Darwin showed the close
connection,
which in an
evolutionary perspective
exists between man and
animal.
Finally
as the last "narcissistic offence"
psycho-analysis
has
shown,
that man is not even "master of his own house." Does
not Husserl's return to
immediate,
subjective
self-consciousness as
the
point
of
departure
for an
understanding
of man- a return
which Husserl himself once termed a "subversion of the
coper-
nican doctrine"? in the
light
of Freud's criticism
present
itself
as a last
temptation
of
narcissism,
neglecting
the Freudian
insight
into the
principal "decentrality"
of the locus of the
subject?
And
is not
accordingly
the whole
phenomenological project
to be
given
up, phenomenological
reflexion to be seen
only
as a method to
confirm
pre-established prejudices?
And
yet-?
We have to
point
out for
psycho-analysis
the cor-
relative criticism from the
standpoint
of
phenomenology.
We
have to confront
psycho-analytic
criticism with the
phenomenological
counterattack
asking
the
analyst
from which
platform
he is
speaking,
if not from that "lived
experience,"
which
phenomenology
has claimed the
point
of
departure
for
any
scientific
project?
Does not
psycho-analysis
itself in its
attempts
at
explanation presuppose
this
everyday understanding
it is
subject-
ing
to such radical
criticism,
this
everyday understanding making
up
the unthematized
ground
for its central
enterprise?
And does
not the
analyst
risk,
by extending
his
authority
from the
original
doctor-patient relationship
to the
anthropological understanding
of man in
general,
as Gadamer has
aptly expressed
it,
to become
a
"Spielverderber,"
who
unceasingly
believes to see
through
his
fellow
players
in the social
game
of
everyday
interaction?
(Gadamer,
1971,
p. 81)
None of these
questions
should be answered
simply pro
or
con. In
fact,
with this last confrontation I believe we have come
close to what
might
turn out to be the central
enigma
of
73
psychology,
its
"anthropological
dilemma,"
psychology having
as
its
subject-matter
man
himself,
including
the
psychologist
in his
scientific
enterprise.
The
question
"what is man?" is asked in a
historical
context,
thus
having
to be answered
continuously
with
background
in a concrete hermeneutical
dialogue
or reflexive
analysis
that
includes
the
reflecting subjects
in their own
historical situatedness. One could
say,
we should
today give
psycho-analytic
archaeology priority
over
phenomenological
teleology, psycho-analytic
"iconoclasm"
being legitimized
from
the demonstration of the
ideological
nature of the idealist's con-
ception
of man as
free,
responsible
consciousness. And
yet
we
might
conclude from this abstract
analysis,
that both the ar-
chaeological
and the
teleological perspective
should be included
in our
conception
of
man,
neither of them
being
able
completely
to rule out the other.
Any
criticism of the
subject's
self-delusion,
like that of
psycho-analysis,
should
presuppose
a
conception
of
the
potential possibilities
of the
subject
to
quit
the delusions. As
Ricoeur
(1965)
has
put
this
point
of
view,
the
psycho-analytic
ar-
chaeology
is
only meaningful
in relation to an
implicit teleology
of the
subject.
The Freudian doctrine of the I as an "armes
Ding,"
must be read in relation to Freud's dictum: "Wo Es war
soll Ich werden."
SUMMARY
"Du musst es dreimal
sagen ... "
(Mefistoteles
in
"Faust")
The
magical
number three has
provided
the
template
for this
comparative study
of Freudian
psycho-analysis
and Husserlian
phenomenology.
"Three" should be considered the number of
dialectics;
the method in the
study
to let three distinct thematisa-
tions succeed each other should find its
legitimation
in dialectics.
The
relationship
between
psycho-analysis
and
phenomenology
as
that between two dialectic theories
might
well call for a dialectic
interpretation.
It should be difficult from a
straightforward
and
unambiguous interpretation
to
give
full credit to the rich and
equivocal meaning
of
psycho-analysis
and
phenomenology.
I
hope
to have shown in the
presentation
above,
that it is
possible
by accentuating
different sides of the two scientific
disciplines
to
74
reach different conclusions
regarding
their
relationship.
For a full
account of this
relationship
these different conclusions should be
placed together
and viewed in their internal coherence as a
dialectical
unity.
Thus none of the three sections of the text
should be considered
apart
from the others.
In the first section of the
paper,
the first
thematisation,
I tried
to
spell
out the
discrepancies
between Freud and Husserl as clear-
ly
as
possible.
The
point
of
departure
here was the Freudian no-
tion of the
"psychical apparatus,"
and Husserl's doctrine of "in-
tentional consciousness." The models built around these central
notions can be shown to have a
paradigmatic meaning
for the
development
of Freud's and Husserl's
psychological projects.
Conceiving
the
subject
as
psychical apparatus,
Freud
thought
it
possible
to make
psychology
a natural science. The
subject
could
be treated like a mechanical
apparatus,
that is a machine admit-
ting
the
general
laws of motion. - In
contrast,
Husserl
thought
psychology
should
depart
from natural science in its scientific
selfunderstanding,
and
join
the humanities instead.
Psychology's
departure
from natural
science,
Husserl found
legitimized
in the
subject's
essential character of intentional consciousness. Accord-
ing
to
Husserl,
man as a conscious
being
could not be reduced to
a
thing
in the natural world. On the
contrary,
the
aprioric
basis
for the world should be found in intentional
consciousness,
which
constitutes the "world" as a
meaningful
coherence related to the
subject.
