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Strenght and weaknesses of sigmund freud theory
Introduction to psychology by sigmund freud
Strengths and weaknesses of hard determinism
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Sigmund Freud is a well known psychologist and philosopher. He is widely known for his strange psychological reasoning and comparisons of children and sex. But for the purpose of this essay, the focus will be more on his philosophical views of determinism in his book, Psychopathology of Everyday Life.
A lot of philosophers view Sigmund Freud as a hard determinist. Most, though, consider him more of a soft determinist. To fully understand his views, a few things need to be defined first. To get things going, you need to know what free will, determinism, and freedom really mean in the idea of philosophy. Free will is the apparent human ability to make choices that are not externally determined. Determinism is the belief that all events are caused by things that happened before them and that people have no real ability to make choices or control what happens. Freedom is the quality, especially of the will or the individual, of not being totally constrained or able to choose between alternative actions in identical circumstances. Freedom can be broken down into three main degrees: libertarianism, soft determinism, and hard determinism. Libertarianism is the view that freedom exists. In other words, you have a choice in everything you do-choose your own fate. A soft determinist (also known as compatibilism) is one that believes that determinism is true, but that freedom and responsibility can exist despite the truth of determinism, or you have a choice in which path you take. A hard determinist is one that believes freedom and responsibility do not exist, or in other words, you have no choice over your fate.
Now that the main definitions out of the way, the course to understanding Freud can continue.
Freud took a step sideways into...
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...something, or is made or driven to do something, he speaks of the Id" (Palmer 228). What Peters is saying is that Freud cannot make up his mind. Freud tries to do ego and id at the same time when it does not work. Peters believes that only one or the other can explain something at one time. A person cannot be driven by animal instinct (id) and conscious thought (ego). Peters makes a very valid point in this aspect.
Freud is a very confusing man. He wants one subject matter to work out two different ways, which is a very hard thing to do. His thoughts on the unconscious being determined, while the conscious is free will makes excellent points. But Hospers and Peters interpretations debunk Freud's thoughts on how a person has a free and determined life outcome. Some may think that Freud has no idea as to what he was talking about and should just stick to psychology.
In Nancy Holmstrom’s Firming Up Soft Determinism essay she set out to prove that people can have control over their desires and beliefs, and therefore are in control of the sources of their actions. She believed it was possible to carry on the view of soft determinism and still hold that we are free to choose and we are at times able to do otherwise. She believed that the standard soft determinist position was inadequate. Her thought was that soft determinists had too limited of a notion of what is required for an agent to be in charge of their actions. The common soft determinist stance was that the
Westen, D. (1998). The scientific legacy of Sigmund Freud: toward a psychodynamically informed psychological science. Psychological Bulletin, 124(3), 333.
Free will, many believe it (free will) is only a fabrication and humans are at the mercy of natural law; determinist theories suggest that humankind is no more than a mere pawn, destined to carry out the grand design the universe has so concretely laid out. Others (Compatibilist), like to think that although, mankind is under universal law, decisions are ultimately made by individuals thus, free will must be real. The Libertarians like to think humanity's fate is left entirely up to the common people and therefore, any action(s) taken are simply choices whether they be admirable or atrocious. In the present day, the question of is free will real still seems like a complex riddle that mankind is destined to ponder for an eternity.
Hard determinist view free will as incompatible with determinism, and therefore it does not exist. These philosophers, however, define free will as making decision in a random, uncaused way. B.F. Skinner would be an example of a hard determinist, where he simply does not accept the existence of freedom of will. David Hume, a 17th century philosopher, helped bring about soft determinism. He was the first to argue that maybe the root of the free will problem lied in the definition of free will. Instead of humans making decision in uncaused ways, maybe being free is doing what you want to do. By predicting what you want to do; to make you decision based on aspirations or desires, enables the concept of free will to work in the context of the determinist theory. Those who choose to accept both our choices being determined by outside factors, and accept that humans have the ability to make their own decisions based on these pressures, believe in the theory of compatibilism. Compatibilists, like A.J Ayer and Susan Wolf, define and defend their acceptance of both determinism and the existence of free will. Ayer finds two issues with “hard” compatibilism. He doubts that every event has a direct cause, which is at the core of determinism. While scientists have laws and theories that determine how actions are caused, like gravity and motion, there are still phenomena that science cannot explain their causes.
