Husserl and Freud

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SOME REFLECTIONS ON THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN FREUDIAN PSYCHO-ANALYSIS

AND HUSSERLIAN PHENOMENOLOGY'

Esben Hougaard

This paper is an attempt to thematize some aspects of the relationship between psycho-analysis and phenomenology. Such thematization is in the first place justified from the status the two theories occupy in modern psychology. Freud and Husserl should be considered among the chief sources of inspiration for 20th century psychology. The significance of Freud is obvious and hardly needs much comment, his work still making out the core of modern psycho-analysis and being a cornerstone of academic per- sonality psychology. The influence of Husserl on modem psychology perhaps is less evident. In a historical perspective Husserl should be placed in the circle of theoreticians, who opposed classical mechanistic and elementaristic psychology. Originally, Husserl won his fame among psychologists with his "Logical Investigations" from 1900/1901, which played a major part in making the word "phenomenology" fashionable in Euro- pean psychology after the turn of the century. According to Spiegelberg (1972) Husserlian phenomenology functioned foremost as a general source of inspiration and philosophical legitimation for the "new psychology" in its revolt against associa- tionistic psychology. The influence was general and diffuse and

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no direct application of the Husserlian principles were drawn to psychology. Pleading the Husserlian motto "zu den Sachen selbst" direct psychological description was called upon in competition with constructive explanations of classical psychology. In such a general way Husserlian phenomenology can be seen as a source of inspiration for psychological traditions like Gestalt psychology, organismic psychology and existential psychology, all in important ways being forerunners of the modem version of humanistic psychology, which as a "third force" made its entrance in the psychological arena besides the two other major forces, psycho- analysis and behaviorism, after about 1950. Moreover, the significance of Husserl for modem psychology is not merely historical. Husserl was a thorough-going thinker, especially keen on methodological problems and many of his detailed analyses of cognitive phenomena could still be of central importance for psychology today.

The attempt to treat the relationship between psycho-analysis and phenomenology, secondly, could be legitimized from general theoretical considerations. In the scientific era of logical positivism both psycho-analysis and phenomenology have been the target of criticism from dominant circles inside academic psychology, charging the two movements for not being "really scientific." Following the criticism of positivism, especially in con- tinental philosophy, and the attempts to work out a "hermeneutic-dialectic" paradigm (Radnitzky, 1968) as an alter- native frame of understanding for psychology and the social sciences, both psycho-analysis and phemomenology seem to call for a re-evaluation, and the relationship between the two correspondingly a re-consideration. The hermeneutic-dialectic paradigm, which has especially been worked out by hermeneutical phenomenology and the so-called Frankfurter School of social science, should be considered a necessary background for the following comparative study, making up its meta-theoretical platform. I shall not in the present connection dwell upon an explication of this paradigm, but only refer to works, which have been of central importance for its development ; e.g., Ricoeur (1965), Habermas (1968), Lorenzer (1970), Apel (1971).

The relationship between psycho-analysis and phenomenology is a complex one. It is possible to consider it from different points of view, just as psycho-analysis and

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phenomenology each have been the subject of divergent, mutually competing interpretations. In the following comparative study I have tried in a triad of expositions, three "themat1Jations", to show how it is possible by accentuating different sides of the two theoretical projects to come to different conclusions regarding their mutual interrelations. The sum total of these three thematisations, I hope, should provide a complex and nuanced frame of reference for the interpretation of the relationship between psycho-analysis and phenomenology, escaping the nar- rowminded rejection of the one at expense of the other, but also skipping the easy solution to the problem interpreting the two theories as harmonious partners, both attempting to decipher the human existence in fundamentally the same way. Psychoanalysis and phenomenology are neither mutually contraditory, nor are they just trying to state the same conclusions in different languages. Psycho-analysis and phenomenology both disagree and agree in what should turn out to be a rather complicated manner.

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Psycho-analysis and phenomenology were founded as scientific disciplines in Germany about the turn of the century. In both cases one could talk of achievements fundamentally being the work of a single man, respectively Freud (1856-1939) and Husserl (1859-1938). Moreover, the persons in question were not actually psychologists from the start of their career. Freud, who practical- ly alone conceived the new scientific method and psychological theory called psycho-analysis, was qualified as a physician with a background partly consisting in physiological laboratory work, partly in psychiatric training and experiences from his private praxis as a nerve specialist. Husserl, who could claim copyright for the notion

"phenomenology" in the modern sense of the word with almost as good reason as could Freud for the notion "psycho- analysis," was a mathematician and philosopher. These two central figures not only in psychology, but in modern cultural life as a whole, had as persons much in common. Both, as mentioned, came late to psychology. Freud primarily in an attempt to understand the neurotic cases emerging in his praxis. Husserl from a philosophical interest to reach a fundamental understanding of the nature of consciousness. Both were scientists inside the classic

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German tradition with a firm belief in the scientific method, a belief which is reflected in Freud's demand on psychology, that it should be a natural science, and in Husserl's characterisation of his own philosophical project as an attempt to make philosophy a "rigorous science." Both were bred inside the German university system with its emphasis on the master-pupil relation, something clearly seen in their relations to their own followers. In spite of the master's authority in such a relation both Freud and Husserl met with early dissidents.

Interestingly from the present point of view both Freud and Husserl frequented Brentano's lectures on philosophy and psychology at the university of Vienna. Freud as early as 1874-76, Husserl ten years later, 1884-86. While the influence of Brentano on Husserl is evident, and Husserl himself mentions Brentano as his teacher, the influence of Brentano on Freud is more difficult to demonstrate. This in spite of the fact, that the lectures of Bren- tano were the only philosophical lessons Freud received in his study, and that Freud perhaps had some personal contact with Brentano at that time (Merlan, 1945, 1949).

Brentano is Husserl's teacher, but not directly Freud's. The scientific self-understanding of Freud seems to be borrowed from the very mechanistic and positivistic movement of nineteenth century science, which Husserl criticized extensively. Apparently this contact with the forerunner of phenomenological psychology does not guarantee a common basis for a co-interpretation of psycho- analysis and phenomenology. On the contrary, from a superficial consideration there does not seem much ground for such co- interpretation. Freud and Husserl themselves never sought a confrontation. This of course is partly due to the two scientists' occupation with the task of grounding their new scientific disciplines, none of them being interested in scientific pole- mics, but it also reflects marked discrepancies in their scientific self-understanding, which at a first glance it hardly seems possible to bridge.

It is especially the phenomenologists of the French language, who have contributed to a clearing of the relationship between psycho-analysis and phenomenology. Sartre, Merleau-Ponty, De Waelhens and foremost Ricoeur, whose great interpretation of Freud, "De l'Interpretation, Essay sur Freud," have been an essential source and inspiration for this comparative study, all thoroughly have dealt with psycho-analysis. While Husserl, in

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Freud, would apparently, primarily see an example of a naturalistic misconception of consciousness, Merleau-Ponty (1969, p. II) is generously reckoning Freud among the phenomenologists.

The problem of an interpretation of the relationship between psycho-analysis and phenomenology is complicated by the fact that both movements can be seen to involve a rather imprecise content. Already at Freud's time new psycho-analytic schools were founded by Jung, Adler, Rank, Reich and others, which on essential topics disagreed with Freud's original doctrines. Perhaps phenomenology is in an even worse position. A good many resear- chers with a rather loose attachment to Husserl's thoughts have used the notion

"phenomenology" to indicate their system of thought or psychological method. Even among the direct pupils of Husserl considerable divergencies of opinion are seen, and it is perhaps no grave exaggeration to claim, that only one Husserlian phenomenologist has existed, Husserl himselfl This state of affairs I think is a reason for much confusion concerning the relationship between the so-called "first" and "third force" in psychology, that is, psycho- analysis and humanistic/ phenomenological psychology, in modem discussions of the problems. It should therefore be preferable to keep in close contact with the founders of the respective movements, Freud and Husserl, in order to escape in- surmountable difficulties, establishing the conceptual content of the movements.

But even in Freud and Husserl the content of the theories is not clearly outlined. Also in the interpretation of Freud and Husserl we should meet with difficulties. It is still not easy to find out what Freud and Husserl

"really" taught. Is for example psycho-analysis an understanding discipline inside the moral sciences, or rather an explanative natural science? The discussion has been going on since the early debate between Jaspers and Hartmann in the twenties, and there has still not been reached a conclusion generally agreed upon. Correspondingly, an influential discussion inside the phenomenological circle has concerned the problem of whether the phenomenological philosophy in Husserl implied an idealistic worldview, or whether Husserl's late thoughts concerning the "Lebenswelt" was an expression of a break with his idealistic point of departure going beyond both idealist and realism. These and related problems are not easily overcome, but necessarily require an interpretation. It holds good

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for Freud as it does for Husserl, that every re-reading is a re- interpretation.

