Language, displacement and censorship : a philosophical analysis of Sigmund Freud's common-sense method of dream-interpretation

Abstract

This thesis is a contribution to the tradition in philosophy of psychoanalysis in analytic philosophy of viewing Sigmund Freud's method of interpretation as an extension of common-sense psychology. The thesis addresses the topic of dream-interpretation, which Freud considered of fundamental importance for psychoanalysis, and argues that it is an extension of common-sense psychology according to a pattern of practical reasoning. In this respect, it challenges the received opinion in this field of the philosophy of psychoanalysis which views Freud's method as an extension of common sense psychology according to the pattern of wishful thinking. In order to establish its case, the thesis proceeds by first examining the method of interpretation that Freud developed in the period leading up to his publication of The Interpretation of Dreams.