Life Conduct in Modern Times

by Bormuth, Matthias

• ISBN13: 9781402047640
• ISBN10: 1402047649
• Edition: 1st
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2006-08-30
• Publisher: Kluwer Academic Pub

Summary

This award-winning book investigates the critique of psychoanalysis formulated by the psychiatrist and philosopher Karl Jaspers (1883-1969) over a period of five decades. His arguments against Freud and his followers are examined from systematic perspectives. The study traces the medico-historical roots of Jasper's criticism of psychoanalysis and then places it within the framework of scientific theory before devoting itself extensively to medico-ethical aspects of the controversy, which are ultimately treated in terms of a history of mentalities. According to this view, Jasper's student Hannah Arendt saw to it that the philosopher be made aware of the socio-cultural impact which psychoanalysis was beginning to have in the USA. The philosopher came to look upon psychoanalysis as a theory '¬" in particular as it was propagated after 1945 in Germany and the US '¬" whose claim to scientific objectivity constituted a serious threat to the freedom of the individual. Max Weber's theory of science and his concept of modernity serve as a critical guide for the interpretation. Thus the normative premise of the investigation is the liberal idea that in a secular and pluralistic society it is ultimately the individual who is to take responsibility for life conduct.

Table of Contents

Introduciton	p. 1
The critique of psychoanalysis 1913-1920	p. 7
Life conduct in modern times	p. 37
Critique of psychoanalysis in 1931	p. 63
Critique of psychoanalysis in 1941	p. 77
The founding of the psychosomatic clinic in Heidelberg 1946-1949	p. 97
Critique of psychoanalytic psychosomatics 1949-1953	p. 107
On the critique of psychoanalysis and society 1950-1968	p. 127
Summary and prospective view	p. 149
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