Freud and the mind-brain problem

ABSTRACT

The author argues that we can better understand Freud’s perspective on the mind-brain problem by considering his Kantian view on natural scientific knowledge, namely that there is an essential limit to our knowledge of physical reality. This means that even though conscious states are identical with brain states, it is impossible to explain the events’ conscious properties physically. Further, it is argued that if Freud took an identity theory for granted, it is not fair to criticize him for attempting to construct neuro-psychological mechanistic explanations of psychoanalytic phenomena. It is concluded that Freud’s perspectives on consciousness, the mind-brain problem, and the nature of psychological explanation are philosophically sophisticated and interesting also from a contemporary point of view.

KEYWORDS:

• Sigmund Freud
• mind-brain problem
• consciousness
• psychoanalytic explanation

For most of his life, Sigmund Freud seemed to believe that the mind and the brain were identical. However, it is not apparent what kind of identity theory underlies psychoanalysis. I will argue that we can better understand Freud’s perspective on the mind-brain problem by considering his Kantian view on natural scientific knowledge, namely that there is an essential limit to our knowledge of physical reality. This means that even though conscious events are identical with physical events, it is impossible to explain the events’ conscious properties physically. Finally, I will argue that if Freud took an identity theory for granted, as most contemporary philosophers and scientists also do, it is not fair to criticise him for attempting to construct neuro-psychological mechanistic explanations of psychoanalytic phenomena. Owing to Freud’s few explicit statements about the mind-brain problem, it is unavoidable that the reconstruction will be partly speculative and explicative. Still, the main aim is to find an interpretation that makes the most sense of his scattered remarks.

Intentionality and consciousness in Freudian theory

The mind-brain problem is one of philosophy’s most widely debated problems: how can brain states generate mental states, such as beliefs, desires, emotions, feelings of pain, and visual and auditive experiences? Mental states are characterized by being intentional, conscious, or both. Franz Brentano, who was Freud’s teacher in philosophy at the university, stated that intentionality is the mark of the mental (Brentano, 1874/1973). Intentionality means that a mental state refers to or is about something. For example, you may believe that Berlin is the capital of Germany, desire a glass of beer, or daydream about moving to Hawaii. These mental states (belief, desire, and daydream) are about different phenomena; Berlin, beer, and Hawaii. Of course, intentional states may also involve fictional and imagined objects, such as Santa Claus, Zeus, and Raskolnikov.

Another criterion for mental states is consciousness. According to this criterion, a mental state is conscious if it is like something to be in that state (Cf. Nagel, 1974). When I have a conscious mental state, there is something it is like for me to be in that state from the subjective or first-person point of view. For example, we all know how it feels to be in pain, taste chocolate, see the color red, or experience fear. The existence of consciousness seems so apparent that it just needs to be pointed out. If someone still does not get it, one is allowed to give the same answer Louis Armstrong gave when he was asked what jazz is: ‘If you got to ask, you ain’t never gonna get to know.’ Freud (1933, p. 70) stated bluntly that ‘There is no need to discuss what is to be called conscious: it is removed from all doubt’ and ‘There is no need to characterize what we call “conscious”: it is the same as the consciousness of philosophers and of everyday opinion’ (Freud, 1940a, p. 159). Pains and moods are conscious, but it is a matter of dispute whether these states are intentional. It is not obvious that they refer to, or are about, certain real or imagined phenomena. Since Freud categorises both intentional and conscious states as mental, it is plausible to ascribe to him the view that a state is mental if it is either intentional or conscious, or both. It is of course a distinctive feature of Freudian theory that a state can be both intentional and causally active without being conscious. Still, to better understand what it means for an unconscious intentional state to become conscious, it is necessary to take a closer look at his model of the mind.

