Seminar Paper on Freud, Chapeter 3

My Seminar paper is on chapter 3 titled Freud to Derrida, but is focused on Freud.  Sigmund Freud was not considered to be a Philosopher at all, he saw himself as a Scientist and as inventor of a new Science. The opening couple of pages of the chapter basically give us a brief summary of Freud’s life. It tells us that In 1856 Freud was born in Moravia to an Austrian family of non-observant Jews. Four years later Freud and his family moved to Vienna, this is where Freud began to train as a doctor. He then joined the staff of the general hospital 1882, where initially he specialised in Brain anatomy. He also joined with neurologist Joseph Breuer, treating hysterical patients under hypnosis. In 1886 he married Martha Bernays whom he had 6 children with, three girls and three boys.

In conjunction with Breuer, in 1895, Freud published a work on hysteria which presented an original analysis on mental illness. Slowly over time, Freud began to stop using hypnosis as a method of treatment and began to use another method of treatment which he called psychoanalysis.  Freud said that psychoanalysis consists of nothing more than an exchange of words between patient and doctor.  The premises underlying Freud’s new method was that the hysterical symptoms that a patient may have were the result of memories of a psychological trauma that had been repressed by the patient, but could be recovered in the form of free association. Freud often encouraged his patients, lying on a couch, to speak about whatever it was that came to mind. Through these sessions Freud became convinced that these psychological traumas dated back to infancy and had a sexual content to them.

In isolation from his medical colleagues, Freud continued in practise in Vienna. In 1900 he published, what is considered to be the most important of his works. It was called The Interpretation of Dreams. In this book his main argument was that, similar to neurotic symptoms dreams were a coded expression of repressed sexual desires.

In 1902 Freud was appointed to an extraordinary chair of neuropathology at Vienna University. He began to obtain Pupils and colleagues, with the main two being Alfred Adler and Carl Jung, both of whom eventually went their separate ways from Freud and founded their own schools.  In 1923 Freud published a book called The Ego and The Id, in which he presented us with a new detailed anatomy of the unconscious mind. He then went on to publish a controversial book on the origin of religion called The Future of an Illusion. Freud himself was an Atheist but this did not stop him from identifying with the Jewish culture or from suffering the assaults of anti-Semitism. Psychoanalysis was banned by the Nazis and in 1938 when Germany annexed from Austria, Freud was forced to move to England. Finally on September 23^rd, 1939 due to suffering with Cancer of the Jaw for sixteen years Freud died of a lethal injection of morphine administered by his physician at his own request. His Psychoanalytic work was continued by his youngest daughter Anna.

The chapter then goes on to discuss Freud’s theories in more detail. The next part is taken directly from the chapter, as it describes Freud’s psychoanalytic theory in the best possible way for us to understand it. ‘In a set of introductory lectures delivered between 1915 and 1917 Freud summed up psychoanalytic theory in two fundamental theses. The first is that the greater part of our mental life, whether of feeling, thought, or volition, is unconscious. The second is that sexual impulses, broadly defined, are supremely important not only as potential causes of mental illness but also as the motor of artistic and cultural creation. If the sexual element in the work of art and culture remains to a great extent unconscious, this is because socialization demands the sacrifice of basic instincts. Such instincts become sublimated, that is to say diverted from their original goals and channelled towards socially acceptable activities. But sublimation is an unstable state, and untamed and unsatisfied instincts may take their revenge through illness or mental disorder’.

Kenny then goes on to say ‘the existence of the conscious, Freud believed, is manifested in three different ways: through everyday trivial mistakes, through reports of dreams, and through the symptoms of neurosis. Dreams and neurotic symptoms, it is true, do not on their face, or as interpreted by the unaided patient, reveal the beliefs, desires, and sentiments of which the unconscious is deemed by Freud to consist. But the exercise of free association in analysis, he believed, as interpreted by the analyst, reveals the underlying pattern of the unconscious mind’.  ‘It is sexual development that is the key to this pattern. Infantile sexuality, Freud explained, begins with an oral stage, in which pleasure is focused on the mouth. This is followed by an anal stage, between the ages of one and three, and a ‘phallic’ stag, in which the child focuses on its own penis or clitoris. At that time, Freud maintained, a boy is sexually attracted to his mother, and resents his father’s possession of her. But his hostility towards his father leads him to fear that his father will retaliate by castrating him. So the boy abandons his sexual designs for his mother, and gradually identifies with his father. This is the Oedipus complex, a crucial stage in the emotional development of every boy’.  

