Some Utilitarian Influences in Freud's Early Writings

Abstract

The author argues that (1) the utilitarian ideas of Jeremy Bentham and John Stuart Mill were an important source for Freud's early metapsychology and (2) the two theories are radically different in many aspects. The facts that link Freud with the British utilitarian school are described in the first part. These include Freud's translation of three of Mill's essays, a course Freud took on utilitarian-ism as a student and a book written by Mill which Freud cited and held in his library. By stripping Freud's language of its biological connotations the author claims in the second part that utilitarianism ideas are ubiquitous in Freud's early thought especially in his ‘pleasure principle’ and in the hedonistic side of the human psyche. The third part describes how Freudian theory breaks with utilit-arianism along three lines: the quality of pleasure, conflict and irrationality. These breaks are demonstrated through concepts such as the quantity-quality dilemma, constancy principle, repression, conflict and hallucination. Although there is a strong basic philosophical affinity (certainly with regard to human motivation) between Freudian thought and utilitarianism the theories should not be compared on the same level.

The question of aims: Psychoanalysis and the changing formulations of the life worth living.

“…Relational writers acknowledged the importance of context to the formation of theory—for example, in the way feminist views (Aron, 1996) or globalization processes (Walls, 2004) influenced analytic thinking. Other writers emphasized the way economical (Cushman, 1995; Hale, 1995), political (Kurzweil, 1989), or philosophical trends (Govrin, 2004) promoted change in the history of psychoanalysis. The present research adds to this body of work the focus on what is arguably the widest and most general influence: that exerted by Weltanschauung.…”

Poetics, pragmatics, schematics, and the psychoanalysis-research dialogue (Rift)

“…Implications to the psychoanalysis-research rift Far from being an intellectual historian, I answer the above question as follows: Psychoanalysis is most suitable for the integration of pragmatics, poetics, and schematics because it has always spoken these languages. As suggested by Govrin (2004), Freud, and his followers, have always sought to bridge scientific empiricism and positivism (schematics) with a deep and comprehensive view of the human situation, informed by disciplines such as mythology, philosophy, history, and anthropology (poetics). In my view, psychoanalysis has done so because it is singularly ambitious: It seeks to understand the total person as she is wrapped by historical, cultural, developmental, narrative, and biological forces.…”