ABSTRACT
It is time to get clear on what I mean by a philosophical introduction. There are already many books that will introduce you to Freud the man, introduce you to the central ideas of psychoanalysis, locate Freud in the history of ideas, offer trenchant criticisms of his views. A philosophical introduction is different. A biographer will want to know what Freud’s life was like and, perhaps, how his ideas arose out of that life. An historian of ideas will want to know the historical context in which these ideas arose, and what influence they had on subsequent thought. A psychoanalytic introduction will aim to explain what the central concepts are, and how they work within psychoanalytic theory and practice. A philosophical introduction, by contrast, will want to show why these ideas matter for addressing philosophical problems that still concern us. Given this aim, there are bound to be aspects of such a book that, from any other perspective, appear strange. The book will pay scant
attention to the details of Dr Freud’s life. Obviously, one has to be historically sensitive simply to read a book from another time and culture. But the emphasis will always be on why Freud’s ideas continue to have significance, not on how they arose. And Freud may not be the best arbiter of this. Nor is he the final arbiter of what counts as psychoanalysis. There may then be interpretations in this book to which Freud, the man, would make strenuous objection. His views are always significant, but psychoanalysis stays alive via a vibrant engagement with them.
