Abstract
Freud as a Social and Culural Theorist: On Human Nature and the Civilizing Process represents my attempt to rescue Freud from oblivion by reading him as the social theorist he always aspired to be, rather than as the medical scientist he so often claimed to be. By identifying Freud's enduring social, political, and cultural concerns, and by tracing the development of his reflections on them over the course of his long career, I attempt to locate Freud's thought in the tradition of Western social philosophy, particularly from the time of Hobbes on. Such an effort is essential for a proper assessment of Freud's contemporary relevance, as the responses of Prager, Turner, Apprey, Davis, and Reed published here amply demonstrate.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Similar content being viewed by others
Further Reading
Freud, E. ed. 1960. Letters of Sigmund Freud. Trans. T. Stern and J. Stern. New York: Basic Books.
Freud, S. 1890. “Psychical (or Mental) Treatment.” Standard Edition (hereafter SE) 7: 283–302. London: Hogarth Press.
Freud, S. 1910. “The Future Prospects of Psycho-Analytical Therapy.” SE11: 141–151.
Freud, S. 1912–13. Totem and Taboo. SE13: 1–161.
Freud, S. 1919. “The Uncanny.” SE17: 219–252.
Freud, S. 1920. Beyond the Pleasure Principle. SE18: 7–64.
Freud, S. 1921. Group Psychology and the Analysis of the Ego. SE18: 65–143.
Freud, S. 1926. The Question of Lay Analysis. SE20: 183–250.
Freud, S. 1927. The Future of an Illusion. SE21: 1–56.
Freud, S. 1930. Civilization and its Discontents. SE21: 57–145.
Freud, S. 1933. New Introductory Lectures on Psycho-Analysis. SE22: 5–182.
Freud, S. 1939. Moses and Monotheism. SE23: 7–137.
Grubrich-Simitis, I. 1995. “'No Greater, Richer, More Mysterious Subject …Than the Life of the Mind’: An Early Exchange of Letters Between Freud and Einstein.” International Journal of Psycho-Analysis 76(1): 115–122.
Klingsberg, R. 1973. Freudiana: from the Collection of the Jewish National and University Library. Jerusalem: Jerusalem National and University Library.
Petersen, M.B.; Osmundsen, M.; and Arceneaux, K. 2018. A ‘Need for Chaos’ and the Sharing of Hostile Political Rumors in Advanced Democracies.” PsyArXiv preprint, https://doi.org/10.31234/osf.io/6m4ts.
Plomin, R. 2019. Blueprint: How DNA Makes Us Who We Are. Cambridge: MIT Press.
Ritvo, L. B. 1990. Darwin’s Influence on Freud: A Tale of Two Sciences. New Haven: Yale University Press.
Sulloway, F. J. 1979. Freud, Biologist of the Mind: Beyond the Psychoanalytic Legend. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.
Wallace, E. 1983. Freud and Anthropology: A History and Reappraisal. New York: International Universities Press.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Additional information
Publisher’s Note
Springer Nature remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.
This Review Symposium is based on Freud as a Social and Cultural Theorist: On Human Nature and Civilizing Process, by Howard L. Kaye (London and New York: Routledge, 2019).
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Kaye, H.L. Raising Freud from the Dead. Soc 57, 294–298 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12115-020-00482-7
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s12115-020-00482-7