Freud’s original topographical model of the mind distinguishes between conscious, preconscious, and unconscious states.¹ (Conscious state was defined previously). The content of a preconscious mental state is unconscious in the sense that it is not within awareness but can easily become conscious if attention is applied to it. In contrast to preconscious mental states, true unconscious states cannot be made aware by a simple act of will but are denied access to consciousness through the unconscious force of repression. Freud claimed that it is possible for non-conscious intentional states, for example, the preconscious belief that ‘Berlin is the capital of Germany,’ to become conscious. But what does it take for this and other purely intentional states to become conscious? According to Freud, conscious thinking is the same as inner speech, which means that when you have the conscious thought, ‘Berlin is the capital of Germany,’ the conscious aspect is mainly created by your auditive experiences: you hear your inner voice. Thus, preconscious and unconscious states become conscious when verbalized in the form of inner speech.² Since language is linked to rational processes, verbalized mental material can be brought under rational control. This is a fundamental aspect of psychoanalytic therapy and Bertha Pappenheim, known as the case study ‘Anna O.’ in Breuer and Freud (1893–1895), used the apt phrase ‘talking cure’ for the verbal therapy she received.

This article focuses on Freud’s view on conscious states, their ‘what is it like aspect,’ and how they relate to brain states. In this context, the terms ‘psychic,’ ‘conscious,’ and ‘mental state’ mean the same, and the metaphysical distinction between states and events does not make a difference for the following arguments.

Freud’s identity theory

Freud assumed a close connection between mental and bodily states, and his writings constitute a mixed discourse of mental and non-mental predicates. This is illustrated by his characterisation of the drives (‘instincts’), which were always regarded as being of utmost importance in psychoanalytic explanations.³

If we now apply ourselves to considering mental life from a biological point of view, an ‘instinct’ appears to us as a concept on the frontier between the mental and the somatic, as the psychical representative of the stimuli originating from within the organism and reaching the mind, as measure of the demand made upon the mind for work in consequence of its connection with the body.

(Freud, 1915a, pp. 121–122)

This definition of drive (‘instinct’) contains both mental predicates (for example, ‘psychic representative’) and physical predicates (for example, ‘stimuli originating in the body’). Mental and physical states are so closely related that Freud moves between mental and physical descriptions without any conceptual scruples. Still, it is unclear whether Freud had a clear and explicit conception of the relation between mental and physical states. It seems that most of the time, he implicitly subscribed to an identity theory (mental states are identical with brain states) and there is little doubt that he believed it would be possible to explain some mental phenomena by referring to underlying neuropsychological mechanisms. For example, he seemed to take for granted that excitation of the nervous system explains feelings of distress. Although this does not constitute a solution to the metaphysical mind-brain problem (we do not know how neurons generate conscious feelings of distress), it could still be an acceptable scientific explanation of distress. Scientific explanations do not presuppose solutions to all metaphysical problems, such as ‘what is causation?’ and ‘how can matter generate conscious experiences?’ Otherwise, scientific explanations would probably have been impossible. As discussed in more detail later, Freud did not believe that explaining why some physical states have particular conscious aspects would be possible. However, he believed that psychoanalytic phenomena, such as defence mechanisms, dreams, and anxiety, could be neuro-psychologically explained.

Freud’s explanatory mechanisms and principles are summarised in his metapsychology, which is his systematic mechanical model of the mind. The meaning of the term ‘metapsychology’ is not clear, but it encompasses explanatory mechanisms far removed from the individuals’ experiences and the phenomena encountered in clinical practice. Metapsychology constitutes rather an explanatory underpinning of these phenomena.

In his first attempt to develop a comprehensive metapsychology, Project for a Scientific Psychology (Freud, 1895), Freud tried to provide neuroscientific explanations of psychoanalytic phenomena, but he soon realised that the limited neuroscientific knowledge at that time would make this project impossible.⁴ Therefore, The Project was not published, and he decided to stay on the psychological level of explanation and description, referring ubiquitously to mental forces and the flow of psychic energy without specifying their neural localisation. However, Freud never doubted that psychological processes have a biological foundation and that psychoanalysis and other psychological disciplines would be integrated with neuroscience in the future. Here are some illustrating quotations.

Psycho-analysis is a part of the mental science of psychology. […] Psychology, too, is a natural science. What else can it be?

