Modified additions....Aug. 4th, Aug. 5th, 2011...
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Introduction
'Beyond The Pleasure Principle' -- published in 1920 when Freud was 64 -- was one of Freud's more controversial works, even for a man who was used to engaging himself in controversy. It contains 'the birth' of one of Freud's most controversial and abstract concepts -- 'the death instinct' -- which was tied to man's great propensity for 'aggression', 'destruction', and 'self-destruction'; and it was polarized in a competing 'duality' between 'the life instinct' and 'the death instinct' which in 1923, when Freud wrote 'The Ego and The Id', he 'deposited both competing instincts -- the life instinct and the death instinct -- in the 'id' (the 'reservoir' of all human biological instincts). The 'life instinct' contained both 'the sexual instinct' -- 'Eros' which 'charged' the mind and body with 'sexual energy' called 'libido' -- and 'the self-preservation instinct' which would make its presence known primarily through the 'operations and actions of the ego and superego' which followed 'the reality principle' as opposed to 'the sexual instinct' that followed 'the pleasure principle' and 'the death instinct' ('Thanatos') which operated 'beyond the pleasure principle'.
This essay contains a wide assortment of fresh, new, and fertile ideas from when it was written in 1920, including 'some competing' ideas with Alfred Adler, one of Freud's first co-workers, who had separated from Psychoanalysis by this time (as well as Carl Jung and a number of other important 'ex-psychoanalysts'). One of Freud's most potentially fertile ideas at this time -- 'the mastery compulsion' -- was perhaps just a little too close to Adlerian thinking because Freud relegated this idea 'secondary' to his newly being born 'death instinct'. This in my opinion was a theoretical and clinical mistake where Adler came up on top. However, the 'death instinct' -- or 'death force' (sounds like 'Darth Vader in Star Wars') as I prefer to call it -- still deserves some theoretical and therapeutic interest. I do not view the 'death instinct' as a 'biological instinct' except perhaps in the 'tangled and often pathological pursuit of perceived self-preservation' but rather as a more 'biologically modified-psycho-social-learning force'. This idea I will pursue in another paper.....Let's go with the essay I wrote here about a week ago in combination with a few modifications that I will make here and now...
-- dgb, Aug. 4th, Aug. 5th, 2011...
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Every word, every concept, every theory, every theorist carries within it/him/her -- its own particular 'paradigm'...consequently, if we want to 'stay connected' to the world of 'objective reality' in the best way that we can, then we have to be able to be flexible and open-minded enough to know when we need to modify, adjust, extend, detract, throw away...our own particular 'subjective, conceptual paradigm reality' on a part or full-time basis, in exchange for a 'better' -- as in more 'functional' -- paradigm.
Often this may be an 'integrative paradigm'. The best and most immediate example I can come up with right now is physics changed from the 'particle model/theory/paradigm' to the 'wave model/theory/paradigm' to the 'integrative particle-wave theory/model/paradigm' which became the basis for the beginning of 'quantum physics'....
Another recent example is what happens in the American Government every day as 1. the President's office; 2. the House of Representatives; and 3. The Senate each try (or not try) to bring their own particlar 'paradigm' -- say, regarding 'the debt ceiling' -- into line with the other two areas (paradigms) of government which each may contain a host of more 'individualized paradigms' on the same 'problematic matter' (to raise or not raise the debt ceiling)...
We can say that there are at least as many 'subjective paradigms' out there as there are individualized people...and as mentioned above, even a 'word', a ' concept', a 'model', a 'theory', a 'principle'...can contain one, two, three, or more 'subjectively perceived paradigms' within it...In effect, we live in a world that is full of literally an 'infinite' number of possible 'subjective paradigms' that may or may not, 'fit well' to differing degrees with 'the objective thing or process' that the paradigm is supposed to 'represent' and/or 'explain'....This is what we will call 'the subjective-objective fitting game'...