The main thing that concerns me with this theory is how has Freud managed to do sufficient research on this to come to this conclusion? He must of firstly, had to have watched children inappropriately touching themselves, which if he did then by today’s standards that would be considered as paedophilia. The only other way that he could have come to this conclusion is through his ‘free association’ talks with patients, but even through these, I highly doubt that the majority of his patients said that they resented their fathers because they were sexually attracted to their mothers as children. And even if they did I highly doubt it was because they just openly admitted it. I think he would have had to talk them into thinking about it and also manipulated the meaning of what he was discussing with them, for him to come to those conclusions.  What do you guys think? Also I wonder what he had the same thought about girls as children, did they resent their fathers to because they were sexually attracted to their mothers? Or was it the other way round where they resented their mothers because they were sexually attracted to their fathers? My opinions is that Freud’s theories, even though they are very interesting and for the most part seem to make sense on the surface, they have very little foundation to them that you can honestly say are believable. I think he has taken his theories from a little bit of what he actually found out through his patients and the rest from how he wishes things worked.  The following extract from page 76 in Kenny’s book sides with what I believe. ‘Most of his detailed theories, when they have been made precise enough to admit of experimental testing, have been shown to lack foundation. Medical professionals disagree how far psychoanalytic techniques are effective forms of therapy, and if they are, whence they derive their efficacy’.

Kenny moves on to talk briefly about the ego, superego and the id. Kenny explains that Freud says that the whole point of the ego is to insure reconciliation between all parts of the soul. He says that as long as the ego is in harmony with the id and the superego, all will be well. But if there is conflict between the id and the superego this will lead to melancholia and depression, or between the ego and the id, this will lead to neurosis. Also when the ego comes into conflict with the external world psychosis develops.

Lastly Kenny closes his section on Freud by saying ‘people who have never read a word of Freud can happily identify their own Freudian slips, no philosopher since Aristotle has made a greater contribution to the everyday vocabulary of psychology and morality. 

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.

David Icke- The lizards and the jews

• David Icke believes that there are elitists that sit around a table and rule the world. They are a group of bankers and media moguls. 
• Icke was an ex football player, he retired at the age of 21 because of arthritis.
• He became a sports presenter at that age for the BBC. 
• He claimed he kept hearing voices and felt that there was constantly a presence around him. The voices told him that he was the son of god and that he would expose the truth about the world and he thought that he would be famous worldwide. He made these comments to the media for the first time on a Terry Wogan interview.
• He claimed that people in power such as George Bush couldn't physically control us, so they had to get into our minds and mentally control us.
• He believes that these elitists that run the world are blood drinking lizards.
• The anti deformation league league were trying to take action against Icke, because they believed that when he was talking about lizards he actually meant Jews. But Icke that the ADL are part of the Illuminati and trying to shut him down.
• He got turned down to talk on a radio station in Vancouver because they thought that the public find his views are too controversial. He also had book signings cancelled for the same reason.

Seminar Paper

In Kant’s ‘Groundwork he proclaimed that duty, not happiness was the supreme ethical motive. Bentham’s idea on happiness was slightly different to Kant’s. He identifies happiness with pleasure; he thinks that it is pleasure that is the action behind happiness. He also believed that there is a close link between pain and pleasure. In his book titled ‘The introduction to the principles of morals and legislation’ he says ‘Nature has placed mankind under the governance of two sovereign masters, pain and pleasure.’ ‘It is for them alone to point out what we ought to do, as well as to determine what we shall do’. ‘On the other hand, the standard of right and wrong on the other the chain of causes and effects, are fastened to their throne’. ‘They govern us in all we do, in all we say, in all we think’. My understanding of this is that he believes that pleasure and pain is a natural sensation that we can’t help but feel. It’s a sensation that determines all actions whether that be good or bad. It’s like if you do something that you know is bad or that you know you will suffer serious repercussions for if you do it, if you think that you will feel a great deal of pleasure doing it, you will do it. Therefore for Bentham, to maximize happiness is the same thing as to maximise pleasure.

Unlike Bentham, Aristotle made a distinction between pleasure and happiness.  Bentham not only believed that pleasure was a sensation caused by eating, drinking and sex but also by a multitude of other things such as the acquisition of wealth, kindness to animals or believing in a supreme being. Aristotle believed that pleasure could be identified by the activity that was being enjoyed; whereas Bentham believed that all pleasure was the same no matter how it was caused, but from my understanding he believed that there were different measurements of pleasure depending on how long it last for, how intense it was or if one was more immediate than the other. He thought the same about pain, as he said what went for pleasure, the same went for pain. If I’m correctly understanding what Bentham is saying then I believe that he is contradicting himself because if he saying that all pleasures are the same no matter how they are caused, then surely if there are different measurement for them, that would make the pleasure different. Especially when you are talking about how intense something is. For example if I was to punch a wall very lightly then if I was to punch it again as hard as I could, would that mean that according to Bentham the pain would be the same? Because I don’t think it would. What do you guys think?

