William James and Sigmund Freud on the Mind

Comparison of Freud and William James on the Philosophy of Mind

This is the first extended study comparing the philosophies of mind promoted by Sigmund Freud and William James, whose opposing views had profound influences on the development of twentieth-century philosophy, cognitive science, and psychology.

Each asked, can the mind be scientifically characterized? While Freud thought that psychoanalysis had established a science of the mind, James maintained that the subjective could not be objectified, and psychology was left with only "the crumbs" of analysis. Tauber’s presentation of a conjured philosophical confrontation occasioned by their first and only meeting in 1909 uncovers the clashing philosophies of mind underlying their respective positions. In comparing their opposing portraits of the psyche, persistent questions about self-knowledge, personal identity, and moral agency are presented at their fin de siècle origin. In this setting, the James-Freud dispute offers a unique perspective about our own contemporary dilemmas swirling around selfhood, consciousness, and the subjectivity of human experience.

Audience and Significance

This eclectic history of early psychology will interest psychoanalysts, psychologists, and philosophers as well as those interested in the origins of pragmatism, phenomenology, modernism, and twentieth-century positivism.