Now, if a 'thing' or a 'process' has a life and death cycle or expectancy or 'force', then if we are to 'play the fitting game right', then our words, concepts, models, theories, paradigms, need to have a life and death cycle, expectancy, or 'force' as well -- in order that it should 'fit' properly with the thing or process that it is supposed to represent.
If the 'thing' dies, then our word, concept or paradigm should 'die too' except as a 'memory' of what 'used to be'...
Words, concepts, models, theories, and paradigms that 'keep going' like the 'Energizer Bunny' even after their 'Master' -- the 'thing' or 'object' or 'process' of its affection and representation -- has died, then we have what might be called an 'outdated, dissociated paradigm' that is no longer representing anything of 'functional life value and substance'....We have the conceptual or paradigm equivalent of a 'Dead Man Walking'...a 'Conceptual Ghost'...a 'Zombie Concept or Paradigm'.... Classical Psychoanalysis is full of such concepts that were born in the Victorian Era -- and should have died in the Victorian Era....but like Dead Men Still Walking...they continue to 'haunt' us...
Freud fought long and hard to defend his concept of 'castration anxiety' but unless you are living with a woman who you 'really believe' is capable of castrating you, then the concept of 'castration anxiety' is not likely to be of much 'common' significance today....far more likely the conceptual and emotional phenomenology of 'performance anxiety' for some individuals in some contexts is very much 'alive' and not 'dead'....The same goes with -- I would surmise -- the archaic, ananchronistic concept of 'penis envy' if it ever was of meaningful significance at all. (If someone wishes to conduct a survey amongst women, please share the results with me. Please make the important distinction between 'penis envy' and 'penis lust'. If a woman would like to have a 'penis attached to her body permanently', then that we will call 'penis envy'; however, if a woman simply wishes to 'borrow' a man's penis -- or its functional equivalent -- 'temporarily' for the sake of 'hedonistic delight' -- i.e., the 'pursuit of the pleasure principle', then that is 'penis lust', not 'penis envy'.) Ironically and paradoxically, 'penis envy' is just as likely -- probably more likely -- to be a 'subjective conceptuology' shared by many men, as opposed to women, similar to 'breast envy' amongst women, the operative masculine and feminine ideal both containing the idea of 'bigger is better' -- in the right bodily places....
While oftentimes a theorist can be found overgeneralizing on a particular concept or theory, and/or 'hanging onto it with a pitbull's bite' long after the 'objective phenomenon' it is supposed to be representing -- has died; so too, can the opposite happen -- which it did in Freud's 'subjective paradigm' -- where Freud effectively 'threw out' his pre-1897 'traumacy' and 'seduction' theory when they were both still very much alive...This is like a doctor 'giving up' on a patient who is still very much breathing -- and alive.
Thus, we have some 'do's' and 'don't's of 'the subjective-objective fitting game'. Don't hang onto -- and still use -- a concept and/or theory that reflects a perhaps once alive phenomenon that is now dead. And don't discard a concept and/or theory that used to reflect a phenomenon that is still very much alive and breathing...
I have stated elsewhere that every word has both a 'range' and 'focus' of 'self' and 'social' meaning (an extension of the work of George Kelly, A Theory of Personality: The Psychology of Personal Constructs, 1955, 1963).
Words like 'unconscious' or 'the unconscious' can be very troublesome -- like the word-concept-phenomen of 'God' -- because if something is 'unconscious', as in 'out of the range of normal consciousness', then how are we to judge whether it is 'real' or not? 'Faith'? That word doesn't work too well with science which is built on a foundation of 'skepticism', not 'faith'...
Religion is built on 'faith' but science and rational-empiricism can view that 'faith' as being 'toxic' to human philosophy-psychology, which is why we generally have a 'Mexican standoff' -- a generally unresolvable conflict -- between science and religion. They live in two entirely different paradigms of human consciousness and conceptuality. They use entirely different 'personal constructs' unless you are talking about those philosophers, psychologists, and/or scientists who have tried to 'bridge the gap between philosophy, psychology, science and/or relgion' such as Heraclitus, Spinoza, Schelling, Jung, Einstein, myself included... who have delved into similar and/or different dimensions of 'romantic-spiritual-scientific-philosophical-psychological deism and/or pantheism'...
