In this excellent philosophical introduction to Freud, Lear explores the many ways in which a reading of Freud reframes the age-old question of "how shall I live?".

The two-star rating may imply this is a worse book than it is. Lear's philosophical introduction to Freud is a passable attempt at habituating Freud into philosophy. It also provides a potentially valuable supplement to some of Freud's key writings.

There were two problems for me. Firstly, the book spent too long on the areas of Freud's thought that I'm personally less interested in. Lear then seems to write off Freud's attempts to expand the purview of psychoanalysis to civilization as a whole as a regrettable exercise.

Secondly, I just was not convinced by Lear's attempts to read Freud as an unintentional philosopher. The book as a whole did nothing to warm me to psychoanalysis. The whole thing just seems rife with conjecture and unsubstantiated claims, hiding behind a sheen of empiricism. I'm curious about many of psychoanalysis' claims. It's infuriating how bad they are at making them.

Lear is possibly more conscientious than Freud himself on this count. He's quite critical of Freud's more wild conjectures. He also makes an attempt to strike out towards something more philosophically concrete. I just wasn't much persuaded by much of it.

My conclusion is that there's not a huge amount to be gained in terms of the social from lingering too long on Freud himself. Perhaps best to skip directly onto those European thinkers who synthesised his ideas into stronger social theory in the second half of the 20th century.

Overall a good review of Freud for those unfamiliar with his works. A little oversimplifying at times, and attempted to give something of a Platonist reading of Freud. I quite liked Lear's description and defense of the Oedipus complex as an abstract model describing the formative and ambiguous emotional conflicts a child has with its parents in its early years of life, as well as his use of a 'level of generality' for how to apply Freud's theories of the Oedipus complex and of religion/society. I would recommend this to anyone new to Freud and interested in the basics of psychoanalysis.

‍ □ درمانی بر یک درمان

ویتگنشتاین هدف خود را از تأسیس فلسفه‌اش رویكرد درمانی در گستره فلسفه می‌خواند و از روی اتفاق كار فلسفی خود را با روانكاوی مقایسه می‌كند. او مشكل عمده فلسفه پیش از خود را كاربرد نابجای زبان می‌نامد و درصدد ارائه مثال‌هایی بر می‌آید كه با استفاده مناسب از زبان مسائل فسلفی نه حل، كه منحل شوند. جاناتان لیر نیز در كتاب «فروید» كه ترجمه فارسی آن به تازگی منتشر شده درصدد بر‌می‌آید روانكاوی- و به‌خصوص مبدع آن یعنی فروید- را بر روی كاناپه روانكاوی بخواباند و سؤال‌های چالشی را با او در میان بگذارد كه به‌مثابه اشتباه‌های وی تاریخ روانكاوی را مبتلا به مشكلاتی كرده كه خود فروید از پس آن برنیامده است. شواهد متعددی از این كتاب می‌توان نشان داد كه طی آن نویسنده فروید را نه به شیوه خشك، پوزیتیوستی و یك‌سونگرانه هانس آیزنك و نه به سبك جامعه‌شناسی سطحی و تطبیقی اریك فروم به باد انتقاد می‌گیرد. صدالبته این انتقاد نه رویه‌ای رفتارگرایانه و بیرون از متن مانند آیزنك دارد و نه به شیوه فروم به مقایسه بی‌سرانجام و یك‌پاراگرافی ماركس و فروید ختم می‌شود.

لیر فیلسوفی عضو انجمن بین‌المللی روانكاوی است. دغدغه او هم از سنخ روانكاوی است و هم از جنس فلسفه. رویه‌اش در این كتاب به فلسفه علم تأسیسی می‌ماند، مشابه همان رویه‌ای كه وبر نسبت به جامعه‌شناسی داشت. فلسفه مدنظر لیر به دیدگاه كانتی «شرایط ممكن‌شدن ایده‌های تجربی» نزدیك است و باید دقت كرد كه این ایده‌ها از كندوكاو در تجربه‌های بالینی و قیاس آن با نظریه‌های فروید حاصل می‌شوند. در دو بخش اول كتاب نگاه فلسفی غالب است. در درآمد كتاب لیر به مقایسه فروید با فیلسوفان متأخر یونان باستان (سقراط، افلاطون و ارسطو) و دیدگاه‌های آنان می‌پردازد. فصل اول كتاب راجع به قیاس نظریات فروید با دیدگاه‌های تحلیلی دانلد دیویدسن است و از منظر دیویدسن مطالعات درباره ناهشیار را پی می‌گیرد و به نقد آن می‌پردازد. تا فصل شش حضور فیلسوفان چندان پررنگ نیست- گرچه نگاه فلسفی و دغدغه‌های پیگیرانه آن كماكان ادامه دارد. در فصل نتیجه‌گیری نویسنده باز هم سری به فیلسوفان یونان می‌زند. اما چرا لیر دغدغه فلسفی دارد؟ به گفته خودش هدف او گشودن امكانات تأویل – اینكه چه ممكن است بر بیماران فروید رفته باشد- و دوام نفوذ اندیشه فروید است. لیر می‌خواهد سؤالاتی را از فروید و بیمارانش بپرسد كه یا فروید نپرسید یا با طرح نابهنگام آنها، بیماران را برای همیشه از اتاق روانكاوی راند یا روند آن را مختل كرد. روند شكل‌گیری كتاب- اگر بتوان از این اصطلاح استفاده كرد- حالتی «تئوری‌گرافیك با مبنای فلسفی» دارد. اصولا جاناتان لیر با دیدگاه‌های فروید متقدم همدل نیست. او تلویحا بر این باور است كه فروید هر چه به پختگی می‌رسید، دیدگاه‌هایش سازش بیشتری با واقعیت وجودی بیماران پیدا می‌كرد. از سوی دیگر فروید آن‌قدر نابغه بود كه توانایی تبدیل مشكل به راه‌حل را دارا باشد. دو نمونه از این خلاقیت‌ها را می‌توان به ترتیب زمانی در كنارنهادن هیپنوتیزم در درمان بیماران هیستریك و تئوریزه‌كردن مسئله انتقال در پی شكست روانكاوی بیماری به نام «دورا» پی گرفت. از اولی تداعی آزاد به وجود آمد و از دومی كشف مكانیسم پدیده انتقال. انتقالی كه در ابتدای امر بزرگ‌ترین مشكل میان روانكاو و بیمار بود كه بعدها با نبوغ فروید به بزرگ‌ترین...

