Thanks, Zoltan for that bibliographical correction. A statement of the nature of instinct as repetitive is in the Vicissitudes text (1915), but he didn't posit Thanatos until Beyond (1920).
At the risk of kicking up a firestorm, I'd like to ask those of you who have read Freud whether you find his work relevant to your own process of self-understanding. While the cognitivists have made Freud their favorite whipping boy (critically speaking), I have always found his work to be helpful. His theory of neurosis as a compulsion to repeat patterns of behavior that fail to get us what we want, his search for an explanation of the etiology of such neuroses in our childhood, his claims about reproducing our opposite sex parent in our romantic choices throughout our lives, his theory of dreams, and the general notion that self-knowledge requires us to observe our own behavior like it is someone else's and not take our conscious motivations at face value, have all had a profound impact on my own self-image.
I know that, within the profession of psychology, Freudian psychoanalysis is largely treated as an outmoded excursus into the Humanities and hardly as scientific at all. What I am asking the members of the Salon about is, if you will, the existential value of Freud's work in your lives, Grunbaum et. al.'s claim that it isn't scientific aside
Dan
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