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The following attempt to interpret the relationship between psycho-analysis and phenomenology is centered around three suc- cessive points of view, each of which is made the point of departure for a special thematisation. Every new thematisation should be seen as a further development and re-interpretation compared to the former. Accordingly the three sections should not be considered three separate points of view serially replacing each other. More aptly they are seen as a "dialectical unity" where the con- tradictions between the first and the second thematisation are "lifted up" ("aufgehoben") in the synthesis of the third thematisation.

I: In the first thematisation the basis for the exposition is Freud's and Husserl's views of the psyche as respectively "psychical apparatus" and "intentional consciousness," as a "machine which in a moment would run of itself," and as consciousness

"constituting" meaning in its "lived world." These notions, which play a central role in the respective theories, are the basis for the first confrontation of psycho-analysis and phenomenology. The result of this first confrontation leaves little hope to establish a fruitful co-interpretation. The relationship between psycho-analysis and phenomenology seems to reflect that great controversy" in relation to the old question in psychology of subjectivism, idealism, and rationalism on the one hand, and objectivism, materialism, and positivism on the other.

II: A rapprochement between psycho-analysis and phenomenology demands a change on both sides, taking into consideration their mutual criticism. Psycho-analytic criticism of phenomenology is that it attaches too much weight to man's conscious selfunderstanding in accor- dance with an untenable idealistic tradition. Pheno- menological criticism of psycho-analysis is that it reduces the meaning of conscious life to a passive result of an unconsciously passing mechanical causality. Both

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forms of criticism must to a certain extent be recognized as legitimate in order to provide for a meeting. The possibility of such a meeting is on the one hand implicitly present in Freudian psychology, which contains a fundamental ambiguity often called attention to. While Freud in his theoretical writings continually speaks of the absolute determinism of the psychic, his clinical works more often seem to deal with a deep interpretation of the implicit meaning of the pathological phenomena. The Freudian sentence, "the symptom has a meaning," has often been quoted in this connection. - On the other hand, ideas are implied in Husserl's late doctrine of the anonymous constitution of the lived world independent of the active intentions of consciousness, which makes a break with idealistic philosophy plausible if not required. It is especially Merleau-Ponty who has drawn attention to the fruitfulness of such re-interpretation of phenomenology away from "transcendental idealism." The second phase of the interpretation deals with this rapprochement made possible by cutting off the mechanistic parts of psycho-analysis and freeing phenomenology from its idealistic ingredients. This second thematisation of the relationship I have termed an "encounter." between psycho-analysis s and phenomenology, and it appears to provide for a happy marriage between the two.

III: And yet more detailed reflections should show the connection to have been too superficial. It is especially Ricoeur's epoche-making interpretation of Freud, which has brought this to light. Ricoeur has followed the few hints of the late Merleau-Ponty, according to which it should be necessary to read Freud as a classic, that is, one should try to empathize into the total vocabulary of the works without too hasty attempts to criticize or re- formulate. We have to take Freud on his word. Freud's rough, mechanistic metaphors have to be taken seriously, because psycho-analysis through these, escapes any idealistic distortion of its discoveries. The Freudian "unconscious" is not identical with these hidden dimensions of meaning phenomenology is explicating. Psycho-

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analysis and phenomenology are not identical, Freudian psychology is not to be dissolved into some sort of "existential psycho-analysis." Rather we should conclude with Ricoeur that psycho-analysis and phenomenology are implying each other, at the same time making up each others' limitations, the relationship having to be likened to that of a dialectic. This third thematisation should be "the last word" in the interpretation of the relationship between psycho-analysis s and phenomenology- at least in the present connection. The relationship between psycho-analysis s and phenomenology, as that between two hermeneutical disciplines, might well turn up to call for an ongoing dialogue rather than a final clarification.

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The three phases in the interpretation can be seen historically to reflect a development inside the phenomenological movement, each phase corresponding to a new generation of phenomenologists : the first phase to the mature Husserl, the second to Merleau-Ponty and the third to Ricoeur. Yet such historical perspective is not central to the presentation, its purpose being primarily a thematic one. I believe the threefold thematisation of the relationship between psycho-analysis and phenomenology with its succeeding results: duality, identity, dialectics, is of salient importance for the central problem in psychology, that of the subject-object relation. The subject-matter of psychology is man himself. Is man not essentially conscious, free, and able himself to define his values and choose his purposes? And if so, how is it possible for the psychologist, being only a human being himself, to study human beings with objective methods? This problem-"the anthropological dilemma" of psychology (Strasser, 1963)-should be illuminated by the confrontation of psycho-analysis and phenomenology, and in this way the study intends to contribute to a fruitful self- understanding of psychology.

Methodically this study should be termed a hermeneutical analysis. What is concerned is an interpretation of psycho- analysis and phenomenology, especially with basis in the texts of Freud and Husserl. The mode of exposition is going to be il-

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lustrative rather than argumentative, attaching more weight to the unfolding of some central themes of the respective theoretical movements than to a thoroughgoing discussion of detail problems in the confrontation. The paper intends to show something, following the phenomenological rule to let the things appear in themselves. Partly as a consequence of this method of exposition the reader might find many loose ends in the text, detailed problems brought up without being discussed at length. It should be possible, I think, to use the general scheme of interpretation of the global relationship between psycho-analysis and phenomenology, to explore the relationship between the respective approaches of Freud and Husserl with regard to selected topics.

With regard to the level of analysis it should be noted, that the study is taking place on a highly abstract level. It is an attempt to explicate the general meta-theoretical frame of understanding, which is implied in the theories; that is, to bring forth the view of man and the scientific self-understanding behind the two psychological projects. Thus I shall not attempt to deal with the many concrete problems on the empirical level, which are facing the two scientific disciplines.

FIRST THEMATISATION: THE GREAT CONTROVERSY

Husserl: "Bewusstsein (...) Quelle aller Vernunft und Unvernunft, alles Rechtes und Unrechtes, aller Realitat und Fiktion, alles Wertes und Unwertes, aller Tat und Untat." (1913, p. 213) Freud: "In der Masse, als wir uns zu einer metapsy- chologischen Betrachtung des Seelenleben durchdrin- gen wollen, miissen wir lemen, uns von der Bedeutung des Symptoms 'Bewusstheit' zu emanzipieren." (1915a, p. 291) . The first stage in this comparative study of Freud and Husserl

seeks primarily to bring out the discrepancies as clearly as possible. The confrontation shall try to show, how on the one hand it is possible to read Husserl's phenomenology as implying a psychology attaching importance to consciousness and self- reflection, looking inside the immanent sphere of pure con-

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sciousness ; on the other, to read Freud's psycho-analysis as a psychology reducing the role of consciousness in psychology, being left with a mechanical model of the psyche as a machine ruled by laws of nature. I shall try to arrive at this interpretation by first mentioning a central point of Freudian metapsychology, the con- struction of the

"psychical apparatus;" next by providing a short account of Husserl's doctrine of the

"intentionality" of consciousness. These two notions have a central place in relation to the respective theories, and could be compared to what Kuhn (1962) has termed "paradigms." Their importance for the theories as a whole seems to make them a convenient point of departure for this first thematisation of the relationship between psycho-analysis and phenomenology. The tentative conclusion from this first thematisation is going to be, that Freudian psychology is materialistic and mechanistic, while Husserlian phenomenology is a variant of rationalistic and idealistic philosophy, the two approaches to psychology thus being connected with opposite poles in relation to the dilemma of Cartesian dualism. This interpretation might well seem to be an over- simplification, which is in fact what I hope to prove in the next section of the juxtaposition: thus, neither is Freudian psychology limited to the doctrine of the

"psychical apparatus;" nor is Husserl's teachings to be reduced to classical idealistic philosophy. Yet I shall try temporarily to suppress these complica- tions, attempting at first to provide a simple, preliminary frame of reference for the comparison.

Freud's "Psychical Apparatus"

It has often been pointed out, that Freud's psychology is mechanistic, or with Husserl's favourite terms naturalistic or objectivistic. Many of the psycho-analytic models or metaphors have been taken from the physical sciences. From classical mechanics: the view of the psychical as a system of interacting forces. From thermodynamics: the "principle of inertia," which might be compared to its second law, the law of entropy. Also the first law of thermodynamics (the law of the constancy of energy) is represented, namely implicitly in the so-called "economic" view- point, according to which it is possible "to arrive at least at some relative estimate" of the quantity of psychic energy used for different purposes (Freud, 1915b, p. 181). From hydraulics: the

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view of the psyche as a system of pipes through which energy is floating like a fluid (cf. Colby, 1955). From electrodynamics: thus the

"quota of affect" was likened to "an electric charge spread over the surface of a body" (Freud, 1894, p. 60).

