Sigmund Freud 1856 – 1939
Sigmund Freud (1856 – 1939) was an Austrian philosopher of the Contemporary era, associated with Continental Philosophy.
Sigmund Freud was an Austrian neurologist and the founder of psychoanalysis. Working in Vienna, he developed an elaborate theory of the unconscious, of repression and the structure of the psyche, of dreams as wish-fulfillment, and of the role of sexuality in mental life. His later writings extended psychoanalytic interpretation to religion, civilization, and the cultural patrimony, in works such as Totem and Taboo, The Future of an Illusion, and Civilization and Its Discontents. He fled Nazi-occupied Vienna for London in 1938, where he died the following year. His ideas have shaped twentieth-century thought far beyond clinical psychology.
Sigmund Freud (1856–1939) was an Austrian neurologist who founded psychoanalysis and whose theoretical writings have shaped twentieth-century philosophy, literary theory, anthropology, and social thought beyond any twentieth-century clinical tradition. Born in Freiberg in Moravia and raised in Vienna, he trained in medicine at the University of Vienna, worked under Charcot in Paris, and developed the clinical method of free association as a treatment for hysterical neurosis in the 1890s.
Freud's mature theoretical works — The Interpretation of Dreams (1900), Three Essays on the Theory of Sexuality (1905), Beyond the Pleasure Principle (1920), The Ego and the Id (1923), Civilization and Its Discontents (1930) — develop the philosophical framework of psychoanalysis: the unconscious, repression, the dream-work, the structural model of id, ego, and superego, the death drive, the analysis of culture as a mediated regulation of instinct. The doctrines have been continuously contested as scientific theories and continuously productive as philosophical analytics of human life.
Freud's reception has been polarized for a century. Within philosophy, his major successors and critics include Lacan, Adorno, Marcuse, Ricoeur, Habermas, and the feminist tradition from Beauvoir and Mitchell to Irigaray and Butler. He fled Vienna after the Anschluss in 1938 with the help of Marie Bonaparte and Ernest Jones and died in London in September 1939 of the cancer that had afflicted him for sixteen years.
Key facts
- Nationality
- Austrian
- Era
- Contemporary
- Movements
- Continental Philosophy
Selected quotes
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“Where id was, there ego shall be.”
The Anatomy of the Mental Personality (Lecture 31) -
“The interpretation of dreams is the royal road to a knowledge of the unconscious activities of the mind.”
The Interpretation of Dreams (1900), from The Standard Edition of the Complete Psychological Works of Sigmund Freud , translated by James Strachey. | At any rate the interpretation of dreams is the via regia to a knowledge of the unconscious in the psychic life. Alternate translation by Abraham Arden Brill, p. 483 . Freud did use the Latin phrase via regia in the original as opposed to translating -
“We are never so defenseless against suffering as when we love.”
Ch. 2; as translated by James Strachey , p.63 -
“Religion is comparable to a childhood neurosis.”
Ch. 10 -
Attributed to Sigmund Freud:
“The first human who hurled an insult instead of a stone was the founder of civilization.”
Sigmund Freud by topic
Frequently asked about Sigmund Freud
- When did Sigmund Freud live?
- Sigmund Freud was born in 1856 and died in 1939.
- Where was Sigmund Freud from?
- Sigmund Freud was an Austrian philosopher of the Contemporary era.
- What philosophical movements is Sigmund Freud associated with?
- Sigmund Freud was associated with Continental Philosophy.
- What was Sigmund Freud known for?
- Sigmund Freud was an Austrian neurologist and the founder of psychoanalysis.
- How many quotes are attributed to Sigmund Freud?
- There are 14 attributed quotations from Sigmund Freud in the 1001Philosophers collection, organized by topic.
Quotes that are not actually from Sigmund Freud
These lines are widely circulated as Sigmund Freud, but they do not appear in Sigmund Freud's works. Each entry below identifies the actual source.
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“A fear of weapons is a sign of retarded sexual and emotional maturity.”
This quote is commonly attributed to philosophers but its actual source is uncertain or unverified in the standard reference works. Wikiquote's note on this attribution: This is not a statement that has been found in any translation of any of Freud's known works. It is a paraphrase of a statement from the essay "Guns, Murders, and the Constitution" (February 1990) by Don B. Kates, Jr. where Kates summarizes his views of passages in Dreams in Folklore (1958) by Freud
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“Sometimes a Cigar Is Just a Cigar.”
This quote is commonly attributed to philosophers but its actual source is uncertain or unverified in the standard reference works. Wikiquote's note on this attribution: Psychology professor Alan C. Elms stated in the article “Apocryphal Freud: Sigmund Freud’s Most Famous ‘Quotations’ and Their Actual Sources.” (2001): "In this case, however, not only do we lack any written record of Freud as the direct source, but also there are many reasons to conclude that Freud
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“Time spent with cats is never wasted.”
This quote is commonly attributed to philosophers but its actual source is uncertain or unverified in the standard reference works. Wikiquote's note on this attribution: Frequently attributed to Freud, but there is no evidence Freud ever said it .
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“The mind is like an iceberg.”
This quote is commonly attributed to philosophers but its actual source is uncertain or unverified in the standard reference works. Wikiquote's note on this attribution: According to this Google Search result , the earliest reference on this quote belongs to Hon. B. G. Northrop in 1884. But the person who popularized it might be G. Stanley Hall .
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“This is one race of people for whom psychoanalysis is of no use whatsoever.”
A remark about the Irish, quoted as a statement of Freud's in the Oscar-winning movie The Departed , there is no evidence Freud ever said it .
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“Women oppose change, receive passively, and add nothing of their own”
Alledgedly written in 'The Psychical Consequences of the Anatomic Distinction Between the Sexes', but Freud neither says this nor argues this exact sentiment. Possible originates from Donna Stewart