In the next part of the chapter we proceed to read about the slogan ‘the greatest happiness of the greatest number’. Kenny goes on to say that this quote is riddled with ambiguity. The problem with it is defining what the ‘greatest number’ is. Is it the greatest number of ‘Voters’ or ‘females’ or even human beings? It is thought that most people think that the greatest number means ‘human beings’ but it is still a quote that could be flawed because it doesn’t state ‘human beings’ in the quote. Also this quote/slogan is thought to define or sum up utilitarianism to its simplest form. To my understanding Bentham did not include women in his greatest happiness principle because to do so would have provoked outrage to consider women to be as happy as a man without them actually being male. 

In recent years utilitarian’s have extended the happiness principle beyond human beings to other sentient beings, believing animals have equal claims with human beings. Although with Bentham being a great lover of animals he himself would have rejected the ideas that animals have rights as he did not believe in natural rights of any kind.

Kenny then talks about the principle of utility, he asks the question, should individuals or politicians following the greatest happiness principle attempt to control the number of candidates for happiness reasons? I personally would say know because when taking more than one other person into account, happiness doesn’t always come first. I believe sometimes you have to sacrifice your happiness and some other for the greater good. What are your views?

When talking about hedonism there are two types. The first being psychological hedonism, meaning pleasure determines all our actions, the second being ethical hedonism, meaning pleasure is the standard of right and wrong. You could argue that when using the happiness principle, if you do something that is just going to give you pleasure that would be psychological hedonism, but if you were to do something like I mentioned earlier (something that is bad that will give you pleasure that could be considered to be ethical hedonism. Bentham commended utilitarianism by contrasting it with other ethical systems. He did this in his book titled ‘Of principles adverse to that of utility’. The first principle was that of asceticism, the second was the principle of sympathy and antipathy. The principle of asceticism is similar to that of the principle of utility. It means approving actions to the extent that they tend to diminish the quantity of happiness. The principle of sympathy and antipathy judges actions as good or bad to the extent that they accord or not with his own feelings.

John Stuart Mill states that while utilitarianism offers universal happiness as the ultimate moral standard, it does not need to be the aim of every action. The difficulty that Mill takes most seriously is the allegation that utilitarianism is a recipe for preferring expedience to justice. For Mill, it was important for him to make the connection between justice and moral rights. He makes it clear that he thinks there can be legal rights that are unjust, and just claims that conflict with the law.

Now moving onto the ethics of Schopenhauer, he makes a distinction between several kinds of character. There is what he calls the intelligible character, which is the underlying reality, outside time, that determines our response to the situations presented to us in the world. There is also the empirical character; that is to say, what we and others learn, through the course of experience, of the nature of our own intelligible character. These are persons of character in the best sense: people who recognize their own strengths and weaknesses, and tailor their projects and ambitions accordingly. Schopenhauer believes that all bad persons are egoists; he believes that they assert their own will to live whilst from their presence they deny the same to others, in some cases damaging or destroying the lives of others along their way.

Kierkegaard argues that the aesthetic person is deluded in when thinking his existence as one is of freedom, when in fact, he believes it is extremely limited. Kierkegaard then quotes ‘most men pawn themselves to the world ‘. ‘They use their talents, accumulate money, carry on the worldly affairs, calculate shrewdly etc., etc, are perhaps mentioned in history, but themselves they are not; spiritually understood they have no self, no self for whose sake they could venture everything’. Later Kierkegaard talks about the universal man, he says that only when the individual himself is the universal, only then can the ethical be realised. He says ‘ The person who regards life ethically sees the universal, and the person who lives ethically expresses his life in the universal; for then he would be nothing at all, but by clothing himself in it and permeating it with the universal’. The man that Kierkegaard often uses as an example to be the ethical is Socrates. Also Kierkegaard never had a job or got married as those where two marks of the way to live an ethical life.

Moving onto Nietzsche, he believed that Christianity is rooted in weakness, fear and malice, whilst it puts itself forward as a religion of love. He says Christianity dominant motive is what he calls resentment, which is the desire of the weak to take revenge against the strong, which disguises itself as a wish to punish the sinner. I personally don’t agree with Nietzsche on this, throughout this chapter all of his views seem to be very sinister to me. Nietzsche then goes on to talk about his ‘Superhuman’ he says ‘humanity is merely a stage on the way to Superhuman, who is what gives meaning to the world’. ‘Humanity is something that must be surpassed; man is a bridge and not a goal’. ‘Superhuman however, will not come into existence through the forces of evolution, but only through the exercise of will’. ‘Let your will say superhuman is to be the meaning of the earth’.

