Schelling, Freud, and the Philosophical Foundations of Psychoanalysis provides a long-overdue dialogue between two seminal thinkers, Schelling and Freud. Through a sustained reading of the sublime, mythology, the uncanny, and freedom, this book provokes the reader to retrieve and revive the shared roots of philosophy and psychoanalysis. Teresa Fenichel examines the philosophical basis for the concepts of the unconscious and for the nature of human freedom on which psychoanalysis rests. Drawing on the work of German philosopher F. W. J. Schelling, the author explores how his philosophical understanding of human actions, based as it was on the ideas of drives, informed and helped shape Freud’s work. Fenichel also stresses the philosophical weight of Freudian psychoanalysis, specifically in regards to the problem of freedom and argues that psychoanalysis complicates and reinforces Schelling’s basic idea: to know reality we must engage with the world empathetically and intimately. This book also serves as an introduction to Schelling’s thought, arguing that his metaphysics—particularly concerning the primacy of the unconscious and of fantasy—can be read as a therapeutic endeavor. Finally, the book offers a deep rethinking of the action and nature of sublimation through both Freud’s and Schelling’s texts. Fenichel suggests psychoanalytic therapy is self-interpretation—a recognition of our narratives as narratives, without for that reason taking them any less seriously. Schelling, Freud, and the Philosophical Foundations of Psychoanalysis will be of great interest to psychoanalysts and psychoanalytic psychotherapists as well as scholars of philosophy.

The unconscious, cornerstone of psychoanalysis, was a key twentieth-century concept and retains an enormous influence on psychological and cultural theory. Yet there is a surprising lack of investigation into its roots in the critical philosophy and Romantic psychology of the early nineteenth century, long before Freud. Why did the unconscious emerge as such a powerful idea? And why at that point? This interdisciplinary study traces the emergence of the unconscious through the work of philosopher Friedrich Schelling, examining his association with Romantic psychologists, anthropologists and theorists of nature. It sets out the beginnings of a neglected tradition of the unconscious psyche and proposes a compelling new argument: that the unconscious develops from the modern need to theorise individual independence. The book assesses the impact of this tradition on psychoanalysis itself, re-reading Freud's The Interpretation of Dreams in the light of broader post-Enlightenment attempts to theorise individuality.

Offers a systematic analysis of Freud's theories, examines the effectiveness of the retrospective clinical methods used in psychoanalysis, and discusses free association, dreams, and personality.

The romantic origins of psychoanalysis are a hot topic at the moment. No one has yet examined Schelling's role in this history This book includes all relevant secondary material, including some quite recent publications (so it is very up-to-date); the writing is clear and justifiably authoritative Reviewers have suggested that Routledge has published one of the best discussions of Schelling in English to date (Andrew Bowie's Schelling and Modern European Philosophy), so this is a good fit with our list.

The book explores concepts throughout the history of philosophy that suggest the possibility of unconscious thought and lay the foundation for ideas of unconscious thought in modern philosophy and psychoanalysis. The focus is on the workings of unconscious thought and the role it plays in thinking, language, perception, and human identity.

Bringing contemporary philosophers, theologians, and psychoanalysts into dialogue with works of art and literature, this work provides a fresh perspective on how humans can make sense of suffering and finitude and how our existence as sexual beings shapes our relations to one another and the divine. It attempts to establish a connection between carnal, bodily love and humanity’s relation to the divine. Relying on the works of philosophers such as Manoussakis, Kearney, and Marion and psychoanalysts such as Freud and Lacan, this book provides a possible answer to these fundamental questions and fosters further dialogue between thinkers and scholars of these different fields. The author analyzes why human sexuality implies both perversion and perfection and why it brings together humanity’s baseness and beatitude. Through it, the author taps once more into the dark mystery of Eros and Thanatos who, to paraphrase Dostoevsky, forever struggle with God on the battlefield of the human heart. This book is written primarily for scholars interested in the fields of philosophical psychology, existential philosophy, and philosophy of religion

In the first study to examine F. W. J. Schelling's political thought, Velimir Stojkovski not only unearths a neglected dimension of the influential thinker's philosophy but further shows what it can teach us about our ethical and political responsibilities today. Unlike Hegel or Fichte, Schelling never wrote a political treatise. Yet by reconstructing the portions of such works as The New Deductions of Natural Right that deal explicitly with the political and by thematically rethinking parts of his writings that have a clear repercussion on politics – in particular those on nature, freedom and religion – this book reveals the centrality of politics to his oeuvre. Revisiting his corpus in this way, Stojkovski uncovers a number of ways we can learn from Schelling and his reception. He examines how Schelling's views on nature can clarify our moral and political obligations to the non-human world and further demonstrates how the separation of ontology as first philosophy from the ethico-political has resulted in a fragmented view of the status of the political subject and thus the body politic. Forcefully renouncing this fragmentation, Stojkovski explores how the same divide has contributed to the ongoing political turmoil in Europe and America. Combining an exploration of German Idealism with contemporary concerns, this is an essential study that will introduce readers to a new Schelling: a political thinker for the 21st century.