The mechanistic trend in psycho-analysis is most pronounced in Freud's general theoretical statements, the so-called "metapsychology, "2 where it is given a condensed expression in the notion of the "mental" or

"psychical apparatus. " The import-

ance of this notion for Freudian psychology might be seen from Freud's own pronouncement at a solemn occasion when he was nearly seventy: "My life has been aimed at one goal only: to infer or to guess how the mental apparatus is constructed and what forces interplay and counteract in it." (Jones, 1954, p. 49)

With the doctrine of the "psychical apparatus" Freud sup-

ported a mechanic materialistic ontology expressing the view that the psyche could be explained like a machine admitting the general laws of motion. Indeed, what Freud defined as a metapsychological presentation including the topographical, the economic and the dynamic points of view might be seen as an attempt to answer the three questions essential to the study of any machine: how is it built? what makes it run? what function does it serve? (Stewart, 1967, p. 182)

Freud's most detailed and systematic exposition of the psychical apparatus is to be found in a posthumously published sketch for a neurological psychology, which Freud sent to his close friend in the nineties, Wilhelm Fliess, on October 8th, 1895. Freud did not give his work any title, but in a letter from April 27th the same year, he speaks of his pre-occupation with his "psychology for neurologists." When it was first published in 1950 in an edition of letters to Fliess called "Aus den Anfangen der Psychoanalyse," it got the rather neutral title "Entwurf einer Psychologie," which in later English translations became "Project for a scientific psychology" (henceforth referred to as the "Pro- ject").

Freud's ''psychology for neurologists"

The "Project" is Freud's first attempt to conceive a general

psychology. In this attempt Freud has kept near the supposed neurological correlate to the psychic using the newly obtained knowledge of the neurone as the unit of the central nervous

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system. Identifying the psychological with the neurological, and viewing the nervous system as a material apparatus characterized by mass and energy supply, Freud hoped to make psychology a natural science:

"The intention is to furnish a psychology that shall be a natural science: that is, to represent psychical processes as quantitatively determinate states of specifiable material particles, thus making those processes perspicuous and free from contradiction. Two principal ideas are involv- ed : (1) What distinguishes activity from rest is to be regarded as subject to the general laws of motion. (2) The neurones are to be taken as material particles." (Freud, 1895a, p. 295) Concerning the first assumption, the concept "Q" seems to be

made in simple analogy to the concept of energy in physics. The quantity has its source in external or internal stimuli, the purpose of the notion is to unify instinctual and sensuous stimuli in a single concept. The quantity is streaming, occupies neurones, is filling or emptying them. One quite naturally thinks of a fluid floating through pipes or of electricity in a circuit. It has been supposed (e.g., by Pribram, 1962a) that the "Q" was meant to be electric energy, but this is not supported by Freud's own text. 3 Rather

" Q' is a general abstraction like the energy concept of the natural sciences.

Freud next divides the neurones in three classes with different functions. The first class is called ?o (phi)-neurones; they make out a system of permeable neurones, which allows energy from the outside world to pass unhindered into the second class of neurones, the ? (psi)-neurones. This class of neurones con- stitutes most of what might be called the psychical system. The neurones here are not quite permeable, but equipped with "contact-barriers," thus loaded with resistence and holding back "Q' (1895a, p. 298f). These contact-barriers are altered per-

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manently by the passage of an excitation, so that the resistance to succeeding excitations is lowered with a resulting "facilitation" of the passage between the ? -neurones in question. This facilitation following the lowering of contact- barriers is serving the function of memory. Finally the last class of neurones, the W (omega)-neurones, is responsible for the quality of consciousness, mostly stimulated from the external world, not by the direct

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transportation of "Q' through w , but by what Freud speaks of as "the period of the neuronal motion" (ib. p. 310).

It is the quantity "Q:' that makes the machine go. The quantity in the apparatus is striving for absolute reduction of tension, towards "level= 0," thus attempting to follow what Freud calls the

"principle of inertia" (ib. p. 296-97). This absolute reduction is however not possible. Because of the continuous production of energy from the internal sources (about = the "instincts") and the conditions the surroundings are providing for discharge (a relation Freud refers to as "Not des Leben") the apparatus is obliged to replace the principle of inertia with the "principle of constancy," that is, an attempt to keep the quantity of excitation "at least as low as possible." Yet the principle of inertia must be seen as the most profound tendency of the apparatus, the model being thus, not as sometimes claimed a homeostatic model, but fundamentally a mechanic equilibrium model (cf. Laplanche, 1974, p. 166f.).

These are the few preliminary assumptions for the psychical apparatus in Freud's "project." Later in the exposition the machine is elaborated further, being at last very detailed and complicated, supposed to account for all psychical functions including "higher" functions like attention, learning, judgement, thinking and speech- an elaboration which it is not possible to discuss in the present context. Although the model is based upon speculations deduced from neurological theory, it is important to note, that it is not ultimately a reflection of rationalistic materialism. Rather the apparatus should be seen as an attempt to fit the clinical material Freud met with in his early studies of neuroses; a fact which is underlined by the French psycho-analyst Laplanche (1974, p. 85). Hence even for the perhaps most abstract notion of the

"project," the quantitative conception "Q," it holds good according to Freud, that it was "derived directly from pathological clinical observation" (1895a, p. 295).

We might close this short exposition rendering the very precise description Freud himself gives of the neurological apparatus in a letter to Fliess dated October 20th, 1895, at a time when Freud still seems very enthusiastic concerning his "psychology for neurologists" :

"Everything fell into place, the cogs meshed, the thing really seemed to be a machine which in a moment would run of itself." (Freud, 1954, p. 129)

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The Significance of the "Project"

The publishing of Freud's "Project for a scientific psychology" must be considered an outstanding event in the history of psycho- analysis, giving opportunity for a clearing of some rather confus- ing sides of Freudian psychology and allowing for a better understanding of Freud's development in the nineties, a period in which Freud's genius according to Jones (1954) was at its highest, and where the cornerstone of psycho-analysis was laid down. Without doubt the

"Project" is Freud's most difficult paper. It is very condensed and schematic and makes great demands on the reader, having to be read, as Stewart (1967, p. 3) expresses it, not only sentence by sentence, but even word by word. Jones (1954, p. 420) proposed, that the work might supply inspiration for a number of special studies, and quite a few have seen the light in the last decades.' Yet it might be too early to give the final evaluation of Freud's neurological psychology.

What place can the "Project" be said to have in relation to Freud's later psychology? According to Jones (1954, ch. XVII) Freud soon gave up his neurological speculations and moved into the field of pure psychology. Strachey believes, that Freud in 1895 when writing both the "Project" and, in collaboration with Breuer, "Studies on Hysteria," "was at a half-way stage in the process of moving from physiological to psychological explanations," and that his initial reluctance to give up the attempt to describe mental events in pure neurological terms was due to his early training as a neurologist (SE, II, p. XIV). According to this point of view, the "Project" is only reflecting a transient phase in the development of psycho-analysis, and is later given up by Freud. Freud himself seems to verify this. Shortly after his enthusiastic account of "the psychology" in letters to Fliess, he rejected his whole line of thought, no longer understanding the state of mind in which he had conceived it (letter from 29/11, 1895).5 He never mentioned the neurological model in his published works, and in the metapsychological chapter of "The Interpretation of Dreams" he explicitly declared: "I shall remain upon psychological ground" (1900, p. 536).

And yet one might speculate if Freud really gave up the "Pro- ject," or only tried to rewrite in psychological terminology, what originally had been neurological speculation (MacIntyre, 1958).

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In the same way it is possible to ask, if Freud only gave up his early attempt because of the insufficient status of neurological science of that time, and presume that Freud would have behaved dif- ferently in the light of present-day neurobiology (Pribram, 1962). Anyway it seems safe to conclude that the thoughts developed in the

"Project" did not come to life as chance events, soon to be sur- passed by new insights. On the contrary Freud discussed here most of the central topics which he dealt with in his later scientific career. Jones (1954, p. 430) gives a list of 24 central topics from the

"Project" all except three of which occurred again in Freud's later writings, some of them after an interval of more than 30 years. It is possible to follow the central ideas through such prominent works as "The Interpretation of Dreams" (1900), "The Two Principles of Mental Functioning" ( 1911 a), the metapsychological papers of 1915, "Beyond the Pleasure Principle" (1920a), "The Ego and the Id" (1923a), the "Mystic Writing-Pad" (1925a), and finally the "Outline of Psycho-Analysis" (1940). As Strachey puts it: "the Project, or rather its invisible ghost, haunts the whole series of Freud's theoretical writings to the very end." (SE, I, p. 290)

When it is added, that many of the topics, carefully dealt with in the

"Project," never again got a comparable, satisfactory treatment, s so that the reader is obliged to go to this unofficial source for a thorough explanation, the central position of the "Project" might seem to have been established. The machine from the "Project" seems to have played the role of an implicit model in Freud's later writings, and the reader is often brought to feel, that Freud writes as if he supposed, that since he had treated the topic elsewhere he did not need to go through it once again - even though this "elsewhere" was an unpublished manuscript, which Freud himself had rejected and the publishing of which he later opposed.' Even those topics, which later got an extensive treatment, were mostly not dealt with in such consistent and precise a way, as was the case with the early machine model. Although sometimes less rigorous and narrowly mechanistic, Freud's later metapsychological models often seem more difficult to visualize and correspondingly less stringent and precise.