If you are reading the philosophy of Johann Gottlieb Fichte, 'the ego' -- in what I deem to be the first appearance of the term 'ego' in Western philosophy-psychology -- means 'the wholistic self' whereas Freud wavers back and forth between this Ficthean sense of the term 'ego' and the more 'specialized, reductionistic' concept of the term 'ego' that Freud finally zeroed in on in 1923 (The Ego and The Id).
The latter, more specialized (1923) version of the term 'ego' by Freud requires a 'paradigm shift' from the much earlier, Fichtean sense of the 'same word-different (more generalized, wholistic) concept'.
Same word -- different context -- different meaning.
This is perhaps the most important principle in the proper understanding of any word in different historical, social, and/or self contexts/settings /paradigms...resulting in different meanings of the same word...
If it was a mathematical formula, it might read something like this:
The contextual focus of meaning of any word is a particular, more concrete subset of the more generalized range of self and social meaning of the the same word applied in different self and/or social contexts of meaning...
Did you get that? It sounds profound -- it is profound -- the formula is an extension of the same principle that I learned from three 'linguist-semantic philosophers extraordinaire' -- Korzybski, Hayawaka, and Kelly...
In 1893-1896, 'the unconscious' and 'the repressed unconscious' meant something quite different to Freud (based on his 'traumacy-seduction theory') than it did in 1923 (based on his 'instinct-fantasy theory'). The shift in meaning of the term 'unconcious' and the idea of 'the repressed or dynamic unconcious' came on the heels of a radical 'paradigm shift in theory' after 1896 from 'the traumacy-seduction theory' to 'the instinct-fantasy theory'...
I now view May 4th, 1896 as the day of 'The Perfect Storm' in Freud's life -- where particular discordances and inconsistencies between 'clinical fact' and 'conceptual theory' (discordances in the 'objective-subjective reality fitting game' ); discordances and collisions in two radically different theoretical approaches and/or paradigms, and finally also, particular economic, professional, political, and pragmatic realities all 'converged and exploded in Freud's psyche-self-mind-brain' in a way that started to give us a 'totally different Psychoanalysis' -- 'Classical' Psychoanalysis as opposed to 'Pre-Classical' Psychoanalysis -- after this day as opposed to before this day.
After May 4th, 1896, 'the unconcsious' would never be viewed the same...
After May 4th, 1896, 'traumacy' would never be viewed the same...
After May 4th, 1896, 'seduction' -- as in 'childhood sexual assault', at least between a father and his daughter -- would never mean the same...
After May 4th, 1896, 'reality' and 'fantasy' would never mean the same...(fantasy would mean more, and reality would mean less...)
After May 4th, 1896, 'memories' would never mean the same....they would be divided up into 'screen memories' and 'fantasy memories'...
Aside from the economic, professional, political, and pragmatic realities that were 'stressing' and 'distressing' Freud at this particular time in Freud's life (leading up to the letter of May 4th, 1896 to Fliess...), I would argue -- indeed, I do now argue -- that Freud's 'clinical' and 'theoretical nemisis' was 'the repetition compulsion'.
It was bothering him in 1895-96, even as Freud was laying out the heart of his 'traumacy-seduction theory' -- to the point where he started to abandon this theory on May 4th, 1896, and 'the repetition compulsion' was still bother him in 1920 when he wrote 'Beyond The Pleasure Principle'...
Partly because of the 'clinical impact' of 'the repetition compulsion' on his thinking in 1895-1896, Freud decided to keep his cherished ''constancy principle' and 'pleasure-unpleasure principle' and 'repression theory' (which were both all causing him some theoretical problems), and instead, throw out his recently cherished and trumpeted 'traumacy-seduction theory' which was/were colliding with the other three principles/theories....