(Freud, 1940b, p. 282)

We must recollect that all our provisional ideas in psychology will presumably some day be based on an organic substructure.

(Freud, 1914, p. 78)

The theoretical structure of psycho-analysis that we have created is in truth a superstructure, which will one day have to be set upon its organic foundation.

(Freud, 1916–1917, p. 389)

Biology is truly a land of unlimited possibilities. […] We cannot guess what answers it will return in a few dozen years to the questions we have put to it. They may be of a kind which will blow away the whole of our artificial structure of hypotheses.”

(Freud, 1920, p. 60)

The last two quotations probably refer to his explanatory metapsychological speculations, which he never really found convincing. These statements and others strongly suggest that Freud believed in a kind of materialism or identity theory; that is, mind and brain constitute a unity that can be described and investigated from both a psychological and neuroscientific perspective. We see from the four quotations above that Freud predicted that someday psychology would be ‘based on’ or ‘set upon’ its organic foundation, but this neither implies nor indicates a reductive physicalistic perspective. Reductive physicalism entails the possibility of replacing a psychological vocabulary with a coextensive neuroscientific one, but we do not find any expression of this theory in Freud’s writings. Likewise, it is unreasonable to interpret Freud as defending eliminative physicalism, that is, the theory that psychological theories are false and must be eliminated and replaced by mature neuroscience. Freud seemed to believe that his psychological explanations were at least approximately true.

Freud (1895, p. 311) stated, ‘consciousness is the subjective side of one part of the physical processes in the nervous system, namely of the perceptual processes … .’ A plausible interpretation of this statement seems to be that consciousness is a real non-reducible and intrinsic aspect or property of some physical processes, but not something ‘over and above,’ ‘outside,’ or in addition to the physical processes themselves. This suggests a kind of non-reductive physicalism that will be specified in more detail later.

There is evidence that Freud was an identity theorist for most of his life. However, Livingstone Smith (1999, p. 47) and Meissner (2003, p. 340) contend that according to the available documentary evidence, Freud was a psychophysical parallelist or epiphenomenalist and even flirted with interactionism from 1888 until 1895. Still, from the composition of his Project in 1895, he remained an identity theorist until his death in 1939. The four quotations listed above in defence of an identity interpretation of Freud’s view on the mind-brain problem are all dated after 1895. Freud’s writings before the composition of the Project will not be discussed any further in this paper.

At the very beginning of The Project, Freud (1895, p. 295) stated, ‘The intention is to furnish a psychology that shall be a natural science: that is, to represent psychical processes as quantitatively determinate states of specifiable material particles, thus making those processes perspicuous and free from contradiction.’ It seems very unlikely that Freud should want to represent psychical processes as states of material particles (neurons) unless he believed these conscious states to be identical with (or aspects of) configurations of material particles. Wallace (1992) argues that Freud was an ontological materialist who believed in the identity between mind and brain and that his dualism was purely methodological; that is, the mind can be investigated and described from both a psychological and neuroscientific perspective. Due to the premature status of neuroscience at his time, he decided to stay at the psychological level of description.

I shall entirely disregard the fact the mental apparatus with which we are here concerned is also known to us in the form of an anatomical preparation, and I shall carefully avoid the temptation to determine psychical locality in any anatomical fashion. I shall remain on psychological ground.

(Freud, 1900, p. 536)

In summary, Freud was not only a methodological dualist but explicitly claimed that consciousness is the subjective side of some brain processes and cannot be reduced to physical states or be described entirely in physical terms. In this sense, his theory expresses not just a methodological dualism but is more akin to property dualism, also known as dual-aspect theory. Unlike Cartesian interactionist dualism, the dual-aspect theory does not presuppose two interacting substances but contends that consciousness is an intrinsic and inseparable aspect of some physical processes.