In the light of the above-mentioned it might be no exaggeration to characterize the

"Project for a scientific psychology" as perhaps Freud's most considerable metapsychological paper. Its

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central position in relation to Freud's whole psychology should make it a convenient point of departure for an evaluation of the psycho-analytic project.

Evaluation: Mechanical Materialism

There can be no doubt, that the system " I.{) ,J W" Freud ex- posed in the "Project" is a material model subject to mechanistic determinism, and that it exercised an enduring influence upon Freud's later theoretical formulations. Freud himself on several occasions mentioned, what he termed a "prejudice" concerning the strict determinism of psychical processes, as a decisive factor behind his epoch-making discoveries (e.g., 1910a, p. 29; 1920b, p. 264). Freud surely was a scientist of the late nineteenth century, which meant a strong commitment to materialism and determinism. The strange impression which the project is making upon the modem reader is no doubt due to the distance in time; Freud's contemporaries might have been accustomed to such am- bitious attempts to make a "Himmechanik," which according to Freud were then frequent (1895a, 295).

There have been many attempts to establish the connections between Freud and the positivistic and mechanistic trends in biological and psychiatrical science in Germany in the second half of the last century. Dorer (1932) in an early study, especially underlined the influence from the Herbartian "Vorstellungsmechanik," which had been a great inspiration for Meynert, Freud's teacher in psychiatry and one of Germany's foremost neuroanatomists of that time. Bernfeld in a brilliant paper from 1944 even comes close to hypothesizing the existence of Freud's neurological speculations, although unknown to him at that time, by examining the theoretical section written by Breuer of his and Freud's joint work, "Studies on Hysteria," pointing out the influence on both authors from the mechanistic physiology of the Helmholtzian school, well known to them through their work in Brucke's laboratory. Among later studies might be mentioned Amacher's (1965) detailed account of ideas seen in Freud's contemporaries Briicke, Meynert and Exner, which are directly reflected in the Freudian

"project." Especially the mechanistic and physicalistic physiology which

arose as a strong movement from about 1840 in Germany, including Du Bois-Raymond, Ludwig, Briicke and most famous

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Helmholtz, from whom the movement got its name, might have had a very important influence upon Freud. So the young Freud spent 6 years from 1876 to 1882 in the physiological laboratory of Briicke together with the latter's two assistants, Fleisch-Marxow and Exner, scientists who Freud later recalled as "men whom I could respect and take as my models" (Jones, 1954, p. 49). Besides the direct influence from Brucke as a teacher, one might recall, that the physicalistic ideas were a general property of the scientific climate at the dawn of the last century. The positivistic movement had combated very keenly and successfully the old metaphysical tradition with its vitalistic and romantic ideas, called

"Naturphilosophie", which flourished the first decades of the century, and might now generally be called a victor in the scientific arena. One gets a very convincing impression of the ideological climate from which Freud's scientific career started, by reading a passage written by Du Bois-Raymond in 1842, quoted by Bernfeld in his before-mentioned article:

"Briicke and I pledged a solemn oath to put in power this truth: No other forces than the common physical chemical ones are active within the organism. In those cases which cannot at the time be explained by these forces one has either to find the specific way or form of their action by means of the physical mathematical method, or to assume new forces equal in dignity to the chemical physical forces inherent in matter, reducible to the forces of attraction and repulsion." (cit. from Bern- feld, 1944, p. 348) Freud's mechanical model of the psychic apparatus might be

compared to the later behavioristic attempts of Watson to make psychology a "branch of natural science" by eliminating any talk about the "so-called consciousness" from its scientific enterprise (Watson, 1914). Although Freud still speaks of consciousness in the

"Project," he reduces it to a mere appendage of some mechanical processes in a certain group of neurones, not essential to the functioning of the psyche. Also, Freud later states the opinion, that consciousness is an unreliable basis for general psychology, as the opening quotation of this section indicates: in the metapsychology consciousness is to be treated like a "symptom" (Freud, 1915b, p. 181). Freud's solution to the anthropological dilemma"8 might be seen, as Strasser (1963) is view-

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ing Watson's scientific project, as a cutting off of the human subject from psychology by a reduction of consciousness, thereby being left with man as only object. We might close this paragraph by simply rendering Dorer's short conclusion: "Freud's psycho- analysis is positivistic, materialistic, naturalistic." (1932, p. 179)

HUSSERL'S "INTENTIONAL CONSCIOUSNESS"

As was the case with Freud, Husserl was interested in

psychology from the beginning of his career, Husserl's interest coming from a philosophical and not as did Freud's from a medical concern. Husserl's "habilitation" thesis on the concept of number which he wrote under the guidance of Carl Stumpf, was subtitled

"psychological analyses" (Spiegelberg, 1966, p. 92). The term

"psychology" was also included in the title of Husserl's first book, which was published in 1891: "Philosophie der Arithmetik: Psychologische und Logische Untersuchungen." Later psychological analyses acquired a prominent place in Husserlian

phenomenology to which Husserl laid the foundation in the second volume of his "Logische Untersuchungen," first published in 1901, one year after the work which is often said to mark the beginning of psycho-analysis, Freud's monumental "Die Traumdeutung." In the "Logical Investigations," the work first to

ground Husserl's fame, phenomenology was even characterized as

"descriptive psychology," although this characterization was changed as rather misleading in the revised edition from 1913 (Spiegelberg, 1971, p. 104). The descriptions of the "Logical In- vestigations" are pure, eidetic analyses and no concrete empirical psychology. Instead Husserl thought them to be the "necessary foundation" for any psychology (1901, II/ 1, p. 18), a topic which is dealt with below.

Although, according to Husserl, the descriptive analyses of the

"Logical Investigations" was not empirical psychology they are spiritually close to the descriptive psychology of that time, and, on the other hand, sharply opposed to the causal-genetic, physiological-explanative psychology of Freud. Not only in this comparison are the two approaches seen to differ; rather one might describe Husserl's basic view of psychology as apparently the direct opposite to that of Freud. To Husserl, who in accor- dance with a longstanding tradition defined psychology as the

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study of consciousness, it certainly would make little sense to reduce consciousness away from psychology viewing man as a mechanical apparatus. In fact Husserl from the beginning of his career criticized the positivistic trend in the philosophy of science with its materialism and mathematization, especially when expressed in psychology and the humanities (e.g., Husserl, 1911). Following Kant, Husserl thought it impossible to use the mathematical method in relation to consciousness, as impossible as it would be to think of a mathematic which used concepts like "jagged," "chipped" and the like, that is, concepts which are "essentially and not accidentally inexact and therefore also un- mathematic" (1913, p. 170). He also thought it meaningless to treat consciousness as a material thing, an issue which will be dealt with more thoroughly in the following.

According to Husserl, psychology should withstand the temptation to follow in the footprints of the successful natural sciences. Instead he thought, as Dilthey had done before, that psychology should join the moral sciences ("Geisteswissenschafte"), and he hoped to give both a rigorous scientific basis in phenomenology (see esp. Husserl, 1962). It is important to notice that Husserl when speaking of making psychology, or even philosophy, "a rigorous science" did not think of an empirical and certainly not a natural science.9 What he had in mind was something similar to aprioric sciences like mathematics or logic, although he did not mean to use any of these disciplines.l Husserl's most profound intention regarding psychology was to provide for it a non- naturalistic foundation in a rigorous phenomenological description of consciousness. Such a descriptive phenomenology he thought might play the same role for psychology, as mathematics had played for the natural sciences (Husserl, 1962, p. 49). Cer- tainly neither Husserl himself, nor any of his followers could be said to have realized this project-as little as Freud or his followers have succeeded in making psycho-analysis a natural science. Yet, Husserl's attempt is in retrospect to be seen, not to have been in vain, but to have brought fruitful insights to light. The most permanently valuable concept which Husserlian phenomenology has given to psychology might turn out to be that of the

"intentionality of consciousness. " According to Diemer (1956) there is one basic principle

behind the whole philosophical work of Husserl, namely the peculiar understanding of the relationship between subject and

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object, which Husserl evolves under the name of intentionality, the clarification of which was not only meant to provide psychology with a fruitful self-understanding, but also, and more fundamentally, to found a "first philosophy." In the following exposition I shall try to read Husserl's theory of intentionality with special focus on its implications for psychology, not digging too deeply into Husserl's epistemology and metaphysics, although it is impossible here to draw a sharp line. Husserl never thought it possible to separate psychology from philosophy, and in the end he concluded that any consequent phenomenological psychology is to flow into a phenomenological philosophy (Husserl, 1936).

