Franz Brentano, Freud's Philosophical Mentor

Abstract

In this chapter, the author argues that Franz Brentano's philosophy influenced Sigmund Freud's work to a significant degree. The author focuses upon Brentano's early text, Psychology from an Empirical Standpoint, in particular the account of 'judgement' he develops in this work. He also argues that Freud uses Brentaman principles in his discussion of the distinction between ideas and 'reality' in his 'A Project for a Scientific Psychology', and in several of his metapsychological papers. The author suggests that it was Brentano's theory of judgement which eventually enabled Freud to repudiate his 'seduction theory', which dealt with the question of external 'reality' and the 'truth' attributable to an object of thought. Linda McAlister points out that there is a difference between 'reality' and 'existence' in Brentano's work. For Brentano the expression 'eine Realitdt' does not mean the same as something that belongs to the external world.