To: Solon who wrote (16281 ) 2/15/2004 6:31:10 PM From: briskit Read Replies (1) | Respond to I see it a bit differently. Freud is first a doctor, then a materialist and atheist as a result of his scientific presuppositions. Those are things he has in agreement with most of western modern academia. He is also considered to be one who gazes unflinchingly at that data, and its consequences for the human condition. He was willing to ask the logical questions for humanity given the data. While he made some mistakes, he has to be respected for his commitment to understand the human condition and behavior on those terms. I think he is a noble representative of the scientific approach to account for the data and its significance for all humanity. I believe he considered himself to be working first from biological, then clinical data. He is not first positing the imaginary, then building on that. Indeed, he has to be the one name most responsible even today for the generally accepted views of human personality and behavior. We live day-to-day much more Freudian than anything else, unless you think I see this wrong. T. de Chardin would say, "we are spiritual beings having a human experience, not human beings having a spiritual experience," but certainly Freud considers all spirituality to be if not neurotic, then delusional and self-deceptive wish-fulfillment. He is completely committed to a biological, material (even perhaps instinctual if that's what is required) understanding of humanity. I think he has that in common with modern scientific and even popular thought as well. What interests me about Becker's work is that he takes Freud's causa sui personality theory (Oedipal conflict, sexuality, etc.) to task, and asks on what basis we can build the case for being the cause of ourselves. Unless I misunderstand, these are the legs on which we stand in order to perform in society as "responsible, functioning" adults. I think this is where we are all left, you and I together, but especially when positing our egos in a purely materialistic universe. I think we end up generally much where Freud is, and must face up to the issues and questions as he did. Alternatively we can consider a Kierkegaardian existential anchoring beyond ourselves. Kierkegaard is interested in the possibility of "true" human freedom, which he sees our personality constructs prohibiting because they tie up all our time and energy in defense of them. Or, thirdly, we can refuse to "admit the lie" (Becker's formulation) of the causa sui, project and live under that delusion with some of the attendant consequences. We may provide various answers, or perhaps avoid the questions, but what I meant to say by that post is that I agree that the fundamentally relevant questions are at stake in that discussion.