Sigmund Freud believed that he “occupies a special place in the history of psychoanalysis and marks a turning point, it was with it that analysis took the step from being a psychotherapeutic procedure to being in depth-psychology” (Jones). Psychoanalysis is a theory or therapy to decode the puzzle of neurotic disorders like hysteria. During the therapy sessions, the patients would talk about their dreams. Freud would analyze not only the manifest content (what the dreamer remembers) of the dreams, but the disguise that caused the repressions of the idea. During our dreams, the decision making part of personality’s defenses are lowered allowing some of the repressed material to become more aware in a distorted form. He distinguished between
The problem of free will and determinism is a mystery about what human beings are able to do. The best way to describe it is to think of the alternatives taken into consideration when someone is deciding what to do, as being parts of various “alternative features” (Van-Inwagen). Robert Kane argues for a new version of libertarianism with an indeterminist element. He believes that deeper freedom is not an illusion. Derk Pereboom takes an agnostic approach about causal determinism and sees himself as a hard incompatibilist. I will argue against Kane and for Pereboom, because I believe that Kane struggles to present an argument that is compatible with the latest scientific views of the world.
Freud, Sigmund. 1953-74. The Standard Edition of the Complete Psychological Works. 24 vols, trans. James Stachey. London: Hogarth.
Determinism and free will are incompatible. The events in people’s lives are already chosen for us, or determined. The expected behaviors of people are explained by natural laws and by experiences that they were exposed to. But this viewpoint does not explain people’s intuition. Although, there is a chain of physical causes that lead into people’s intuition.
Free will is the ability to make choices that are not controlled by fate or God, according to Merriam-Webster Dictionary. Human beings are mindful beings. By proposing that people can choose diverse ways to answer to a condition, it specifies the involvement of free will. On the other hand, as science remains to uncover new conclusions on human nature, it is shown that a huge deal of our own existence is the outcome of our background, education or organic nature, factors that are away from our control. A lot of our choices and experiences in life have been determined already. The problem between determinism and free will is that there are solid opinions that back up both sides. Noticeable philosophers have claimed these topics passionately. From observing their opinions, it is obvious that free will is incomplete and that inside the main source of human selections, are determined elements.
The aim of this essay is to clarify the basic principles of Freud’s theories and to raise the main issues.
Sigmund Freud’s theories on the construction of the mind are simple, but fundamentally changed the field of psychology. He proposed, among other things, that the human mind is composed of three parts: the conscious, preconscious, and unconscious. The preconscious consists of information, such as a telephone number, that is “accessible to consciousness without emotional resistance” (Schellenberg 21). In Freud’s estimation, the unconscious is the most important area of the mind. The information stored within it has “very strong resistances” to becoming conscious (Freud 32). Residing in the unconscious is the id, which “contains everything…that is present at birth… – above all, therefore, the instincts which originate from somatic organization” (14). From birth, all action is instinctual, from the id. The id recognizes and entertains no desires but its own and is impatient to have its needs met. This phase lasts until a part of the id changes “under the influence of the real external world” (14). This changed portion b...
He believed everyone is born with the id. All humans when they are babies, according to Freud, are pleasure seeking and concerned with having their needs met. This is the original or unconscious personality. The ego is where decision-making occurs, judgments are made and memory is stored. Lastly, the superego contains the individual’s values, beliefs, and morals, which they get from their parents. According to Freud, women get their morals and beliefs from their mothers and men get it from their fathers. He also believes that...
The methods he used to obtain his information and data raised questions by other scientists. His research on children was lacking, as was his use of empirical studies, his research was male-dominated and also lacked universality. The theory of the id, ego and superego develops from birth into childhood therefore the use of case studies on adults and the lack of empirical study does not seem feasible enough to have developed this theory. First of all there is no guarantee that the memories of these adults on their childhood would be accurate, there was not any factual, re-testable data so it lacked reliability and validity secondly each case and person’s experience is different and therefore cannot be use to determine the development of an entire population. Freud’s theory was further biased due to him overlooking social and environmental aspects, which prevent universality; he was a European man who researched other upper middle class Europeans whose everyday living and circumstances differed greatly from others in
Sigmund Freud is one of the most influential people of the twentieth century for exploring the human mind more thoroughly than anyone before his time. His contributions have become embedded within the vocabulary of western society not only influencing psychology, as well as literature, art, and the parenting mechanisms of everyday people. He is the founding father of psychoanalysis which is often known as the talking cure, a method for treating mental illness and a theory which is intended to explain human behavior. He articulated and refined the concepts of the unconscious, infantile sexuality and repression, and he proposed a theory of the minds structure. Freud’s innovative treatment of human actions, dreams, and cultural artifacts has had
Philosophy can be broken down into many different time periods and many different philosophers who each have beliefs on different ideas. A prevalent topic in philosophy is the idea of personal freedoms and the idea of determinism and why and how events take place. There are many different views on determinism; there is the default form determinism, hard determinism, indeterminism, and soft determinism. For determinism, three philosophers who are well know on the subject of determinism are Baron Paul Henri d’Holbach, Robert Kane, and John Stuart Mill’s as they are all different forms of determinist. Baron Paul Henri d’Holbach largely discuss the ideals or default determinism and what specifically makes an event happen. Baron Paul Henri d’Holbach also talks about the ideas of hard determinism. Robert Kane’s man focus is on how determinism differs from indeterminism and who is responsible for events taking place, Kane is also responsible