Aesthetics

The person who is generally considered to be the founder of aesthetics as an independent philosophical discipline is Alexander Gottlieb Baumgarten. He believed that the point of beauty was to give pleasure and arouse desire. Edmund burke included into aesthetics that of sublimity.  He said to feel something as sublime is to feel astonishment without fear. On aesthetics Kant makes a distinction between what two kinds of satisfaction. He thinks, as humans we can make a distinction between what is good in itself and what is good only as a means. But we can’t distinguish what is beautiful as a means and what is beautiful as an end.  We then go on to read about Kant in regards to judgements of taste. His ideas are, Judgements of value are related to their purpose. For example if I want to know if the knife I have is a good knife, then first I need to establish what knifes are for, that is how I know what makes a good knife or electrician or plumber. He says that judgements of perfections are similar: I cannot know what makes a perfect x without knowing what is the function of an x. Kant believes that there are two types of beauty, free natural beauty and derivative beauty. Free natural beauty does not pre suppose what the object out to be but derivative beauty does. Kant usually uses a flower as a form to demonstrate free natural beauty. There are what Kant calls formative arts, namely paintings and the plastic arts of sculptures and architecture. He says that there is a third type of art that creates a play on our sensations, this is mainly music and poetry.

No philosopher has given aesthetics a more important role I his total system then Schopenhauer. He says that when we look at a work of art, a nude sculpture, it arouses our sexual desires. If so we are still in a state of will and not of contemplation. It is only when we view something for its beauty without any thought of our personal desirers and needs are we then treating and admiring  it as a work of art and enjoying the aesthetics experience. Schopenhauer had held out art as the most accessible escape from the tyranny of life.

Briefly on Nietzsche, he thought there were two kinds of escape from reality, which were dreaming and intoxication. He also thought that Socrates was the antithesis of all that made Greece great. He thought Socrates instincts were entirely negative and critical, rather than positive and creative. Unlike many others, Nietzsche thought that we should satisfy our deepest desires as it would give us greater pleasure.

Notes On Logical Positivism & Popper

• Wittgenstein was against metaphysics because he saw it as an outdated system that needed to give way to a scientific world view.
• His most famous was called Tractatus.
• Wittgenstein believed that knowledge of the world could only be gained through experience. He believed that proposition only had meaning if it could be verified or falsified by experience. 
• The verification principle was used as a weapon against metaphysics. If  two metaphysicians were having a argument about the absolute, they could be silenced by the question ' what possible experience could settle this issue?'
• In this chapter, they talk about 'protocol statements' and from what I understand this means you can have a word that can define a 'experience' thus making the experience a truth because everyone can understand the word. This idea came up with a massive obstacle because the experiences we have via 'protocols' appear to be private to the individual. Therefore if meaning depends on verification and each individual person carries out verification by a process that no one else can access, how is it possible that anyone can understand anyone elses meaning ? Schlick  tried to answer this using form and content. But I'm going to use my own example for what Schlick said. If  I see a purple piece of paper and a yellow piece of paper this private and incommunicable. But the form or structure of experience may be common to many. When I see a ball, someone else may see something different when they see it, but as long as we decide to call it a ball, it will always be a ball when we communicate that word between each other.I believe that this is true to a certain extend, reason being this is how we have developed language and an understanding amongst our society. But I think that it would not be accurate to say that every culture or country across the world have the same meanings or name for things that translate the same as we do, for all our words. For example, a ball may have the same meaning as a pillow or may be called a pillow in another country once translated. To put it simple, I don't think words translate into the same word worldwide.
• Wittgenstein believed that Philosophy doesn't discover any new truths and philosophical problems are not solved by the acquisition of any new information, but by the rearrangement of what we already know. Wittgenstein once said that the function of philosophy is to untie the knots in our thinking.
• Wittgenstein left the copyright of his literary  to his three former students: Georg Henrick von wright, Elizebeth Anscombe and Rush Rhees. 
• Quine believed that there were logically true statements, these were statement that would remain true under any interpretation of their non-logical terms. example, 'no unmarried men are married'. He believed that we could not move from a logically true statement to the allegedly analytic statement 'no bachelor is married' because that depends on taking 'unmarried man' and bachelor as synonymous.
• More to come.........

Notes On Our 2nd lecture

• Karl Popper (1902-1994) was born in Austria and part of the Vienna circle.
• His key book- logic of scientific discovery, was an attack on empiricism.
• The Vienna circle members Schlick, Neurath et all were against romanticism and metaphysics. They thought philosophy was in a bad state, they used science to clean up philosophy.
• Locke- we come into the world with a blank slate, no innate ideas. This is empiricism.
• Hume- no matter how much data we have we can never predict whats going to happen in the future.
• Popper realised that everything had the potential to be falsifiable. 
• Popper said that science has never really worked by induction anyway.
• Popper thinks that what we think is knowlegde, isn't actually knowledge.
• Copyright started back in 1640.
• To get something of yours copyrighted, you need to get it published first.
• At night when the Eifel tower is lit up it is copyrighted because the company that owns the lighting for the tower had their lighting design copywrighted.
• The performance rights society made google pay for the right for music to be played on youtube. Youtube is not free.