Intentionality

Husserl took over the concept of intentionality from his teacher Brentano, who in his celebrated "Psychologie vom em- pirischen Standpunkt" first published in 1874, had given the old scholastic notion a new philosophical dignity. We might render Brentano's famous definition, the first part of which Husserl himself quotes in his "Logical Investigations":

"Every psychic phenomenon is characterized by that which the Scholastics of the Middle Ages have called the intentional (or mental) inexistence of an object, and which we, in somewhat ambiguous terms would call the reference to a content, the direction towards an object (which need not be a real thing), or an immanent objectivity. Every (psychic phenomenon) contains something as . its object, but not every psychic phenomenon does so in the same manner. In presentation, something is presented; in judgement, something is affirmed or denied; in love, something is loved; in hate, something is hated; in desire, something is desired and so on." (Bren- tano, 1959, p. 124. Translated in Sullivan, 1966, p. 256).

The general formula of Brentano Husserl takes over as his starting point. Yet, he is from the beginning giving the concept of intentionality a new content and later he departed from Bren- tano's teachings in a radical way. We cannot in this short exposition deal more fully with Brentano's notion of intentionality, nor can we elaborate upon the discrepancies between Brentano's notion and that of Husserl. 11 Yet, it should be convenient initially to

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mention a few points, where Husserl explicitly departs from Bren- tano.

For Brentano intentionality was meant to be a mark that distinguished the psychic from the physic. Characterizing consciousness as intentional, Brentano hoped to give a fruitful definition of the subject matter of psychology, thus to provide for a pro- per distinction between psychology and the physical sciences. Husserl contested that intentionality is such a distinctive mark for the psychical. According to Husserl not all experiences ("Erleb- nisse") are intentional, although they properly should be called psychic. For instance, sensations and complexes of sensations are psychic experiences, but they are not intentional (Husserl, 1901, II/1, p. 369).

In the "Logical Investigations" Husserl makes some comments

on the somewhat misleading terminology of Brentano. 12 First, Husserl objects to the use of the notion "immanent object." It is misleading to think of the object of consciousness as "contained" in consciousness. The object of consciousness is not a real ("reell") content of consciousness, an "immanent objectivity," but that towards which consciousness is directed. Secondly, Brentano's preferred characterisation of consciousness as "related" to its object might give rise to misunderstandings regarding the relation as a real relation between two beings, consciousness and the conscious thing. In my experiencing an object there are not given two things, my experience and the object in my consciousness, nor a third thing, the relation between the two, but only my experience- of- an- object.

Besides these terminological comments on Brentano's notion of intentionality Husserl gives a rich and detailed account of intentional experiences in the fifth and sixth Logical Investigations. Husserl did not explicitly give any fundamental criticism of Bren- tano's doctrine here. Later, however, he dissociated his own theory decisively from Brentano's. Most significantly he criticized Brentano for still being inside the limitations of naturalistic psychology, because he did not know about the phenomenological reduction (Husserl, 1962). This criticism is related to Husserl's later transcendental interpretation of intentionality, which should be seen as the most salient departure from Brentano's doctrine. To understand the full implications of Husserl's doctrine of intentionality the phenomenological reduction therefore has to be taken into account.

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The Phenomenological Reduction

Husserl's "transcendental turn" took place after the period when he wrote his

"Logical Investigations." In five lectures he gave in 1907, which were published posthumously under the title "Die Idee der Phanomenologie," he first spelled out the program for phenomenology as a transcendental enterprise (Husserl, 1973). The phenomenological reduction was here characterized as a method of intuition to reach a firm grasp of the "pure" psychic in its adequate selfgivenness.

According to Husserl the phenomenological reduction is the necessary basis for an understanding of intentionality in its full sense (1913, p. 216). The exposition of the phenomenological reduction in Husserl's works is highly complicated. Thus it might be possible to distinguish between six different forms of reduction, or maybe rather six layers in the process of reduction, although Husserl himself did not clearly distinguish between these (Lauer, 1958, p. 50f). In the following short sketch I shall concentrate on what might be called "the Cartesian way" to consciousness, which plays a prominent part in most of Husserl's expositions, although this way of stating the reduction possibly was not Husserl's last word on the topic. Thus in his last published work Husserl himself pointed out the shortcomings of this way to carry through the reduction (1936, p. 1 57-58), 13

To understand the phenomenological reduction, it is expe- dient first to look at what is reduced, namely my belief in the everyday world surrounding "me" 1' in the "natural attitude" of normal life (Husserl, 1913, p. 57f). As an everyday man in the natural attitude I always find myself surrounded by a firmly structured, undoubted world of things. Any doubt inside this "universal worldbelief' only touches details in the world and not the world itself. Yet, according to Husserl it is possible to attach a fundamental "doubt" to the reality of the surrounding world, as can be seen from the experiment of doubt made by Descartes, 15 This Cartesian doubt must be seen as a method and not as a nega- tion of the real world. Doubting, that is accomplishing the phenomenological reduction, I do not deny the existence of the world. Rather I am withholding the conclusion regarding existence or non-existence, viewing what appears in my experience exactly as it directly appears, as "phenomenon" in my "pure consciousness" bracketed from all transcendent parts.16 Still the world is there, not as a real world but as the intentional correlate of my

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pure experience, put in inverted commas as Husserl also says. The phenomenon "world" must be distinguished from the world as real. Thus for example a tree in the real world might burn, yet it has no sense talking of the experienced "tree" burning (ib. p. 220f). In this Cartesian sphere of the pure "cogito," Husserl thought it possible to arrive at absolute certainty, or as he says "apodictic evidence," thus providing the basis for "the principle of all principles":

"That every originary giving intuition is a legitimate source of knowledge, that everything which presents itself to us originally in 'intuition,' so to speak in its bodily presence, has to be taken simply as what it presents itself to be, but only within the limits in which it presents itself." (ib. p. 52; translation from Kockelmans, 1967a, p. 29-30). In the phenomenological reduction the natural world is

reduced. What the reduction is a reduction to, is the pure, transcendental consciousness, which Husserl describes with the expression of James as the "stream of consciousness." This stream of consciousness is the true subject-matter for phenomenological research. And yet the concrete description of this flow does not- provide scientific knowledge. For this to happen there have according to Husserl to be insights into "essences" of experience, thus to render necessary the so-called "eidetic reduction." Husserl makes extensive use of this eidetic reduction, maybe better called eidetic analysis, from the beginning of his scientific enterprise, sometimes using the ill reputed notion "Wesensschau" (which might seem to imply some mysterious seeing behind the things), but not until rather late did he give a clear description of the method. Husserl (1962, p. 72f) describes the eidetic reduction as simply a method using free ideational variation, systematically varying in imagination the thought-object, being left with the essence as the invariant in the different representations, that is, with that without which the thing would not be the thing in question.

The Noetic-Noematic Correlation

Instead of Brentano's notion "reference" Husserl later came to favour the characterization "correlation" as the mark of intentionality. Thus Husserl in a late retrospect describes the great im-

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pression the revelation of this "universal a priori of correlation" between mode of presentation and object of experience, which broke through while he was working on his "Logical Investigations" about 1898, and which discovery "shuttered" him so deeply that he dedicated his whole life of work to a systematic treatment of the topic (Husserl, 1936, p. 169, note). The notion comes to the front in the "Ideen zu einer reinen Phanomenologie und phanomenologischen Philosophie" from 1913 (henceforth referred to as the "Ideas") where it is evolved under the name of "noetic-noematic" correlation. This intentional correlation is according to Husserl that which most "pregnantly" characterizes consciousness and is therefore the main theme of phenomenology (1913, p. 213).

The distinction between noesis and noema is that between experience and the experienced, between act and content. I may perceive, imagine, evaluate etc. something. My perceiving, im- agining, evaluating etc. is the noetic, the "something" perceived, imagined, evaluated the noematic correlate of my conscious act. Although it is possible analytically to distinguish between the noetic and noematic component or phase of the experience in reality they always go together. Moreover, according to Husserl there is to be found a systematic correlation between the noetic and noematic phase of any conscious act: "no noetic phase without a noematic phase that belongs specifically to it" (1913, p. 232). In this two-layer conception of consciousness Gurwitsch has seen a radical break with traditional idealistic theories. Con- sciousness for Husserl is no longer, as it was for Hume, a one- dimensional stream, but instead "a correlation, or cor- respondence, or parallelism between the plane of acts, psychical events, noeses, and a second plane which is that of sense (noemata)" (Gurwitsch, 1967, p. 135). It is important to notice that the correlation is such that to each act there corresponds a specific noema, but on the other hand the same noema may cor- respond to many noeses making it possible for instance to perceive, remember or imagine the same object.