Freud's and Husserl's
conceptions
of
psychology
were
traced to historical roots in
respectively positivism,
naturalism
and mechanical materialism on the one
hand,
and
rationalism,
humanism and idealism on the other. In this first
interpretation
the
relationship
between
psycho-analysis
and
phenomenology
seemed to be
antithetical,
the two theoretical
projects represent-
ing opposite poles
with
regard
to cartesian dualism.
Although
in
some
ways caricaturing
the theories in this one-sided
interpreta-
tion,
I tried to
show,
that such
interpretation
is
possible
with
bases in the texts of Freud and Husserl.
The decided one-sidedness of the first thematisation
should,
however,
be balanced
by
the
competing interpretation
in the
second section of the
paper.
In the second
thematisation,
I tried
to
show,
that both
psycho-analysis
and
phenomenology
in their
concrete
psychological projects
went
beyond
their
points
of
departure. Although
Freud as a scientist of the 19th
century
naturally
found his theoretical
language
in the successful natural
75
sciences,
from which his scientific career
started,
he
decisively
broke with this frame of reference in his
descriptions
of the
pathological problems
from his clinical
praxis.
In contrast to the
abstract
metapsychology
of the
psychical apparatus,
Freud in his
clinical
psychology departed
from mechanism in his
attempts
to
interpret
the
meaning
of the
patient's
neurotic
symptom.
The
clinical attitude of Freud
might
resemble
phenomenologists'
openness
towards the
meaning
of the
phenomena,
and the case-
histories of Freud often read like clinical
analyses stemming
from
existential- phenomenological psychiatrists. - Correspondingly,
although
Husserl started from the tradition of German
philosophy
of
consciousness,
also he can be seen to
go beyond
the
premises
of his
wellsprings. Starting
with a notion of intention-
ality
as consciousness's active
positing meaningful objects,
Husserl
later was led to consider a
deeper
level of
intentionality,
a "func-
tioning intentionality,"
that would situate the
subject
in a
"world"
prior
to
any
thematic
perceptual
act. With the notion of
functional
intentionality
and its further
development
in Merleau-
Ponty's philosophy
of the
"body-subject," phenomenology
seems
to have come close to the Freudian doctrine of the unconscious.
From this second
interpretation
it seemed to
follow,
that a
meeting
between
psycho-analysis
and
phenomenology
should be
possible, by cutting
off the mechanistic
parts
from
psycho-
analysis
and the idealistic
parts
from
phenomenology.
The hin-
drance for such
meeting
should
apparently
be found in the
divergent
theoretical
prejudices stemming
from the
ideological
climates in which the theories were hatched.
None of these two
apparently contradictory interpretations,
that of the first and second
thematisation, should, however,
rule
out the other. To the
question
which
interpretation
is the
right
one,
we should answer "both ...
and,"
or
perhaps
better
"Neither ... nor." Freud and Husserl in fact held
contradictory
views in their
explicit
scientific
self-understanding.
On the other
hand,
much of the
controversy
was caused
by
theoretical
pre-
judices
not essential to the central
enterprise
of
psycho-analysis
and
phenomenology.
And
yet,
the theoretical work of Freud and
Husserl should be considered in its
entirety,
not
omitting parts
that do not fit the
interpretative
context. Freud's mechanistic
theories must be read in connection with his
clinical/phenomenological psychology,
Husserl's doctrine of
transcendental consciousness
together
with his concrete
analyses
76
of the world and the
body.
Freud sticked to his mechanistic
metaphors throughout
his
life,
not
just
because mechanic
materialism was his scientific
point
of
departure,
but also because
he found the models of the
psychical apparatus
useful to
picture
the
subject-matter
of
psycho-analysis,
the unconscious as it is
discovered
by
the
analytic
method.
Correspondingly,
Husserl
found in transcendental idealism a
metaphysical
horizon
ap-
parently
suited for his main theoretical
project,
to un-cover
by
phenomenological
reflexion man in his free and conscious
being.
In this
way
Freud's materialism and Husserl's idealism
might
find
their limited
justification,
not in the absolutistic sense set forth in
the first
section,
but in relation to their
weighting
different
aspects
of the
subject/object
dialectic of man.
This
point
of view I tried to
explicate
in the third section of
this
paper.
In the
subject/object
dialectic Freud seems to
underline man's existence as
object,
his
being
ruled
by
the
mechanic,
the
irrational,
the
infantile,
the unconscious. In con-
trast,
Husserl underlines man's existence as
subject,
his free and
conscious
openness
towards the world and the future. This dif-
ference I characterized with the notions of Ricoeur as
respectively
an
"archeology"
and a
"teleology"
of the
subject.
And
yet
the dif-
ference between Freud and Husserl is that of a
weighting
dif-
ferent sides of the
subject/object
dialectic,
not of an exclusive
thematisation of man as either
subject
or
object.
Freudian ar-
chaeology
is
supplemented by
an
implicit teleology,
Husserlian
teleology by
an
implicit archeology.
On the
background
of such
interpretation
the
relationship
between
psycho-analysis
and
phenomenology
should be seen neither as the
polarity
of the first
thematisation,
nor as the
synthesis
of the second.
Psycho-analysis
and
phenomenology
both contradict and
imply
each other in a
relationship
that should be termed dialectical.
With this third
interpretation
the
paper
ended. At last I
noted that the
problems
raised
by
the
controversy
on the sub-
ject/object
dialectic of man should not
easily
be solved.
Instead,
the
question
"what is man" should have to be answered con-
tinuously
in a concrete historical reflextion or
dialogue.
Yet I
think it safe to
conclude,
that
any psychological
consideration has
to take into
consideration,
both man's
archeological
and his
teleological
features,
thus not
allowing
the one
perspective
com-
pletely
to rule out the other.
77
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