Freud and Wittgenstein: Language and human nature

Leon Botstein
2007 Psychoanalytic psychology  
One of the dramatic consequences of Sigmund Freud's work is its seminal role in the search for valid answers about the nature of the human mind and individual personality. His search for a scientific basis for understanding undercut nineteenth-century traditions that placed emphasis on primitive conceptions of race. Central to Freud's work is the theory of language and its function in the mind of the individual and in society. Using the historical contexts surrounding the evolution of Freud's
more » ... eories from The Interpretation of Dreams to Civilization and Its Discontents, his self-conception as a Jew, and the dynamics of Viennese society and politics, this essay explores the conflicts and correspondences between Freud's theories and the work of Ludwig Wittgenstein, his near-contemporary and fellow Viennese, on questions of mind, language, and identity. Freud's legacy will be assessed not in the fields of psychology, neuroscience, or hermeneutics, but explored instead in terms of its importance in politics and ethical and social theory.
doi:10.1037/0736-9735.24.4.603 fatcat:ghbgxa3nrbgn7fswes3fwbj6cm