The above general description of the noetic-noematic correlation could be brought forward on the basis of natural psychological reflection. Yet, the analysis in the "Ideas" takes place within the brackets of the phenomenological reduction in the realm of pure consciousness. I shall try to spell out some con- sequences of this in the following.

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The noema could be described in somewhat imprecise terminology, as the object of consciousness." The object of consciousness, of course, has to be distinguished from the real object, which is bracketed with the phenomenological reduction. The noema is the experienced object "as such," the object in inverted commas or, as Husserl also puts it, the object as "meaning." On the other hand, although the noema is a legitimate theme of phenomenological investigations inside the purified sphere of consciousness, strictly speaking it is not to be reckoned as the real ("reell") content of the experience. The real components of the experience are on the one hand the noetic act, that in the experience which makes consciousness direct itself towards that which it is conscious of, on the other hand the "hyle" by which notion Husserl understands some sort of raw sense data without meaning.18 The relation between noesis and hyle is according to Husserl to be likened to that between form and matter. Con- sciousness is seen to be made up of this "remarkable duplicity and unity" of sensuous "hyle" and intentional "morphd," of "formless matter" and "matterless form" (1913, p. 209). The "morph6" of consciousness, the noesis, is the active component of experience giving meaning to the hyletic material, thus providing the cognitive unity of the noematic correlate. Diemer (1956, p. 48) has likened the threefold unity of hyle, noesis and noema to the dialectical scheme of thesis, antithesis and synthesis.

Intentionality as Constitution

The intentional object as it is dealt with in the analysis above has to be considered a result of consciousness's constitutive activity. It is not possible after the phenomenological reduction to refer the intentional object back to the real object, for the relation to this is bracketed. According to Husserl's analyses in the "Ideas" the object of consciousness is not simply "there" to be found as a finished correlate of the conscious act. Rather it is the result of a complicated achievement ("Leistung") where the hyletic material is bestowed with meaning from the noetic act. Consciousness in the sense of meaning-bestowing ("Sinngebender") acts thus becomes the constitutive source of all intentional objectivities, as the opening quotation of this chapter indicates.

For Husserl then the intentional object is not directly present- ing itself in consciousness as a finished object. The object of

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perception for instance is achieved from a complicated "synthesis" which makes the different "profiles" fit together so that the object is seen as an intentional unity of its many perspec- tives. The house seen from front and rear, or even from inside, is always seen as the same house. This constitution of the object as identically the same is necessarily going to happen in time. The object only acquires its intentional meaning as object according to the horizon of temporality, which lets the same object appear as the result of an, perhaps anonymous, "synthesis of identifica- tion" (Husserl, 1913, p. 94) of different conscious acts.

This interpretation of intentionality as constitutive is Husserl's most fundamental departure from Brentano's doctrine.

According to Landgrebe (1963) this departure was already foreshadowed in Husserl's early notion of intentionality from the "Logical Investigations", which diverged from Brentano's notion in two ways. First, Husserl saw in intentionality the character of the act that allows different acts to have the same object, and second, he considered it an active achievement rather than a merely static directedness. Landgrebe sees in Husserl's original notion of intentionality the germs of his later idealistic turn.

In his "Ideas," where Husserl for the first time used the term "constitution" in a published work, he mostly dealt with constitution in relation to the meaning-bestowing activity of the conscious act. Husserl, however, later came to radicalize the notion of constitution not only regarding the intentional object as constituted, but also the immanent components of the act, the noesis and the hyletic material. This radicalization of Husserlian subjectivism, which was foreshadowed in Husserl's lectures on the phenomenology of inner time-consciousness from 1904/5 and shortly mentioned in the "Ideas," paradoxically in some ways meant a departure from philosophy of consciousness. Some aspects of this widening of the concept of intentionality beyond the sphere of the conscious act will be dealt with in the next chapter.

Evaluation: Rationalistic Idealism.

This short account surely gives a fragmentary picture of Husserl's doctrine of intentionality. Yet it might suffice to give an impression of Husserl's fundamental purpose with his project, suited for this first juxtaposition of Freud and Husserl.

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In opposition to Freud, Husserl thinks that psychology ought to start with a reduction, not of consciousness making the psyche a sort of apparatus, but to consciousness, in the purified sphere of which he hoped to find a scientific basis for psychology in the realm of eidetic evidences. Psychology should according to Husserl not begin with some constructive model of the psyche, but instead with phenomenological description, such a description showing consciousness as intentional, that is according to Husserl's later interpretation, as constituting meaning. Certainly Husserl's teachings of the phenomenological reduction and of consciousness as constitutive have idealistic implications. Thus in an ontological perspective the fundamental principle of phenomenology might be expressed: "the being = 'meaning for' " ("Seindes = 'Sinn fiir' ", Driie, 1963, p. 246). Only so far as an object has meaning for a perceiving subject, can it be said to exist as object. All transcendent being is constituted in the transcendental sphere of pure consciousness. Husserl himself (1929) calls this view "transcendental idealism," and although he thought it going beyond both traditional idealism and realism - as did Kant with his earlier version- it surely situates Husserl in the tradition of idealist philosophers.

Though Husserl did not seem to have read widely in the history of philosophy, and used to present himself as some kind of a philosophical autodidact founding a quite new approach to philosophy, he did not theorize outside history, which of course is not possible. Husserl as much as Freud was a child of his time, although their breeding grounds can be said to diverge. The empirical sciences in the last decades of the nineteenth century were won by the positivistic and materialistic movement; yet a very vigorous idealistic trend thrived in academic philosophy, mostly leaning upon the metaphysical idealism which one might read in- to the philosophy of Kant.l9

Perhaps the contemporary influence upon Husserl should be sought in this so-called "neo-Kantianism," which included philosophers like Windelband, Natorp, Rickert and (maybe not so closely related to Kantian philosophy) Dilthey, who all ap- proached psychology in ways similar to Husserl-at least in the sense that they tried to distinguish psychology from the natural sciences. Having at first been hostile to Kant, like Brentano was, Husserl himself later recognized his debt to Kantian philosophy (Kem, 1964). Although the phenomenological movement attach-

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ed weight to the discrepancies between itself and neo-Kantianism (see Fink, 1933), in broad retrospect the two movements might be seen to be part of the same "Zeitgeist."

Besides Kantian idealism there might be reason for mentioning Cartesian rationalism as very influential for the Husserlian points of view. Thus in the paragraph on the phenomenological reduction, the "cogito, ergo sum" of Descartes was stated as a source of inspiration. Husserl always valued very highly the philosophy of Descartes, whom he saw as the founder of modem philosophy, and the forerunner for his own philosophy, which he himself in turn claimed to be the true fulfillment of the implicit intentions of Cartesian philosophy (Husserl, 1929).

It is hoped that this short evaluation suffices preliminarily to conclude, that Husserl's attempt to make a foundation for psychology in contrast to Freud's materialism and positivism, is loaded with presuppositions stemming from idealistic and rationalistic philosophy. In fact such characteristics were attributed to him already in Husserl's lifetime (see Diemer, 1956, p. 10-11).

FREUD AND HUSSERL: MUTUAL CRITICISM

Freud never mentioned Husserl's name or the phenomenological philosophy in his works. Brentano's name is found once, in "Der Witz und seine Beziehung zum Unbewussten," but only casually, mentioned as an author of a book on humour. Yet it might not be difficult to see from the works of Freud, that he was skeptical concerning the phenomenological project. So what in Freud's works appears as the general opponent against the psychoanalytic assumption of "the unconscious" - under the name of

"psychology of consciousness" or simply "the philosophy" - might lead the thought in direction of phenomenology. It is possible, that Freud here thinks of his own philosophical background in the teachings of Brentano, in whom is found a criticism of the doctrine of the unconscious (Merlan, 1945). Most philosophers, according to Freud, define the psychic as the conscious, thus begging the question concerning unconscious psychic activity (Freud, 1925d). The philosopher, who does not get into contact with such facts as hyp- nosis, interpretation of dreams and psychopathology, but only

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knows one form of observation, "self-observation," might easily overlook the disturbing findings that made the assumption of the unconscious necessary (ib.).

Certainly Husserl might not easily, on the background of what is said in the foregoing exposition, free himself from the accusa- tion of being an idealistic philosopher. Although as we shall see in the next section of the paper, the story might turn out to be a little more complicated, at first glance it would not seem unreasonable from the standpoint of Freud to criticize Husserlian phenomenology for being idealistic, identifying the extension of the psychic with that of consciousness, and for being rationalistic, only using the pre-empirical methods of Cartesian reflection and eidetic analysis of essence.