The theoretical inconsistency/contradiction went something like this:
If a memory is supposedly so 'traumatic' and 'painful', why is it that some people tend to 'repeat' a particular memory in an endless parade of different 'nuances' and 'fantasies' in a way that suggests that the memory seems to be more appropriately viewed as the 'hub' of a 'personal fetish' rather than anything that is 'trying to be avoided and denied and repressed because of its horrifically painful nature at any cost'?
And so was born Freudian 'Instinct-Fantasy' Theory and 'Classical' Psychoanalysis... That was 'officially' -- in my personal rendition of this historical psychoanalytic turning point -- starting on May 4th, 1896...
Now Freud was starting to look at 'memories' AND 'dreams' as both being based on 'fantasies' and 'underlying instincts'...like 'The Oedipal/Electra Complex'...
In the process, 'traumatic memories' and 'real childhood sexual assaults' were being 'left by the wayside' -- or alternatively -- 'thrown out the window or into the trash can', or 'lit a fire' to (very much like how he 'lit a fire' to, and destroyed, Fliess' personal letters, in the name of 'personal privacy' and/or 'protecting Fliess' and/or both Fliess' and his own professional reputation' in the face of some very 'unflattering professional moments'...)
Whatever way you wish to look at it, 'gone' -- or at least 'significantly submerged' -- was Freud's Traumacy-Seduction Theory.
And in its place, was the beginning of Freudian 'Classical (Instinct-Fantasy) Theory....This was after May 4th, 1896, and heading into the turn of the century with all three of Freud's 1. uncompleted 'Project', 2. the beginning of 'Screen Memories' (1899) and 'The Interpretation of Dreams' (1899-1900) fresh in Freud's creatively and/or manipulatively and destructively 're-directed, re-focused mind'....
Ironically, Freud's new 'fantasy-instinct' theory still didn't 'solve' Freud's 'return of his own private clinical nemesis' after World War 1 -- 'the repetition compulsion' -- when it started to show up in his office again, this time, not in the face of his hysterical and/or obsessional patients, in what we would now call patients or clients with 'Post-Traumacy-Stress-Syndrome'...
Once again, Freud had to deal with the unpleasant theoretical dilemma that his cherished 'pleasure-unpleasure principle' and his theory of 'dreams' as 'wish fulfilments' couldn't answer the 'riddle' of 'the repetition compulsion' -- specifically, why war veterans would have 'recurring dreams' -- or rather nightmares -- of their 'worst moments' in the war...
It was this still 'unsolvable riddle' to Freud -- probably in addition to Freud's own more dominant concern with his own 'mortality' and more closely approaching cancer and later death -- that prompted the birth of 'the death instinct' in his classic but still controversial 'Beyond the Pleasure Principle' in 1920.
'Beyond the Pleasure Principle' is a brilliant, creative work -- particularly if it is viewed in a slightly modified and then perhaps greatly extended format in the light of still evolving but further advanced 'linguistic-semantic' and 'oxidation and anti-oxidant' knowledge...
My greatest wish in hindsight for 'Beyond The Pleasure Principle' -- assuming that there was no 'semantic loss' in the German-English translation (which I am sure that there wasn't) -- is that Freud had called his 'Death Instinct' -- 'The Death Principle' instead of 'The Death Instinct'...But I can't change Freud -- and/or his body of work -- all I can do is 'modify' certain terms, concepts, theories...to meet my own 'conceptual and theoretical wishes and/or needs'....that take me in a partly different direction than Freud but still with Freud -- in addition to Hegel -- 'the double dialectic force' -- being the main two influence on my evolving body of work here...
Sometimes Freud was 'dualistic and dialectic' in his thinking; at other times he was 'monistic' (choosing to go this way or that way with a particular concept and/or theory rather than 'integrating' the possibility of two or more concepts/theories either 'conflicting' and/or 'harmonizing' with each other -- or a combination of both -- which is much closer to the way 'life' actually works...)
Freud got into much more theoretical trouble when he took an 'either/or' stance than he did when he, in effect, either said to himself, or to someone working with him (or against him), 'Let's see how these 'conflicting' theories might work in 'conficted harmony' or 'harmonized conflict' with each other such that we can keep them both'....(Now, mind you, there were not too many times in Freud's life that he was this 'dialectically open-minded' -- unless he was working with himself -- such as in the case of 'the life and death instinct'...
What I take as an 'extended modification' from 'Beyond The Pleasure Principle' -- as well as the rest of Freudian Classical Psychoanalysis is:
1a. 'The (Monistic) Life Principle'; and
1b. 'The (Monistic) Death Principle'...
Going Head to Head against each other as...
1. 'The (Dualistic-Dialectic) Life-Death Principle'...while
2a. 'The (Monistic) Pleasure Principle' (Pursuing Pleasure, Avoiding and/or Minimizing Pain)...dialectically unites with....
2b. 'The (Monistic) Unpleasure-(Unhappiness) Principle' (Pursuing Pain, Unpleasure and/or Unhappiness while avoiding and/or minimizing the pursuit of pleasure...and/or happiness)...as...
2. 'The Pleasure-Unpleasure Principle' which goes beyond what Freud meant by this principle because he meant it as a 'one-sided, monistic' principle whereas I am now conceptualizing it as a 'two-sided, dualistic and dialectic principle'...which includes those who purposely pursue 'pain' or 'unpleasure' or 'unhappiness'....to make up the second half of Freud's one-sided 'pleasure' principle...which later required him to 'go beyond the pleasure principle'....
and 3a. 'The (Monistic) Equilibrium' (or Homeostatic Balance or Constancy) Principle'...which needs to be dualistically and dialectically balanced with...
3b. 'The (Monistic) Unequilibrium (or 'Homeostatically Unbalanced' or 'Unconstancy) Principle'...to create...
3. 'The Equilibrium-Unequilibrium (Constancy-Unconstancy) Principle'...and...
4a. 'The (Monistic) Conservation of Energy Principle' which needs to be dualistically and dialectically balanced with...
4b. 'The Unconservation of Energy Principle'...to form...
4. 'The Conservation-Unconservation of Energy Principle'...and...
5. 'The Displacement-Non-Displacement of Energy Principle'...
And now we have opened up a whole mountain or ocean of new and/or old dualistic-dialectic theoretical possibilities...such as...
6. 'The Dictatorship-Democracy Principle';
7. 'The Liberal-Conservative Principle';
8. 'The Apollonian-Dionysian Principle';
9. 'The Superego-Underego (or 'Topdog-Underdog' or 'Inferiority-Superiority Complex) Principle';
10. 'The Nurturing-Critical Principle';
11. 'The Safety-Excitement (Security-Insecurity, Novelty-Routine) Principle';
12. 'The Commitment-Freedom Principle';
13. 'The Ethical-Unethical Principle';
14. 'The Organization-Disorganization (Predictability-Chaos) Principle;
15. 'The Oral-Anal Principle';
16. 'The Reason-Romantic Principle';
17. 'The Active-Passive Principle';
18. 'The Science-Spirituality(Religion) Principle';
19. 'The Proactive-Reactive Principle';
20. 'The Yang-Yin (Masculine-Feminine, Testosterone-Estrogen, Fire-Water) Principle';
21. 'The Abstract-Concrete (Plato-Aristotle, Freud-Breuer, 'Fly High in the Air-Ground Yourself on the Earth') Principle;
22. 'The Realism-Idealism Principle';
23. 'The Traumacy-Fantasy Principle';
24. 'The Memory-Fantasy Principle';
25. 'The Dream-Nightmare Principle';
26. 'The Impulse-Restraint (Id-Ego/Superego) Principle;
27. 'The Consciousness-Un(Sub)consciousness Principle'
28. 'The Contact-Avoidance Principle';
29. 'The Dominance-Submission (Sadism-Masochism, Power-Seeking-Approval-Seeking) Principle';
30. 'The Exhibitionism-Voyeurism Principle';
31. 'The Heterosexuality-Homosexuality Principle';
32. 'The Narcissistic-Altruistic Principle;
33. 'The Introverted-Extroverted Principle';
34. 'The Righteous-Rebellious Principle';
35. 'The Constructive-Deconstructive (Creative-Destructive) Principle';
36. 'The White-Black (God-Satan, Good-Evil, Heaven-Hell) Principle'
37. 'The God-Scapegoat (Falsely Idolized-Falsely Vilified and Terrorized) Priniple;
38. 'The Introjection-Projection Principle'
39. 'The Overt-Covert (Transparent-Hidden) Principle;
40. 'The Centralization-Decentralization Principle';
41. 'The Humanistic-Existential (Compassionate-Accountable) Principle;
42. 'The Freedom-Determinism (Existential-Transference, Here-and-Now-There--and-Then) Principle';
43. 'The Push-Pull (Drive-Goal) Principle';
44. 'The Being-Becoming Principle';
45. 'The Monistic-Dualisitic (Dialectic) Principle'...
46. 'The Love-Hate Principle';
47. 'The Dependence-Independence Principle';
48. 'The Self-Social Principle';
49. 'The Individual-Community Principle'
50. 'The Individual-Government Principle'
I am sure that there are a few dozen -- or more likely, a few HUNDRED DOZEN -- dualistic-dialectical possibilities, principles, and/or theories that did not rise to the top of my head in the fleury of dialectic conceptual action above...
The dualistic-dialectic spectrum -- and 'quantum' or 'multi-dialectic' -- spectrum of the life and death process interacting with each other in a constantly evolving and/or de-evolving 'life and death playoff'
is very much worth following up behind with labels, concepts, and theories of the same dualistic-quantum-dialectic nature...that is, if we want to play the best possible 'fitting game' (Perls) looking for the best possible structural and dynamic similarity (Korzybskci, Hayakawa) between our words, concepts, theories -- and 'the subjective-objective world of living and dying phenomena'...
If we want to 'play the fitting game properly' with language, concepts, and theories fitting the very real game of 'life and death', then we need to make our language, concepts, and theories structually and dynamically similar to life which demands the need for new reconstructions and extensions of old dualistic-dialectic words, concepts, and theories...and joining all these dualistic and dialectic theories together into one comprehensive whole -- indeed, this is the 'idealistic, quantum-dialectic goal of 'Quantum (or 'Multi')-Dialectic-Interplay (QDI or MDI or DGB as in 'Dialectic-Gap-Bridging') Language-Philosophy-Psychology-Politics-Economics... -- and within this larger world of the 'quantum-dialectic universe -- both in theory and in practice' -- what we are focusing in on right here -- namely -- 'Multi-(Quantum)-Dialectic-Interplay' (MDI or QDI) Psychoanalysis' or 'Quantum Psychoanalysis'...to get us closer to our multi-dialectic idealistic goal(s)....
I don't want to flood you with any more acronyms than I have to...but these are a cross-section of the different acronyms that you will find spread out over the 6 years of writing 'Hegel's Hotel'...or 'Hotel Hegel' or...'The Hegel Hotel'...or 'The Hegel-Freud Hotel'... which keeps changing as well...until I finally zero in on hopefully the simplest acronyms and titles that I wish to keep...while discarding the rest...or 'retiring' them in my 'archives'...
In essence, we are picking up what is most important in Freud's classic 'Beyond The Pleasure Principle', then move beyond it and tackle and pick up what is most important in 'The Ego and The Id', and continue to evolve in 'Multi-Dialectic-Interplay Psychoanalysis' with different editorial reports, modifications, and extensions of 'classic' Freudian papers (which one day will be ordered chronologically as they appear in The Standard Edition...
What we are looking for is 'new integrations and evolutions' -- through labeling, conceptualizing, theorizing, and re-theorizing -- in an endless Hegelian cycle of 'constructionism', 'deconstructionism' and 'integrationism' -- or more classically worded in Hegelian Philosophy as: 1. 'thesis'; 2. 'anti-thesis'; and 3. 'synthesis'....and start the cycle over again, ideally at a 'higher level of creative integration and evolution'
Dialectic interplay...and beyond that...
'Multi or Quantum-Dialectic Interplay'...
Of which Freud only partly subscribed to...
You see, everywhere that Freud created a 'monistic, one-sided' concept and/or theory, he was virtually 'seducing' his co-workers and students to work on 'counter or anti-Freudian theories'...
The whole 'Freudian over-controlling phenomenon' was very much like a parent telling his or her teenage son or daughter 'what he or she must do' and/or 'what he or she must not do'....which virtually turns into a 'seduction' to do -- or at least 'investigate out of rebellious curiosity' -- the opposite...
This 'rebellious curiosity and perceived wish or even need to demonstate one's own creative (and/or destructive) freedom and independence' is as much a part of 'human nature' -- particularly for a more 'rebellious' and/or 'independent' type of personality (the type that 'doesn't want to be controlled', such as yours truly) -- as sexual curiosity and drive is for almost everyone...
The funny part of this whole 'reverse psychology' syndrome, is that when all is said and done -- and all the 'anti-Freudians' and 'counter-Freudians' and 'post-Freudians' and 'neo-Freudians have each had their particular 'field day' -- the biggest challenge of all is for 'the multi or quantum-integrationist theorist' to go back in history, waddle through history, evolve with history, and come back to the present to 'put everything back together again' in one colossal 'multi-dialectic' or 'quantum-dialectic' integrative package... This is metaphorically akin to 'all the king's men trying to put Humpty Dumpty back together again'....But they couldn't...
This is where you sometimes need 'The Grand Narrative' of one man or woman -- a 'Grand Inquistor, Constructionist, Deconstructionist, and/or Integrative Theorist' -- who can do what hundreds, perhaps thousands, or even millions of theorists couldn't do before him or her....In the 'fitting game of philosophy vs. life (and/or death)', this has been largely a man's game headed by the likes of Anaximander, Heraclitus, Lao Tse, Plato, Aristotle, Descartes, Spinoza, Locke, Hume, Adam Smith, Karl Marx, Voltaire, Diderot, Paine, Jefferson, Rousseau, Kant, Fichte, Schelling, Hegel, Schopenhauer, Kierkegaard, Nietzsche, and I could go on and on -- but in the 20th and presumably the 21st century (particularly within the overall movement of different brands of 'feminism'), this 'male domination' of philosphy will probably start to 'even out' as more and more 'female philosophers continue to come out of the closet'....and in the field of clinical psychology, we have been blessed with the abilities and contributions of a number of top level clinical psychologists such as Melanie Klein, Karen Horney, and Anna Freud...
In my opinion, Sigmund Freud still heads the list as the most productive, creative philospher-psychologist-theorist in Western history...which is not to say that Freud couldn't be -- or wasn't -- wrong, sometimes so terribly wrong, or simply 'theoretically boxed in by his time and culture in history'...
For me, perhaps the most important time in the history and evolution of Psychoanalysis has come, 'where the boxed in' elements of Classical Freudian Psychoanalysis need to 'dialectically meet and integrate' with 'the boxed out' elements of Classical Freudian Psychoanalysis....
This remains my 'Quantum-Dialectic Ideal'....
The ideal of 'DGB Quantum-Dialectic Psychoanalyis'...
And 'Hegel's Hotel'...
To which I must passionately continue to address myself....
In 'The Existential, Being-Becoming, Fitting Game of Life'...
I think we have covered enough for today...which has now turned into 'tonight'...
Next up, we will look at new dialectic interplay and integrations in the theoretical and clinical connections between 'the repetition compulsion', 'the mastery compulsion', and 'the life and death and (instinctual?) forces'...
On that note....
I wish you all...
A good night...
-- dgb, July 30th, 2011,
-- David Gordon Bain,
-- Dialectic Gap-Bridging Negotiations...
-- Are Still in Process...
