The Foundation of the Unconscious
Schelling, Freud and the Birth of the Modern Psyche

An interdisciplinary study of the emergence of a psychology of the 'unconscious' in the Romantic period, ninety years before Freud.

Matt Ffytche (Author)

9781107629530, Cambridge University Press

Paperback / softback, published 29 August 2013

322 pages, 1 b/w illus.
22.9 x 15.2 x 1.7 cm, 0.43 kg

'A thoughtful and intricate historiography of the unconscious … Ffytche's study will be useful to researchers and postgraduates engaged in contemporary theoretical speculations about the relationship between concepts of subjectivity, political life and the legacy of the Enlightenment.' Booknotes

The unconscious, cornerstone of psychoanalysis, was a key twentieth-century concept and retains an enormous influence on psychological and cultural theory. Yet there is a surprising lack of investigation into its roots in the critical philosophy and Romantic psychology of the early nineteenth century, long before Freud. Why did the unconscious emerge as such a powerful idea? And why at that point? This interdisciplinary study traces the emergence of the unconscious through the work of philosopher Friedrich Schelling, examining his association with Romantic psychologists, anthropologists and theorists of nature. It sets out the beginnings of a neglected tradition of the unconscious psyche and proposes a compelling new argument: that the unconscious develops from the modern need to theorise individual independence. The book assesses the impact of this tradition on psychoanalysis itself, re-reading Freud's The Interpretation of Dreams in the light of broader post-Enlightenment attempts to theorise individuality.

Introduction: the historiography of the unconscious
Part I. The Subject before the Unconscious: 1. A general science of the I: Fichte and the crisis of self-identification
2. Natural autonomy: Schelling and the divisions of freedom
Part II. The Romantic Unconscious: 3. Divining the individual: towards a metaphysics of the unconscious
4. The historical unconscious
5. Post-idealism and the Romantic psyche
Part III. The Psychoanalytic Unconscious: 6. Freud: the Geist in the machine
7. The liberal unconscious
Conclusion.

Subject Areas: Conscious & unconscious [JMTC], Psychoanalytical theory [Freudian psychology JMAF], History of ideas [JFCX], History of Western philosophy [HPC], Literary studies: c 1800 to c 1900 [DSBF]