Lecture notes on Freud

• His work addresses a problem- the misery of the human condition. Our unhappiness because we are divided-alienated from ourselves. This is the same starting point that was taken by Marx.
• The answer to why we are so unhappy comes down to psychoanalysis. He says its influence is staggering. 
• Freudian slips are when you end up saying things that you are thinking about and mean but are not meant to come out. They are suppose to stay in your subconscious thoughts.
• Freud was seen as a sexual renegade, he put sex at the centre of everything.
• At the core of his ideas is a deep pessimism. He admitted he was very pessimistic. He said to think of his ideas like Rembrandt, a little light but a lot of darkness. 
• He doesn't agree with Plato that the rational mind is in control. 
• He made an attack on Marx when Marx thinks that history is teleological and that we will end up in a perfect communist state. Freud thinks this is too idealistic. He thinks that the main part to humans is aggression, more like how Hobbes and Machiavelli think. 
• ID- this is from birth, its the animal part, a bundle of instincts aimed at gaining pleasure and avoiding pain.
• The Ego or Self- is the reality part, the least powerful part of the personality. The voice of reason. It is turned towards reality.
• Superego- Internalised rules of parents or society, it's the policeman in your head.
• Society is full of suffering because it is full of pain. 1. our own decaying body. 2. Nature and the external world. 3. The everyday problems we have with other peoples Id. The solution is isolation, which can only be temporary. Or you could get drunk which is also temporary. Then lastly religion, you can turn to God. 
• Freud says the the only thing that would give you real satisfaction would be to destroy the person that you hate the most. 
• The religion is a superego that puts impossible demands on us, like 'love thy neighbour'. It wants us to achieve complete perfection in all of our goals, some that are almost impossible to hit and it makes us feel like a failure if we don't. 
• Dreams are important to Freud because they show the Id. They are a reflection of what we really want to do. 
• Freud was part of the Vienna circle in the late 19th century.  
• Popper attacked Freud saying it was not falsifiable, you could not prove anything that Freud said.
• Reich was saying get everything out, don't hold anything in like Freud suggested.