[On the philosophical genealogy of Freud]

Abstract

The origins of psycho-analysis, like those of every other medico-psychological study, have their own particular scientific and specific social, historical and philosophical-theoretical presuppositions. Freud's philosophical genealogy is closely linked to classical german philosophy and subsequent philosophical movements. I. Kant, J.-F. Herbart, A. Schopenhauer, F. Nietzsche, E. v. Hartmann, G. T. Fechner, E. Mach, W. Ostwald, L. Feuerbach and others did not only emphasise the significance of drives and the unconscious in human behaviour, they also described many psychological mechanisms from depth psychology, (for example repression, condensation, substitution, sublimation). Some false theoretical trends in psycho-analysis (biologism, psychologism and simplifying psycho-energetics to simplify) can be explained to some extent by the influences mentioned above.