ABSTRACT
Alfred Freiherr von Winterstein runs through the whole history of philosophy, using the psychoanalytic method of interpretation and explanation for the purpose of reducing all types of philosophers and philosophic systems to the psychoanalytically decisive factor. Eduard Hitschmann and Winterstein correctly found the link with Nietzsche, who is shown by quotations to have been the only prepsychoanalytic thinker who recognized reflections and motivations of an affective constellation in the nature and content of the philosopher's thought. Philosophically the whole work is admirably well-informed, and its special value lies in the fact that the problems subjected to psychoanalysis are selected by a philosopher, thus by an expert able to approach problems under the specific conditions in which they arose. Otto Rank and Hanns Sachs distinguish three types of philosophical personality: the intuitive observer type, that is, which is really that of the artistic metaphysician; that of the synthetic speculator; and finally the analytic thinker type.
