ABSTRACT
Sigmund Freud had argued that Dostoevsky’s epilepsy was “affective” rather than organic and that the full-scale outbreak of the illness could be linked to the murder of his father. Freud’s interpretations of Dostoevsky’s deathlike attacks go far in explaining some of Freud’s own fainting spells. Joseph Frank establishes that Freud was essentially using the figure of Dostoevsky for the sake of propagandizing preconceived psychological convictions. Freud himself fit his picture of Dostoevsky as a guilt-ridden writer who worked best after some appeasement of fate through suffering. Dostoevsky’s politics were such, Freud had archly commented, and that “lesser minds have reached with smaller effort.” As much as Freud, at least toward the end of his life, thought he had succeeded in being a scientist, at the same time he always harboured the idea that his work had immense implications for social philosophy.
