Nachträglichkeit from the perspective of the phylogenetic factor in Freud's “Moses and Monotheism”

Abstract

The implicit dual direction of time contained in the original German term Nachträglichkeit coined by Freud, which is equally open to a deterministic and a hermeneutic definition, has been treated in two separate ways in translation, namely as deferred action in English and après-coup in French. Conceived in the “Project for a Scientific Psychology” in 1895 and commented upon, presuming a rearrangement of memory traces by re-transcription (letter to Fliess of 6 December 1896), the concept of Nachträglichkeit retains a significance that can hardly be overestimated until Freud's later works. This paper focuses on the link with the essay “Moses and Monotheism “, completed in exile, and the phylogenetic factor it develops with particular clarity, the archaic legacy which incorporates memory traces of earlier generations. For the mute, not manifestly verbal transmission of unspoken parental destinies from one generation to the next, there are different conceptualisations (Kestenberg, Faim- berg, Eickhoff et al.). The psycho-Lamarckism Freud is accused of, currently finds support in the modern examination of epigenetic processes.