Part I
15–17 November 2023

My commentary will centre around Freud's employment of spatial categories and the metaphors he uses to explain his theory. In “A Metapsychological Supplement to the Theory of Dreams,” he defines an organism’s ability to distinguish between the “external” and the “internal” as its “first orientation in the world”, to which he links the institution of reality-testing, which he counts “among the major institutions of the ego”. In my remarks, I will be drawing correlations with some of Freud’s other texts, in particular “On Narcissism” from 1914, where he introduces the metaphor of the pseudopodia of the eukaryotic cell. I will also focus on some passages from the “Introductory Lectures on Psychoanalysis”, in which Freud not only elaborates on his pseudopodia metaphor in the 26th lecture, but also brings about another spatial metaphor in the 19th lecture by comparing the system of the unconscious to a large “entrance hall”, while he compares the system of the preconscious to the adjoining “drawing- room”, in which—as he says—"consciousness, too, resides”.

To Be Continued?... Philosophy and Psychoanalysis Today Part II 16–18 April 2024

Part I 15–17 November 2023

Info, Index

Voranc Kumar (Postgraduate School ZRC SAZU)

Internal – External

To Be Continued?...
Philosophy and Psychoanalysis Today

Part II
16–18 April 2024

Part I
15–17 November 2023