Kind of a random guess, but I think it's because most people see him as a psychologist/neuroscientist, rather than a philosopher. On top of that, he isn't taken seriously in universities anymore in the psychology field because his views weren't really scientific. But I do think you're right, he provided a lot philosophically, and philosophy comes before science or helps us ask the right scientific questions.

Freud addressed the deepest philosophical question. — Protagoras

He addressed them as a crass materialist and prototypical advocate of ‘scientism’. I agree his general essays are an important part of today’s humanist curriculum but his philosophical analysis was mediocre.

I think that Freud is an extremely important thinker and I even created a thread on his ideas about 6 months ago. Generally, he made such an important contribution to culture, and brought sexuality into focus. But, a lot of people, especially feminists, disagreed with the idea of the Oedipus complex. In addition, a lot of philosophers think that the models of both Freud and Jung are not compatible with current scientific knowledge.

However, my own view is that Freud is worth reading, and makes important contributions to the thinking about the life and death instincts, as well as contributing to discussion about religion. Personally, I regard his, 'Origins of the Uncanny', as well as, 'Totem and Taboo' as important.

Nevertheless, it may be that many philosophers, and mainstream psychologists, do not rank him highly. But, I did courses in psychotherapy and art psychotherapy a few years ago, in which the opposite perspective holds and, Freud remains as the king.

Though Freud did make some interesting contributions, it must not be forgotten that he was quite critical of philosophy as he was of religion. So, I don’t think it is too surprising that he has received some criticism in return.

And, of course, some of his theories, like his theory of dreams, do sound a bit far-fetched and not particularly scientific. Are dreams really just an expression of unfulfilled or repressed wishes? Seems doubtful IMHO.

Jung’s criticism of Freud’s theory of the unconscious, and of the excessive importance he gives to sexuality as a key determinant of behavior, etc., seem to be justified.

I don’t know about others, but I for one, tend to find Jung’s ideas far more appealing than Freud’s. Though, from a philosophical viewpoint, even Jung need not be accepted wholesale or uncritically.

Sometimes, a psychologist is just a psychologist (and a neurologist just a neurologist). This doesn't make them philosophers, however. Whether sex or something else may motivate humans isn't necessarily a philosophical question. I don't think it's reasonable to characterize Freud as a neglected thinker when it comes to psychology.

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I think that there are probably differences of opinion about Freud's ideas within philosophy. Personally, I think that his ideas and Jung are very useful, but I do have a lot of sympathy with psychodynamic thinking really because I do have some background training in this approach. I don't believe that I write as an apologist or propagandist. I just am aware that this is a philosophy site so I try to think of ideas in the context of this, even though I am interested in the borders between the two disciplines.

I can also see the basis of so many criticisms of both Freud (and Jung). Basically, I think that Freud's ideas are useful but see them as having partial but not a full knowledge. This is because I prefer to integrate many diverse ideas about psychology, including the ideas of the cognitive behavioral thinkers.

@Jack Cummins
Yes,I take on board and agree with a lot of what you are saying here. I think he is the most important modern thinker to grapple with,as his work broaches religion,science,culture and biology.

As you mention there are problems with his understandings and several criticisms of him but I think too many throw out the baby with the bathwater.

I think the reason for the visceral reaction against him is that he exposes the depths of certain human psyches and that is too close to home or too frightening for many.

Most people have barely read him,and politically I think he has been marginalised nowadays because he expressed some extremely important truths.

Namely,man is Not a rational animal but in fact is a creature of desire...Of course philosophers and scientists will grumble because it undermines their whole "rationality narrative". Freud inadvertently pops the fairy tale of rationality.

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When I was undertaking art therapy training, I did have some personal therapy which involved lying on the couch, and it was incredibly wierd. Lying down in itself alters perspective and dreams go against reason, and this is captured within surrealism. Dreams can be so strange and defy logic. A few days ago, I dreamt that threads on this site were lying on my floor as great reams of paper.

I think that Freud is out of fashion at the moment, but that may change, because ideas fluctuate so much. I think that what sometimes gets missed is that all these theories are only models. When they get taken too concretely the potential insights from them.

@Jack Cummins
Those are very interesting symbolic dreams!

Yes,taking thinkers ideas literally is incorrect.
With imagination and tinkering one can take the good of freud and reject the bad.
I will be reading the totem and taboo soon. This book contains some tremendous insights and ideas,even though I disagree with freud in places on religion and a lot on sexuality,his basic ideas are exceptional.

Talking In general is wonderful therapy!

I don't regard myself as psychologist, especially as I am not a professional clinical psychologist. My background is mainly in psychiatric nursing but I have done some psychotherapy and art therapy training. But, I am not working at present and try to read as widely as possible, including philosophy, just to have the best understanding of life.

I have read a fair amount about Freud but don't claim to be an expert at all. Anyone on this site who has an expertise in Freud's ideas may contribute far more than I have done.

Freud addressed the deepest philosophical question. What motivates and drives humans and why? — Protagoras

Freud has always gained my respect as a psychologist who, as wacky as it may seem to some, brought to light the many interesting, strange, and dysfunctional elements of human sexuality. And as we know, there are many.

Just generally, if you were to explore some reasons why people get divorced or have arguments (I think the divorce rate is around 50%) you often come away with various romantic-love deficiencies or false paradigm's in one form or another from one's (dysfunctional) aspect of childhood environment/experiences. For example, in practical terms, you have men who are women-haters; women who are man-haters. And that often manifests through perceptions and behaviors associated with sexuality.