Since Freud’s writings express methodological dualism, some of his statements have erroneously been interpreted as expressing interactionist dualism, that conscious states are independent of and somehow ‘outside’ the brain but can nevertheless causally influence brain states. However, even though Freud explained, investigated, and described psychic phenomena psychologically, it does not follow that he believed that conscious states could exist independently of physical states. Silverstein (1985, 2022) refers to statements that seem to support an interactionist theory, but most of these quotations are found in texts written before the Project (1895) and do not reflect his later perspective on the mind-brain problem. Freudian theory (after 1895) presupposes that psychoanalysis is a natural science and that the psychical is probably similar to all other natural processes (Freud, 1940b, p. 283). Thus, Freud did not believe that the mental realm represents a separate causal force in addition to the physical forces that govern processes in the brain. Freud acquired his scientific training within the ‘Helmholtz school of medicine’ and Hermann Helmholtz, together with the influential physiologists Ernst Brücke and Émil du Bois-Reymond, all of whom Freud held in the highest esteem, launched a program stating essentially that no other forces than the common physical-chemical ones are active within the organism (Sulloway, 1992, pp. 14–15). There is no reason to believe that Freud disagreed with this fundamental principle.

Freud never doubted that the brain is the substrate of the mind, and by mind, he did not mean an immaterial substance that could exist without any physical underpinning. As a determined atheist and evolutionist, he could hardly have done so. Thus, it seems that Freud’s writings fit best with an identity theory, at least from The Project on. However, this is not very illuminating since most contemporary theories about the mind-brain problem reject that mind and brain are two distinct substances. Even dual-aspect theory entails that mental events are identical with physical events in the brain but contends that some physical events also have conscious aspects. I will argue that to better understand Freud’s view on the mind-brain problem, we should consider his conception of scientific knowledge, namely that it has certain fundamental limits. Thus, I will argue that there is a close relationship between Freud’s view on the mind-brain problem and his conception of the nature of scientific knowledge. As far as I know, this has not been explicitly pointed out in the discussions regarding psychoanalysis and the mind-brain problem.

The mind-brain problem and the limit of scientific knowledge

Although Freud assumed an identity between mental and physical events, he considered it beyond human understanding to explain why some physical events must be accompanied by conscious experiences, such as feelings of pain, auditive experiences, emotions, etc. Freud was explicit that we do not have a solution to the metaphysical mind-brain problem and indicated that it could be impossible, even in principle, to find a physical explanation of consciousness.

We know two kinds of things about what we call our psyche (or mental life): firstly, its bodily organ and scene of action, the brain (or nervous system) and, on the other hand, our acts of consciousness, which are immediate data and cannot be further explained by any sort of description. Everything that lies between is unknown to us, and the data do not include any direct relation between these two terminal points of our knowledge.

(Freud, 1940a, p. 144, my italics)

Consciousness is one of the fundamental facts of our life and our researches come up

against it like a blank wall and can find no path beyond it. (Freud, 1940b, p. 283)

Freud was clear that consciousness cannot be explained, and Wakefield (2018, p. 47–49 & 301) states that although he was an identity theorist, consciousness remained utterly mysterious to him and could not be physically explained. According to Freud’s Kantian epistemology, which will be described in more detail later, such knowledge probably transcends our understanding. But even though consciousness cannot be explained by reference to brain processes, it does not follow that the mind is not identical to the brain. Identity is an ontological relation and does not imply explainability, and non-explainability does not imply non-identity. This can be illustrated by the identity between water and H₂O. It is not a logical consequence of this identity that we must be able to explain all the water’s properties (its viscosity, transparency, etc.) by reference to interactions among H₂O molecules. But if we cannot provide such explanations of some of the properties of water, it does not follow that water is not identical to H₂O. Likewise, Freud does not question whether the mind is identical to the brain but raised some doubt about whether consciousness can be physically explained.

Brunner (1994) argues that Kantian philosophy constituted a widespread image of science and human beings in Freud’s time. Freud’s teachers belonged to the school of Helmholtz, and Helmholtz was a neo-Kantian who attempted a scientific translation of Kant’s philosophy. An essential and problematic element in Kant’s epistemology is his distinction between the things as they are in themselves and our representations of them. For Kant, the notion of representation seems to entail the unknowability of objects’ inner or intrinsic nature.