Neither did Husserl deal extensively with psychoanalysis, although he sometimes spoke of the new "depth psychology" and at least once in his unpublished writings cited Freud by name (Holenstein, 1972, p. 322). Yet in a general way Husserl's criticism of contemporary psychology for "naturalisation of consciousness" (1911, p. 14) seems directly applicable to psychoanalysis. Thus experimental psychology according to Husserl had succumbed to the

"temptation of naturalism," trying to imitate the successful natural sciences, thereby treating consciousness as only object, not allowing for the central characteristics of consciousness, its intentionality, that is, its being subject for the world rather than simply an object in the world (Husserl, 1962, p. 4f.). This failure of empirical psychology Husserl thought had taken place exactly because psychology had not thematized its point of departure: consciousness. Here one might recall Freud's insufficient treatment of consciousness, to which fact there has often been drawn attention. So Freud's theoretical exposition of that topic in his metapsychological papers from 1915 is missing, being among the seven Freud never published and probably himself destroyed (Jones, 1955, p. 209). One of Freud's latest comments on the topic might have been this: "Nevertheless, if anyone speaks of consciousness we know im- mediately and from our most personal experience what is meant by it." (Freud, 1940, p. 157) To this expression stemming from a scientist in the natural attitude, Husserl could have answered with weight, as did in fact his assistant Fink, although not to the Freudian phrase in question (which was then not published), but

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to the whole psychoanalytic project: "Not knowing what consciousness is, one principally mistakes the foundation of a psychology of 'the unconscious'. "20

According to Husserl, Freud might fit very well into the naturalistic tradition of modem science with its mechanization and technification of the lived world (see Husserl, 1936). Follow- ing Galileo, the scientists attempted to make of the universe an all- including mathematical formula, often mistaking the formula for the fact, seeing what Husserl called natures "cloathes of ideas" as nature itself, thus reaching a cosmology, considering the world to be made up of material particles in external interaction- a world picture which others have likened to a universe of tiny billiard balls. 21 Certainly the Freudian psychical apparatus might join this mechanical cosmos, being as Freud himself expresses it "really a machine" nearly being able to run of itself.

CONCLUDING REMARKS

Is it not possible from this fictitious dialogue between Freud and Husserl to conclude, that the two men with their theoretical systems are diametrically opposed around the axis materialism/idealism, and does the reader not recognize the century old psychological dispute between objectivists and subjec- tivists, playing such a prominent role in the history of psychology? (cf. Boring, 1950)

Taking Cartesian metaphysics, which has had such a far- reaching influence upon modem psychology, as the point of departure, is it not then possible to see Freud's psychical apparatus and Husserl's intentional consciousness as extreme views in relation to Cartesian dualism? Descartes split up being into the material world in which things were defined by extension in space as "res extensa," and the soul which was an immaterial "res cogitans." Descartes thought that animals and the human body could be described as extensive bodies like machines; yet the mechanical laws did not include the human soul, which was in- extensional and free. This substantial schism soon brought with it two psychologies. One following La Mettrie extended Descartes' machine model also to include the human psyche thus giving rise to the notion of "L'homme machine." The other taking its basis in the Cartesian doctrine of the human soul as a realm of immanent truths layed bare to introspection for the pure ego, conceiv-

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ed man as essentially self-transparent spirit. Freud and Husserl might be seen to join each of these psychological traditions, thus being opposed in their attempted solutions to the Cartesian dilemma.

This might be the first, tentative conclusion regarding the relationship between Freudian psychoanalysis and Husserlian phenomenology: psychoanalysis being an objectivistic psychology in the positivistic and materialistic traditions of science, while phenomenology is a subjectivistic psychology (though of course no "arbitrary" subjectivism), connected with rationalism and idealism.

In this way, psychoanalysis and phenomenology seem to make up antithetical answers to the question raised by the anthropological dilemma, the problem of how it is possible to study man as subject with objective methods. For Freud, as he was presented above, there does not seem to be any problem at all. The psyche as an apparatus should be considered part of the material universe, following the general laws of motion, thus allowing psychology to be an objective discipline on a par with natural science. Husserl, on the contrary, thinks the quality of consciousness makes man essentially depart from physical nature. Psychology therefore should not primarily try to study man from "without" with help from empirical methods (although Husserl of course does not deny the importance of empirical psychology). Rather reflexive consciousness should try firstly to decipher its own "inner" structures with help from the phenomenological reduction.

Does this first interpretation hold? It does notl Why not, I hope to show in the next section of the paper.

SECOND THEMATISATION: THE ENCOUNTER

Husserl: "durch alles Leben des Geistes hindurch geht die 'blinde' Wirksamkeit von Assoziationen, Trieben, Geffhlen als Reizen und Bestimmungsgrnden der

.

Triebe, im Dunkeln auftauchenden Tendenzen, etc., die den weiteren Lauf des Bewusstseins nach 'blinden' Regeln bestimmen." (1962a, p. 277) Freud: " ... denn schliesslich ist die Eigenschaft bewusst

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oder nicht die einzige Leuchte im Dunkel der Tiefen- psychologie." (1923b, p. 245) At first sight psycho-analysis and phenomenology might ap-

pear to be antithetical. From a superficial consideration it does not seem likely, that Freud and Husserl could be brought together, clearing the way for a fruitful dialogue. Freud appears to be a mecha.nical materialist, Husserl a rationalist and idealist; it does not seem possible from these polar viewpoints to arrange for an encounter. And yet many phenomenologists have come to the conclusion, that psycho-analysis and phenomenology have essential characteristics in common. Especially the phenomenologists of the French language, Sartre, Merleau- Ponty, De Waelhens and Ricoeur, who have all been interested in psycho-analysis, have pointed at the relationship. According to Merleau-Ponty (1969a, p. II) Freud even has to be reckoned among the phenomenologists. Psycho-analysis and phenomenology are both attempting to unveil the same fundamental human conditions, and are, as Merleau-Ponty puts it (1960a, p. 9), not parallels but both aiming at the same latency. In the same spirit Ricoeur (1965, p. 367) claims, that no movement inside the philosophy of reflections has ever come closer to the Freudian notion of the unconscious, than Husserlian phenomenology.

To understand this point of view, that psycho-analysis and phenomenology are congenial, making possible a synthesis, it is necessary to re-consider the two theoretical movements, this time from a different perspective accentuating some aspects deliberately suppressed in the first juxtaposition. On the one hand we might accentuate Husserl's gradually increasing interest in the anonymous background of consciousness seen from his analysis of constitution taking place from about 1917, but ac- celerating in relation to his late thematisation of the "Lebenswelt," a notion whose fruitful implications have especially been brought forth by Merleau-Ponty. On the other hand, the interpretation will demand a re-reading of Freud that weakens the importance of the mechanical metaphors in Freud's metapsychology in favour of the profound analyses of the mean- ingfulness of pathological phenomena, seen in Freud's clinical papers. The exposition so to speak shall try to read Freud with the glasses of phenomenology, and Husserl in the light of the

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discoveries of psycho-analysis. The text will show how far such a project is possible.

I shall start with an attempted interpretation of Freud as a phenomenologist. Then I shall try to sketch some phenomenological themes, leading phenomenology on the track of the unconscious. The final facet of this second phase of the juxtaposition is going to be an attempted synthesis of psycho-analysis and phenomenology, filtering out the mechanistic dissonances of the one together with the idealistic overtones of the other, thus-it is to be hoped-being left with a fruitful harmony.

THE PHENOMENOLOGY OF FREUD

A reader, even sparsely acquainted with Freud's own writings, might certainly have found himself a bit uneasy about the onesid- ed mechanistic interpretation of Freudian psychology met with above in the first juxtaposition of psycho-analysis and phenomenology. Was it not Freud who taught that phenomena hitherto considered accidental or senseless-like dreams, parapraxes, neurotic symptoms-could be made understandable by the psycho-analytic interpretation? Freud perhaps did not so much prove the causal determination of the psychical life, as demonstrated the possibility of extending the frame of meaningful understanding to include much more of the human existence, than had been considered possible before. Thus the dream is according to Freud no meaningless product of somatic processes, nor are the apparently absurd symptoms of neuroses. Both can be analysed, that is interpreted; their meaningful relation to the patients' psychic life can be established.