In a funny or practical way, here's another lighthearted take on the difficulties men/women have with being friends v. lovers (we get all twisted up over these things):

Jung’s criticism of Freud’s theory of the unconscious, and of the excessive importance he gives to sexuality as a key determinant of behavior, etc., seem to be justified. — Apollodorus

I like Jung. What was his critique?

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I know a number of people who are training to become clinical psychologists, and some who are qualified ones. In England, it is extremely competitive and takes a long time, involving a masters, experience of working as a psychology assistant and doing a doctorate. I often ask people I know about their training and it seems to vary so much from those programs of training which are experimental to those which are psychodynamic or cognitive behavioral. It is such a mixture of approaches, as diverse as philosophy, but with some emphasis on evidence based practice.

I do believe that the roots of psychology and philosophy were often more joined, as in thinkers such as William James. I think that an important link in the separation was psychiatry. I have discussed the ideas of Freud and Jung with a number of psychiatrists. I found that most senior psychiatrists had some affinity with Freud, although that varied, but as part of their registrar training they did psychodynamic clinical work. However, I did mention Jung to some junior psychiatrists and was rather startled to discover that they had not even heard of him. This is probably because they came from a science background, and there is a division between psychology as a science or an art. Generally, I think that approaches to psychology as an art, as opposed to that of a science, place more emphasis on the ideas of Freud.

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I won't go into much detail because I don't wish to derail the thread but I think that evidence practice can be very shallow. On a short course I did, there was an emphasis on backing up ideas with evidence, which could include anyone's ideas which were in a published text. Due to the word limit of the essay, there was no room for discussion of the quality of the evidence, which I thought made entire mockery of the idea of evidence.

Going back to evidence based practice, I think that more research is being done into cognitive behavioral approaches than psychodynamic ones, but that is partly because these receive more funding. But, underlying this, one of the reasons is that psychodynamic approaches, such as those based on Freud, are not favoured is because they are not seen as cost effective.

@3017amen
It's nice to see a religious poster appreciate freuds thinking.

Psychology as per freud and James especially relates to the existential human being.

Childhood and traumatic experiences can have lasting psychological effects on some elements of perception and philosophy rarely addresses this.

Jung gets too platonic and abstract,but most of the neo-freudians had good things to add and good criticisms,especially Alfred adler.

Thanks P, you're too kind. I'm big on cognitive science. That's why I like philosophers like Maslow who started out in Psychology. They've used practical experience from their couch-sessions to formulate many of their theories. Not that they're perfect, but... .

I am hopefully your thread will enlighten those who unknowingly need to be enlightened in this area. :cool:

@3017amen
Maslow is a very interesting thinker as well. Especially his "peak experiences".

Which kind of cognitive science?

I don't expect miracles from this thread but let those with ears to hear hear!

Though Freud did make some interesting contributions, it must not be forgotten that he was quite critical of philosophy as he was of religion. — Apollodorus

He wasn’t critical of all philosophy.
Ernest Jones, a close friend and dedicated follower of Freud, recalls that Freud told him in conversation about that time [i.e. 1908] that Nietzsche was one of the 'authentically great men of all time' and that 'Nietzsche developed a more penetrating knowledge of himself than any other man who ever lived.'

Freud [in his published 'Autobiographical Study':] "[Nietzsche's] guesses and intuitions often agree in the most astonishing way with the labourious findings of [my work]."

Psychology and philosophy - as I am sure you realize - not to be confused. If science is about the how of things and philosophy about the truth of things, then what is psychology about? — tim wood

I think they should be confused, since there is so much overlap between them. Nietzsche called himself a psychologist , Husserl showed the close relationship
between his phenomenology and intentional psychology (calling his transcendental phenomenology the truely grounding science), psychologists like Gendlin and Kelly were also philosophers, using philosophical explication to make explicit what was implicit in their psychologies. To me making an inquiry more philosophical is just the process of turning what has been tacitly assumed into an articulated presupposition. Thus there are more and less ‘philosophical’ psychologies.

He wasn’t critical of all philosophy. — Joshs

Correct. Perhaps he tended to be more critical of those philosophies or philosophers that were critical of of his theories. But that's another story.

why do you think he is neglected as a thinker? — Protagoras

Freud was and still is an important figure within continental philosophy. You’ll find mention of Freud or Freudian concepts built into the theoretical underpinnings of Woke political discourse. And of course , critical race theory is partly based on crucial theory , which incorporates elements of Freud.

The American psychological and psychiatric communities tend to be interested only in the narrowly clinical aspects of Freud’s writings. This tendency goes back to the first translations in English of his work, which shows the American bias for empiricism over the humanistic elements. For instance , ich was translated as ego esther than ‘I’.

@Joshs
You are right. I would say however the use of freud for woke discourse or critical race theory or feminism is something I generally deplore.

I prefer some of the continental thinkers who used freud from the frankfurt school,and best of all Jaques Lacan. He really added some great additions to freuds work.

Excellent insight on the translation!

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“I think they should be confused”. A bit of poetic license here. I was trying to ward off attempts to distinguish between the two ( or between philosophy and literature , science, politics or religion) in rigidly categorical ways, as I’ve seem done often. But certainly all the writers I mentioned make a fundamental distinction between their philosophies and their psychologies. Husserl allows us to bracket off empirical psychology along with the physical body and the natural world, yet leave the philosophical grounding intact. The same is true of Heidegger. Their psychologies are relative and contingent derivations of their philosophies , but the reverse is not the case.

@Jack Cummins
I just read through your thread on "Freud the great philosophical adventure." A very interesting and relevent thread.

Do you or anyone know how to link that thread to this one?

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