For I can only know what is contained in the object in itself if it is present and given to me. It is indeed even then inconceivable how the intuition of a present thing should make me know this thing as it is in itself, as its properties cannot migrate into my faculty of representation.

(Kant, 1783/1977, p. 26)

There are formulations in Freud’s writings that show his affinity with Kantian epistemology:

For the purpose of explaining certain phenomena, we assume the existence of electrical forces which are present in things and which emanate from them. We study these phenomena, discover the laws that govern them and even put them to practical use. This satisfies us provisionally. We do not know the nature of electricity … (This is) simply how things happen in the natural sciences.

(Freud, 1940b, p. 282)

Thus, according to Freud, perception does not necessarily reach the inner nature of physical objects. According to Brook (2003), Freud referred more frequently to Kant than any other philosopher, and many of his writings contain scattered Kantian remarks about the impossibility of knowing the intrinsic nature of physical reality.

In our science as in the others the problem is the same: behind the attributes (qualities) of the object under examination which are presented directly to our perception, we have to discover something else which is more independent of the particular receptive capacity of our organs and which approximates more closely to what may be supposed to be the real state of affairs. We have no hope of reaching the latter itself, since it is evident that everything new that we have inferred must nevertheless be translated back into the language of our perceptions, from which it is simply impossible to free ourselves. But herein lies the very nature and limitation of our science … Reality will always remain unknowable.⁵

(Freud, 1940a, p. 196)

This quotation and the quotation from Kant above have a certain similarity since both emphasize that the difference between representation and represented entails that we cannot know the intrinsic nature of the represented. Thus, Freud’s remark is not the same as the common phrases we usually find at the end of scientific papers stating that there is a lot we don’t know and, therefore, we need more research. This is often both reasonable and true, but it is not identical to Freud’s Kantian view, clearly expressed in the quotation above, that there are fundamental limits to human knowledge that we simply cannot transcend. It seems to follow from Freud’s Kantian epistemology that the main reason we cannot solve the mind-brain problem is that we do not know the inner or intrinsic nature of physical entities; that is, what they are in themselves. According to Jones (1953, p. 368), Freud held ‘the essential nature of mind and matter (as) quite unknown.’ The interpreters of Freudian theory have usually focused on his so-called positivistic and scientistic worldview and may have underestimated the significance of his ‘Kantian humility.’⁶ Of note, Freud was familiar with and agreed with Émil du Bois-Reymond’s 1872 lecture entitled On the Limits of Our Understanding of Nature, where he argued that there is a limit to our knowledge of what physical entities are in themselves, a view akin to Kant’s (Silverstein, 2022, p. 8).

I have argued that three premises in Freud’s writings comprise or support a particular view on the mind-brain problem. The first premise is that Freud was an identity theorist. The second premise is that he accepted a Kantian epistemology stating that absolute limits exist to our understanding of physical reality. Third, he claimed that we could not explain consciousness physically. These premises seem to constitute a theory of the mind-brain problem quite like Russellian monism, which I will now define in more detail.

Contemporary philosophy of mind is usually concerned with problematizing mental states and the existence of consciousness, but not our knowledge of physical reality. One reason for this may be that consciousness undoubtedly appears as mysterious and problematic because we do not know how to explain it or how it fits in with other natural phenomena. In Thomas H. Huxley’s words: ‘How it is that anything so remarkable as a state of consciousness comes about as a result of irritating nervous tissue, is as unaccountable as the appearance of Djin when Aladdin rubbed his lamp.’ Consciousness just does not seem to fit in with the complicated physical causal network we call the brain. However, several philosophers have pointed out that the traditional way of conceiving the mind-brain problem presupposes a rather naïve view of our knowledge of physical reality. The prevailing attitude seems to be that we know what ‘the physical’ is, but consciousness and intentionality are problematic notions that need further analysis. But this view does not consider that there may be fundamental limits to our knowledge of physical reality. According to the Kantian epistemology sketched previously, natural science can describe dispositions and causal structures, but not what physical entities and events are in themselves (their intrinsic nature). However, if we knew the intrinsic nature of physical entities, we could have a solution to the mind-brain problem. Various philosophers and scientists have defended this theory about the ‘inscrutability of matter’ throughout history.⁷ In addition to Freud and Kant, some prominent examples from the past are Arthur Schopenhauer, Bertrand Russell, and the physicist Arthur Eddington. More recent examples are Stoljar (2001) and Lockwood (1990). They share the view that the key to understanding the relationship between the brain and mind is to realize that natural science cannot fully grasp physical reality as it is in itself. However, consciousness may be determined by the physical entities’ unknowable intrinsic natures, which means that consciousness represents the subjective side of specific physical processes; it is not a detachable part and is not caused by the physical process any more than an object causes its surface. This account represents a dual-aspect theory about the mind-brain problem. However, today it is widely referred to as ‘Russellian monism’ because Bertrand Russell explicitly related the Kantian view of scientific knowledge to the mind-brain problem.⁸ In effect, I have argued that Russellian monism is an integral part of Freudian theory.

My account of Freud’s view on the mind-brain problem, like other scholars’ interpretations, is based on a relatively limited number of statements taken from different writings in the time span from 1895 until his death in 1939. A distinct feature of my interpretation is that it does not focus only on his few remarks about the mind-brain problem per se but discusses this problem in connection with his Kantian epistemology; that is, there is an implicit relation between his epistemology and his view of the mind-brain problem.

From the Project (1895) until his death in 1939, Freud was an identity theorist. Still, he was also a quasi-mysterian about consciousness – consciousness cannot be explained physically because of our ignorance of physical reality’s intrinsic nature. Considering his scattered statements about consciousness, mind-brain identity, and Kantian epistemology, they seem collectively to support a version of Russellian monism. Thus, it seems that Freud offered us three premises (identity theory, a Kantian epistemology, and that consciousness is unexplainable) that collectively express Russellian monism. However, he did not explicitly draw that conclusion himself.

Freud neither discussed in detail nor suggested a definitive solution to the mind-brain problem. This may have been due to his reluctance to delve into metaphysical issues. He told Carl Gustav Jung (in 1908) that he had ‘absolutely foresworn the temptation to “fill in the gaps in the universe”’ (Silverstein, 2022, p. 14). He found the poet Heinrich Heine’s derisive comment of the philosopher not unjustified: ‘With his nightcaps and the tatters of his dressing-gown he patches up the gaps in the structure of the universe’ (Freud, 1933, p. 161). This unwillingness of Freud to discuss in more detail ‘the gap in the universe’ between consciousness and physical states leaves some questions unsettled, for instance, the problem of mental causation. If consciousness is the subjective aspect of some brain processes and every event in the brain has a sufficient physical cause, then it is difficult to see what difference consciousness makes; it seems that consciousness is an epiphenomenon. It is doubtful whether Freud considered consciousness to be an epiphenomenon, but he did not have much more to say about this issue than just describing the problem: ‘the leap from a mental process to a somatic intervention … can never be fully comprehensible to us’ (Freud, 1909, p. 157). Russellian monism, however, suggests an answer to how consciousness can have causal relevance. If Russellian monism is an implicit part of Freudian theory, then Freudian psychoanalysis does not imply that consciousness must be an epiphenomenon.⁹

Mind-brain identity theory and psychoanalytic explanation

I have argued that, according to Freud, conscious experiences cannot be explained physically; nevertheless, there is an identity between the mind and brain. It is reasonable to believe that this identity constitutes the foundation for Freud’s belief that psychological and psychoanalytic phenomena could, at least to a certain extent, be explained neuroscientifically – an aim he shares with contemporary cognitive neuroscience. (As argued previously, such scientific explanations do not presuppose a solution to the metaphysical mind-brain problem). However, some critics of Freudian theory have claimed that even if psychoanalytic phenomena are identical to and determined by brain processes, psychoanalysis is nevertheless an autonomous discipline that is incompatible with explanations that refer to brain mechanisms. I hold that this criticism, which tries to force upon us a choice between ‘mind or mechanism,’ is unfair and that psychoanalysis, even though its focus is on mental phenomena, is compatible with looking for underlying brain mechanisms.

Some philosophers and psychoanalysts have questioned Freud’s metapsychology, that is, his attempt to explain mental phenomena in terms of energy, forces, and neural mechanisms. They would like to eliminate or replace the metapsychological theoretical language with experience-near concepts, such as conscious and unconscious motives, reasons, intentions, and the like. Thus, many of Freud’s followers have attempted to reformulate his theory in purely intentional and motivational terms to save the theory from contradiction and a meaningless mix of mental and physical predicates. In the clinical situation, mental and experience-near notions are prevalent, and metapsychological speculations play a minor part, if at all. But although after The Project, Freud shifted to a more intentionalistic style of theorizing, he never abandoned the belief that psychoanalysis could be built on a biological foundation. He admitted that one day, his metapsychological explanations would probably be abandoned and replaced by mature neuroscience. However, some philosophers and psychoanalysts have questioned the very idea of metapsychology, whether it is Freud’s original version or an updated version based on contemporary experimental psychology and neuroscience. They contend that it does not make sense to mix mentalistic and metapsychological notions. For example, Klein (1976, p. 16) argued that psychoanalytic phenomena cannot be explained by a metapsychology referring exclusively to non-mental mechanisms because psychoanalytic phenomena and such mechanisms are placed on ‘different logical planes’ that are ‘not reducible to one another … they are in critical ways inconsistent with each other.’

Schafer (1981), another prominent critic of metapsychology, tried to eliminate all metapsychological explanatory mechanisms from psychoanalysis by systematically replacing metapsychological statements with action-statements describing activities. For example, consider the following metapsychological statement: ‘an aggressive-critical impulse raised up in the patient and caused anxiety, and this explains why the patient acted as if he liked and admired the psychoanalyst.’ Schafer (1981, p. 149) thinks this statement could better be translated into a more experience-near action statement that eschews any reference to explanatory mechanisms concerning unconscious impulses held back by repressive forces. Thus, Schafer suggests the following reformulation: ‘Because the patient was afraid to criticize the psychoanalyst openly, he kept emphasizing that he liked and admired him.’

Habermas (1971) criticized Freud for not realizing that psychoanalysis is fundamentally a critical-hermeneutic enterprise; he subsequently diagnosed Freud (rather patronizingly) as suffering from a ‘scientistic self-misunderstanding.’ Silverstein (2020, p. 17) concluded that ‘Freud’s model of the mind contained an uneasy amalgam of mechanism and meaning.’ In the same vein, Ricoeur (1970) argued that attempting to explain meaningful mental phenomena by reference to non-mental mechanisms is a deeply problematic aspect of Freudian theory.

As I see it, the whole problem of the Freudian epistemology may be centralized in a single question: How can the economic explanation be involved in an interpretation dealing with meanings; and conversely, how can interpretation be an aspect of the economic explanation? It is easier to fall back on a disjunction: either an explanation in terms of energy or an understanding in terms of phenomenology. It must be recognized, however, that Freudianism exists only on the basis of its refusal of that disjunction.

(Ricoeur, 66)

By ‘economic explanation,’ Ricoeur refers to metapsychological explanations that deal with concepts close to the natural sciences, such as physics, chemistry, and neuroscience. For example, according to Freud’s model of the mind, the nervous system aims to reduce or eliminate excitations or keep excitation constant. This metapsychological principle explains many psychic processes, such as intrapsychic conflict, attention, pleasure/unpleasure, etc. The notion of ‘meaning’ in the quotation designates conscious and unconscious motives, intentions, and the like.

If Freud’s critics had pointed out that Freud’s metapsychology is questionable speculative, then even Freud would probably have agreed because he was never really satisfied with his metapsychological speculations. But his critics seem to have something more significant and radical in mind, namely that something is fundamentally wrong or problematic with the aim of seeking neuro-psychological explanations of psychoanalytic phenomena, such as sexual drives, anxiety, intrapsychic conflicts, emotions, and defense mechanisms. I will briefly argue that the founder of psychoanalysis understood psychoanalysis perfectly well and that metapsychology, which aims to discover the underlying explanatory mechanisms of psychoanalytic phenomena, is neither more nor less problematic than explanatory practices in the other ‘mental disciplines,’ such as experimental psychology and neuroscience.

