Examining Freud's Political Philosophy

Paper Summary:

Sigmund Freud, a thinker and a psychologist, dwelt on a number of issues ranging from the individual to society, from the psyche to civilization. He concisely discussed a number of issues that surrounds the relationship of man and society. The author of this paper attempts to achieve two goals; first, to give light to a number of issues discussed in Freud's "Civilization and its Discontents", and second, to provide his own say and claims on the same issues. These goals are realized by first presenting Freud's assumptions and claims, and second, by either critiquing or affirming such claims. The paper then proceeds with a point-by-point analysis of Freud's' claims.

Outline.
Philosophies Behind a Peculiar Conception.
Purpose of Life: the Pleasure Principle.
On the Illusion and Imagination.
Civilization and Aggression.
Reference

From the Paper:

"Another important thing about this point is the importance of imagination, not just because it constitutes the initial form of many things in real world, but also because imagination itself is a source of one's happiness. There are people who are satisfied in just imagining some thing to be, people with different orientation in life. Further, not all pleasure and happiness should be confined to the real world alone because there a lot of people who experience happiness and pleasure through playing with their wild and wide imagination. Also, there are people who wish to escape the real world by just confining themselves to their imagination. Everyone is prone to this even if we deny it. Problems arise in the real world, and we tend to escape these problems by sometimes submerging ourselves to imagination even to a short period of time. One classic example is when we watch movie, or read novels. Every time we do this, for few moments, we forget our problems. Let us not go too far. Filipinos alone are known to be a fan a television novellas, where we try to relate ourselves to the characters we are watching. Clearly, this is form a submerging ourselves to imagination in order to escape reality, to escape problems."

Sample of Sources Used:

• Freud, S. (2002). Civilization and its discontents. London: Penguin Books
• Groves E.R (1917). Sociology and Psycho-Analytic Psychology: An Interpretation of the Freudian Hypothesis. The American Journal of Sociology, 23:1 pp. 107-116.
• John Stuart Mill (2006). Utilitarianism. UK: Routledge (Original work published in 1863)
• Reiff, P. (1956). The Origins of Freud's Political Philosophy. Journal of the History of Ideas. 17:2 pp.235-249
• Smith R W (1968). The Political Meaning of Unconscious Guilt. Political Science Quarterly, 83: 4. pp. 505-515.

More papers on Examining Freud's Political Philosophy:

• Analytical Essay # 145043 : "Marx, Freud and Judaism"
• Analytical Essay # 132253 : "The Development of Liberalism as a Political Philosophy"
• Research Paper # 66609 : "Leaders in Political Philosophy"

APA Citation:

MLA Citation: