1st Edition
The Routledge International Handbook of Psychoanalysis and Philosophy
The Routledge International Handbook of Psychoanalysis and Philosophy provides a rich panoramic view of what philosophy offers or disturbs in psychoanalysis and what it represents for psychoanalytic theory and practice. The thirty-three chapters present a broad range of interfaces and reciprocities between various aspects of psychoanalysis and philosophy. It demonstrates the vital connection between the two disciplines: psychoanalysis cannot make any practical sense if it is not entirely perceived within a philosophical context.
Written by a team of world-leading experts, including established scholars, psychoanalysts and emerging talents, the Handbook investigates and discusses the psychoanalytic schools and their philosophical underpinning, as well as contemporary applied topics. Organized into five sections, this volume investigates and discusses how psychoanalysis stands in relation to leading philosophies such as Wittgenstein, Heidegger, Nietzsche, and Kant; philosophical perspectives on psychoanalytic schools such as Freud, Klein, Bion, Kohut, and Lacan; how psychoanalysis addresses controversial topics in philosophy such as truth, language and symbolism, ethics, and theories of mind. The last section addresses contemporary applied subjects in psychoanalytic thought: colonialism, gender, race, and ecology.
This Handbook offers a novel and comprehensive outlook vital for scholars, philosophers, practicing psychoanalysts and therapists alike. The book will serve as a source for courses in psychoanalysis, philosophy of science, epistemology, ethics, semiotics, cognitive science, consciousness, gender, race, post-colonialism theories, clinical theory, Freud's studies, both in universities and psychoanalytic training programs and institutes.
Introduction
Aner Govrin
Part I - Philosophical Traditions and Psychoanalysis
1. Freud's Theory of Freedom: Between Kant's Faith and Schopenhauer's Pessimism
Matthew C. Altman
2. Hegel's Contributions to Psychoanalysis: Theory of Mind, Dialectics, and Projective Identification
Jon Mills
3. Nietzsche, Psychoanalysis, Nihilism
Jared Russell
4. Psychoanalysis Finds a Home: Emotional Phenomenology
Robert D. Stolorow
5. Bridging Philosophy and Psychoanalysis: A Hermeneutic Pathway Between the Disciplines
Roger Frie
6. Wittgenstein: Disciple of Freud?
Edward Harcourt
7. Freud and the Legacy of Sensory Physiology
Leonardo Niro
8. Trauma and Language
Dana Amir
Part II - Psychoanalytic Schools
9. Freud and the Unconscious
Marcia Cavell
10. The Foundations of the Psychoanalytic Theories of Freud, Klein and Bion Compared
Michael Rustin
11. Fairbairn's 'Psychology of Dynamic Structure' and Philosophy
Graham S. Clarke
12. From Freud to Winnicott: Aspects of Paradigm Change
Zeljko Loparic
13. Kohut's Self Psychology, Ethics, and Modern Society
John Hanwell Riker
14. What Is Intersubjectivity: From Phenomenology to Psychoanalysis
Lewis Kirshner
15. Subject and Subjecthood: From Philosophy to Psychoanalysis
Uri Hadar
16. Is Jung a Philosopher of Religion as well as a Psychologist of Religion?
Robert A. Segal
Part III - Psychoanalysis, Epistemology, and Truth
17. The Anxieties of Truth in Psychoanalytic and Philosophic Thought
Shlomit Yadlin-Gadot
18. Truth and Psychoanalysis
Charles Hanly
19. Metaphors and the Question of Truth in Psychoanalytic Language
Tair Caspi
20. Facts and Sensibilities: What is a Psychoanalytic Innovation?
Aner Govrin
21. Psychoanalytic Evidence: The Old and the New
Ed Erwin
Part IV - Philosophical Debates
22. The Psychoanalytic das Ich: Lost in Translation
Alfred I. Tauber
23. Subjectivity in Philosophy, Psychoanalysis and Neuroscience - From World-Brain Relation over Neuro-Ecological Self to the Point of View
Georg Northoff
24. Psychoanalysis, Self-Deception, and the Problem of Teleology
Simon Boag
25. A-Rationality: The Views of Freud and Wittgenstein Explored
Linda A. W. Brakel
26. Intersubjectivity and Responsibility in Relational Psychoanalysis and Modern Jewish Philosophy
Michael Oppenheim
27. Ethics of Discontent
Shai Frogel
Part V - Applied Subjects
28. What can Psychoanalysis Tell Us About Cyberspace?
Slavoj Žižek
29. Psychoanalysis, Race and Colonialism
Stephen Frosh
30. Narcissism in Religion
Tamas Pataki
31. The Missing Signifier and a Malfunctioning Paternal Law: On the Feminine Third as Vital Portal for Sexual Difference and Emancipatory Democracy
Jill Gentile
32. Ecopsychoanalysis and Climate Psychology
Joseph Dodds
33. The Evolution of Psychoanalytic Thinking about Aesthetics
Adela Abella
Biography
Aner Govrin, Ph.D., is a philosopher, clinical psychologist, and psychoanalyst. He is the Director of the doctoral track "Psychoanalysis and Hermeneutics" in the Hermeneutics and Cultural Studies program at Bar-Ilan University, Israel. In addition, he is a member of the Tel-Aviv Institute for Contemporary Psychoanalysis (TAICP). Govrin is the editor of the Routledge Introductions to Contemporary Psychoanalysis series and the author of Ethics and Attachment: How We Make Moral Judgments (Routledge, 2015) and Conservative and Radical Perspectives on Psychoanalytic Knowledge: The Fascinated and the Disenchanted (Routledge, 2019).
Tair Caspi, Ph.D. is a senior clinical psychologist, and lecturer in the doctoral program of Hermeneutics and Cultural Studies, Psychoanalysis and Hermeneutics track, Bar-Ilan University. She is an associate editor of the Routledge Introductions to Contemporary Psychoanalysis series. Caspi is author of Metaphors in Psychoanalysis: Reflecting on the Language of Klein, Winnicott, and Ogden (Resling Publishing, 2020). Additionally, she has published several journal articles and book chapters on the intersection between psychoanalysis and the philosophy of language.
'From its very beginnings, psychoanalysis has had an uneasy, even mistrustful, relationship to philosophy. Recognizing that they are interested in many overlapping issues, practitioners of both disciplines are dubious of both the methods and the conclusions of the other; the result is that opportunities for cross-fertilization are easily overlooked. In this Handbook, Aner Govrin and Tair Caspi create a conversation that aims to capitalize on the potential for mutual enrichment that is possible when psychoanalysts and philosophers carefully and respectfully address shared concerns. The editors have assembled a distinguished group of authors; some are psychoanalysts, some philosophers, and many are both. The result is a collection that is sure to engage and inform readers interested in deepening their understanding of some of the most foundational themes of both psychoanalysis and philosophy.'
Jay Greenberg, Ph.D., Training and Supervising Analyst, William Alanson White Institute, USA. Former Editor of The Psychoanalytic Quarterly and recipient of the Mary S. Sigourney Award for Outstanding Achievement in Psychoanalysis, 2015.
'Freud always thought that psychoanalysis would take over from the philosophy of mind and make it redundant. He seems to have been wrong because Aner Govrin and Tair Caspi, the editors, have collected a significant team of contemporary philosophers from around the world who are still investigating just how the two disciplines compare, contrast, discount each other or can collaborate together. So, what has psychoanalysis done with philosophy and for philosophy, they ask; and also philosophy for psychoanalysis.
There is a landmark quality about this extensive compendium of these two overlapping and penetrating disciplines. These thirty-three Chapters pick out the interacting schools – both philosophical and psychoanalytic – and the multiple philosophical influences on our confusing dispersion of the psychoanalytic schools. This wide-ranging gathering of knowledgeable philosophers and psychoanalysts will tell us, and if they don’t, then they give us much to think about for ourselves. It is for reference, frequent reference.'
Bob Hinshelwood, Professor Emeritus, University of Essex, UK
'Panoramic in scope and scholarly in execution, the Handbook edited by Aner Govrin and Tair Caspi brings together contributions from some of today’s leading thinkers across both disciplines, including philosophically-engaged practising psychoanalysts, to present a stimulating overview of contemporary developments. What struck me most about this collection is the multiple ways in which the essays variously bring the old and the established into innovative dialogue with the new and the forward-looking. Traditional giants of philosophy and enduring philosophical themes are here cross-fertilized with traditional giants of post-Freudian and enduring psychoanalytic issues. What emerges is a series of fresh perspectives on important topics on the interface of both disciplines some of these perspectives unfolding in the light of contemporary movements and concerns. There are some real gems amongst these contributions, and I expect that different readers will be rewarded by finding their own different favourites.
I recommend this handbook as a valuable and thought-provoking collection giving a timely snapshot of forward-looking twenty-first-century thinking about the interface between psychoanalysis and philosophy. In my view it will stand the test of time as a significant contribution to demonstrating that psychoanalysis and philosophy simply cannot do without each other.'
Agnes Petocz, PhD, Senior Lecturer, Western Sydney University, Australia. Author of Freud, Psychoanalysis and Symbolism (CUP, 1999)