Psychoanalytic theory deals with many of the same phenomena (drives, emotions, psychopathology, etc.) as neuroscience and the other psychological disciplines. The latter sciences attempt to discover the explanatory neuro-psychological mechanisms that underlie psychological phenomena (Cf. Bechtel, 2008; Glennan, 2002; Machamer et al., 2000). It is difficult to see any relevant or essential differences between psychoanalysis and the other ‘mental disciplines’ that makes it inappropriate to look for explanatory mechanisms in psychoanalysis but not in the other disciplines. Thus, if we accept the criticism of the Freudian theory, it will likewise entail a similar criticism of the explanatory practices in the other mental sciences; that is, they should not look for explanatory mechanisms. However, it is widely accepted that experimental psychology, neuropsychology, and other ‘mental disciplines’ both are, and should be, explanatory enterprises. It is essential to their raison d’etre to provide explanatory mechanisms of underlying psychological phenomena. At least, it is not obvious why the problem described by Ricoeur should apply only to psychoanalysis and not to the other mental sciences. Like almost all contemporary philosophers and scientists, Freud accepted that there is an identity between mind and brain; given this identity, it seems natural to look for explanatory mechanisms at lower neuro-psychological levels. Thus, Freud was not involved in any inconsistency, scientistic self-misunderstanding, or a meaningless mix of mental and physical predicates when he attempted and expressed hope of finding underlying neuropsychological mechanisms that could explain psychoanalytic phenomena.

Conclusion

I have argued that Freud’s writings express an identity between mental and physical events, but that the events’ conscious aspects cannot be physically explained due to our ignorance of physical entities’ intrinsic nature. This account is a theory about the mind-brain problem akin to Russellian monism. Of course, given the limited textual evidence Freud has provided regarding these issues, it is not surprising that many different interpretations exist of Freud’s perspective on the mind-brain problem.

The assumed identity between mind and brain was a reason for Freud to attempt (in his metapsychology) to provide neuropsychological mechanistic explanations of mental phenomena. Freud shares this aim with contemporary scientists in the psychological and neuroscientific disciplines. From a contemporary perspective, many Freudian hypotheses may seem dubious and even false, but his views on consciousness, the mind-brain problem, and the nature of psychological explanation are not necessarily outdated.

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Ståle Gundersen

Ståle Gundersen, is associative professor in philosophy at the University of Stavanger, Department of Cultural Studies and Languages, Norway.

Notes

1. Cf. Auchincloss (2015). For the purposes of this article, it is not necessary to consider Freud’s later structural model of the mind (id, ego, and super-ego).

2. Freud (Freud, 1939, p. 97, 1940a, p. 164). See also Freud (1915b, p. 202 & 209–215).

3. Most psychoanalysts agree that ‘drive’ is a more correct translation than ‘instinct’ of the German word Trieb.

4. Strachey points out in the introduction to The Project that it contains within itself the nucleus of a great part of Freud’s later psychological theories. See ‘Editor’s introduction’ to Freud (1895, p. 290).

5. My italics.

6. Langton (1998) provides a detailed exposition of Kantian humility regarding our knowledge of physical entities’ intrinsic nature.

7. ‘Inscrutability of matter’ is Lockwood’s (1990) apt phrase.

8. Russellian monism is also known as Russellian physicalism. My account of Freudian theory’s view on the mind-brain problem is similar to Nagel’s (1982) and Wallace’s (1992) dual-aspect interpretation, although they do not make any explicit connections to Freud’s Kantian epistemology.

9. I have argued elsewhere that Russellian monism does not imply epiphenomenalism (Gundersen, 2015). However, the topic of this paper is Freudian theory and not Russellian monism per se. Therefore, it is beyond this article’s scope to deal with how Russellian monism can handle the problem of epiphenomenalism.