Although a child of the mechanistic physiology of Helmholtz, Freud surely could be characterized as an illegitimate child. Perhaps Freud, rather than being a naturalist, has with psycho- analysis grounded a discipline in the humanistic tradition (see e.g., Zilboorg, 1954; Holt, 1972; Sterba, 1974). It might even be possible to show a massive influence upon Freud's thoughts stemming from the very romantic tradition of "Naturphilosophie," fought so vigorously by physicalistic physiology. Thus Freud's psychology has been likened to thoughts found in romantic philosophies like that of Carus, von Schubert, Schopenhauer and

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others (Ellenberger, 1970). Even Freud's choice of vocation might have been inspired, not so much by a motive for becoming a "Naturwissenschaftler," as by a romantic wish to penetrate into the essence of things, trying to answer "the last questions." Freud in his

"Autobiography" mentions his hearing of Goethe's essay on Nature read aloud at the

"Gymnasium" shortly before his gradua- tion, as a decisive factor, for him to become a medical student {1925b, p. 8). In letters to Fliess, Freud at an early date states his fundamental interests to be of a philosophical nature (1954, p. 141), an interest since realized in Freud's own late "philosophy of nature," reaching its most marked expression in the final vital dualism, the doctrine of life- and death instincts, which Freud himself termed a sort of

"mythology" (1933a, p. 95). In the history of ideas, things are often more mixed up than

one should like them to be for the sake of simplicity. Although generally considered as defeated by the positivistic movement, the old philosophy of nature was still part of the intellectual climate in the late nineteenth century, its romantic and vitalistic notions often cropping up like weeds in the supposedly antimetaphysical texts of hard science. So the attempts to make a general ex-

planative model of the central nervous system (a "Hirnmechanik") by Meynert and others, was suitably characterized as examples of "Himmythologie" (Ellenberger, 1970). Even in Freud's "project" the mechanistic intentions might sometimes be seen to miscarry, thus opening for vitalistic concepts (Holt, 1968). In this connection Fechner might also be mentioned, who although generally appointed the founder of experimental psychology was in fact a daring metaphysician devoted to mythological and religious speculations (Boring, 1950, p. 275f.), and who with many of his ideas had a large influence upon Freud.

Yet there is another, more direct, line connecting Freud with old romantics, namely the line from romantic medicine or psychotherapy grounded by Mesmer in the last part of the eigh- teenth century, and attracting considerable interest from the "Naturphilosophie" in the beginnings of the nineteenth century (see Ellenberger, 1970). This early "animal magnetism" or "hypnotism" as it was later to be called, was to be almost forgotten with the rise of physicalistic physiology, only to be revived in modified form around 1880 by French psychiatrists like Libeault, Bernheim and foremost the famous Charcot, whom Freud visited

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at the hospital of "Salp8tri6re" on a scholarship in 1885-86. This line of influence from old hypnotism via French descriptive psychiatry might have had an importance for Freud comparable to that of the influence of the Helmholtzian school. Freud himself verifies its magnitude: "It is not easy to over-estimate the importance of the part played by hypnotism in the history of the origin of psycho-analysis

" (1924, p. 192). Besides, the influence of the clinical descriptions of Charcot on Freud might have a special interest here, and shall be mentioned below.

The Clinical Attitude

Freud himself in his report from 1886 of his study tour to Paris, describes one of his motives for choosing Charcot's Salp?tri6re, as the main aim of his journey as having been a wish to learn from "the French school of neuropathology" (1886, p. 5). Although not quite clearcut, the difference between the French school of psychiatry, whose unquestioned leader was Charcot, and the German school with among others Meynert and Wer- nicke as outstanding representatives, might be seen in the former's more pronounced tendency to use clinical description in its own right, defending its independence against "theoretical medicine" (Andersson, 1962). Charcot as a man and as a scientist made a great impression upon the young Freud, and Ellenberger (1970, p. 436) even likens its importance to that of an "existential encounter." Freud in his travelling report describes the clinical attitude of the master in these words: "one could observe with sur- prise that he never grew tired of looking at the same phenomenon, till his repeated and unbiased efforts allowed him to reach a correct view of its meaning." (1886, p. 10) This attitude of Charcot might be seen reflected in Freud's own contact with the pathological phenomena he met in his clinical praxis. This lasting influence was later acknowledged by Freud:

"I leamt to restrain speculative tendencies and to follow the unforgotten advice of my master, Charcot: to look at the same things again and again until they themselves begin to speak." (1914, p. 22) Is there not to be seen in this description of the clinical at-

titude a parallel to the phenomenological "epoch6," the "holding back" of prejudices letting the things appear in their "self-

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givenness" without unduly trying to press them into some theoretical fore-knowledge?

Here we might also mention another characteristic of the clinical situation of psycho-analysis which draws it away from natural science-its character of being a linguistic interaction between analyst and patient.

Freud learned from the account of Breuer of the "Cathartic cure" of his patient called "Anna O." taking place in 1881-82, to listen to the patients, letting their own direction of thoughts be decisive for the course of the communication, thus giving psycho- analytic therapy its character of a "talking cure." In fact psycho- analysis is exclusively characterized as a verbal interaction: "Nothing takes place in a psycho-analytic treatment but an inter- change of words between the patient and the analyst." (Freud, 1916/17, p. 17) Thus the "model of psycho-analytic technics" might turn out to be ordinary conversation, rather than scientific observation (Bernfeld, 1941). As Lorenzer (1970) has pointed out, its dialogical character makes the psycho-analytic method of investigation essentially depart from that of psychologies observ- ing behavior. In the psycho-analytic situation the analyst is sitting half turned away from the patient, listening in a certain alert in- attentiveness ("evenly suspended attention") to the patients' free associations trying from these to interpret the underlying unconscious phantasies. The attitude of the analyst in analysis is not very compatible with objective observation. The central role of interpretation in psycho-analysis on the other hand might con- nect the psycho-analytic enterprise to philologists' hermeneutics.

Clinical Description Versus Metapsychological Explanation

The unprepared reader might be very surprised if, after having read Freud's "Project" from 1895, he shifted to another work from the same year, the "Studies on Hysteria," which Freud wrote in collaboration with Breuer just a few months earlier. In Freud's contributions to this book, there does not seem to be many traces of his so-called "naturalistic prejudice" - especially not in the four case-histories included. In these case-histories Freud shows an empathic understanding of the patients' problems, seeing the situation from their point of view, even to the extent of risking to be "fooled" by his patients. 22 Far from being examples of the mechanical use of the principles of metapsychology, Freud is here

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pulling psycho-analysis in the direction of the literary insight of the poet, sharply in contrast to his ambitions from the "Project" to make psychology a natural science. Freud might have felt a bit uneasy about this discrepancy, since he thought the following apology necesary:

"I have not always been a psychotherapist. Like other neuropathologists, I was trained to employ local diagnoses and electroprognosis, and it still strikes me myself as strange that, as one might say, they lack the serious stamp of science. I must console myself with the reflection that the nature of the subject is evidently responsible for this, rather than any preference of my own. The fact is that local diagnosis and electrical reac- tions lead nowhere in the study of hysteria, whereas a detailed description of mental processes such as we are accustomed to find in the works of imaginative writers enables me, with the use of a few psychological formulas, to obtain at least some kind of insight into the course of that affection." (Breuer & Freud, 1895, p. 160-61) A difference comparable to that between the Freud of

the "Project" and the Freud of the "Studies" might be seen

throughout his scientific works. Thus the kind of theory Freud uses when in praxis dealing with his therapeutic cases can be seen to differ from his more abstract metapsychological models. In this way psycho-analysis is unique among psychological disciplines, having both a clinical theory and a metapsychology, or as Rapaport (1959) has put the difference, the "clinical principles" and "the general psychological theory." It is especially inside the ego-psychological tradition of psycho-analysis that the conse- quences of this separation have been brought out in an attempt to develop Freudian metapsychology so that it would be more precise and consistent, in this way trying to make psycho-analysis a general psychology acceptable to academic science (e.g., Hart- mann, Kris & Loewenstein, 1946; Hartmann, 1964; Rapaport, 1959; Brenner & Arlow, 1964). According to the ego- psychological view, the clinical principles the therapist in praxis makes use of should be connected to metapsychology as a general theory that explains the clinical phenomena. The clinical principles have only a descriptive and not really an explanative function (Rubinstein, 1967).

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Although loyal to Freud's explicit intentions to make psycho- analysis a natural science, the ego-psychological project has now come into considerable internal difficulties (see Klein, 1967; Holt, 1968; Peterfreund, 1971). It has not been easy to make Freudian metapsychology a systematic comprehensive theory. Also some central points of metapsychology, e.g. the energy concept, do not seem to fit very well into modern neurobiology. We might therefore find psycho-analysts connected to the ego- psychological movement now throwing away the mechanistic ingredients of metapsychology- as was in fact proposed by phenomenological and existential thinkers half a century agol Thus the late G.S. Klein (1973a, b) came to the conclusion, that the metapsychological model had to be given up. According to

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Klein, it was the clinical theory that laid the foundation of Freud's fame, and it still is the clinical principles that matter for the therapist. Klein sees in metapsychology nothing but an unfor- tunate consequence of Freud's philosophy of science in opposition to the essential character of psycho-analysis: "Metapsychology throws overboard the fundamental intent of psycho-analytic enterprise-that of unlocking meanings. " (1973a, p. 109)23

Sacrificing the abstract metapsychology we might be left with clinical theory on a more concrete, descriptive level, so perhaps coming close to phenomenology as a "descriptive

Husserl and Freud

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