✍️ نیما شریفی
https://bit.ly/3b2pze4

@nashrenow

خواندن در مورد فروید آن هم از دیدگاه فلسفی، تجربه ی جدید و جالبی است. متن کتاب شاعرانه و گاهی کمی سخت است. اما حقیقتا که می ارزد. نویسنده سعی کرده‌خوانشی فلسفی-روانکاوی از بعضی از مسائلی که فروید مطرح کرده را ارائه کند.

Great General Introduction.

ترجمه‌ی فوق العاده و دقیق و چاپ تمیز نشر نو، لذت خوندنش رو چندین برابر کرد.

Nearly five stars, but there's whole important areas of Freud's thought that are never mentioned (e.g., castration complex), and many sections where Lear opens with: "Freud's view on this subject is somewhat dated and incorrect, so I'm going to give my own view". The problem is, even if Freud's view is incorrect on some such subject, it would be prudent to tell the reader what Freud thought, instead of skipping over his ideas in favor of Lear's, since we readers did after all buy a book on Freud, not on Lear. For instance, we are treated to Lear's theory on the unconscious, and the process of repetition, and Freud's theories are nearly completely ignored.

Still, a good book.

A good introduction.

This is probably the best introduction to Freud from a philosophical perspective that I've read. Lear does have his own idea of Freud and of philosophy though, so many relevant topics between the two are conspicuously absent (such as the question of naturalism and hermeneutics which Ricoeur makes so much of in Freud and Philosophy: An Essay on Interpretation) while others (such as the relevance of Freud to Aristotelian virtue ethics) are prominent but not, perhaps, supremely important in and of themselves. The book is informed by post-Freudian psychoanalysis, so though Klein, Winnicott, Loewald, Lacan or Laplanche rarely make their way out of the footnotes, the rich history of psychoanalysis after Freud is valuably present (Lear is a practicing analyst as well as a philosophy professor). Though it is accessible and clear enough to satisfy most readers, I would wager analytic philosophers with continental sympathies, and vise versa, would be most sympathetic, because the book is neither terribly sexy and exciting, nor terribly ironclad in its logic.

Page turner. Beautifully written with the help of philosophical prowess and tacit knowledge of the essential concepts of psychoanalysis.

This is a philosophical introduction to Freud's views. It's interesting in many ways and Lear is not afraid to critique Freud, but at times the work turns more into an exposition of Lear than a popular philosophical introduction should be. Also, at times he is not harsh enough with Freud. Freud had almost no philosophical background and like all people who start doing philosophy with no real background in it, he makes dreadful first year undergraduate type mistakes. Lear is to patient with this and its clear that Freud's views on religion and morality are so simple minded as to be virtually worthless from a philosophical perspective.

Where Freud is at his most interesting from a philosophical perspective is where he is developing psychological views based on psychology that are philosophically relevant. The wall between psychology and philosophy is barely there if at all and this is where a philosopical introduction is most useful. Fortunately, that covers most of the book.

An additional criticism that I have is that if we take a long clear hard-headed look at Freud, then we have to conclude that he was both a genius and a fucked up dude. Furthermore, he was much more captured by the morays of his time than he ever expected. Lear is bad at understanding this which is essential to understanding Freud. To take the most obvious example of this, Lear discusses at length the case example of Dora primarily in the chapter on Transference. Like Freud, he misses the fact that Dora is essentially being pimped out by her father in order to bang another man's wife. Lear engages in subtle victim blaming here as does Freud. Dora seems the only wholly reasonable one here to me.

Lear is both a psychoanalyst and a philosopher and this is the strength and weakness of the book. He is stilll locked in some of the myths of psychotherapy, such as the therapist can be a neutral objective partner in the therapeutic relationship. IN my opinion, if we think philosophically we see that things are more complicated than that. Also he is clearly a Freudian psychotherapist and his closeness to Freud often blinds him to both the real flaws of Freud and his real achievements. BOth of which are numerous. On the other hand, he reflexively locates Freud where he should be located as a practitioner first and a theorizer second.

Still having said this the book is very good and rich in ideas. My three star rating is harsh and its almost a four star, but I rate harshly and I would only give at most three or four secondary sources in philosophy a five star rating, its the primary sources that get that kind of thing.