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Coming Soon:

The following books by Robert Paul Wolff are available on Amazon.com as e-books: KANT'S THEORY OF MENTAL ACTIVITY, THE AUTONOMY OF REASON, UNDERSTANDING MARX, UNDERSTANDING RAWLS, THE POVERTY OF LIBERALISM, A LIFE IN THE ACADEMY, MONEYBAGS MUST BE SO LUCKY, AN INTRODUCTION TO THE USE OF FORMAL METHODS IN POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY.
Now Available: Volumes I, II, III, and IV of the Collected Published and Unpublished Papers.

NOW AVAILABLE ON YOUTUBE: LECTURES ON KANT'S CRITIQUE OF PURE REASON. To view the lectures, go to YouTube and search for "Robert Paul Wolff Kant." There they will be.

NOW AVAILABLE ON YOUTUBE: LECTURES ON THE THOUGHT OF KARL MARX. To view the lectures, go to YouTube and search for Robert Paul Wolff Marx."





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Monday, March 20, 2017

TRUTH IN ADVERTISING

Several quite enthusiastic comments on my forthcoming lectures on Freud have made me fear that I have been guilty of bait and switch advertising.  Inasmuch as I am a philosopher given to easy allusions to Herbert Marcuse and the Frankfurt School, one might reasonably anticipate that the lectures would be a fruity mixture of kulturkritik and dire predictions of the Untergang des Abendlandes.  Alas, nothing could be further from the truth.  After some opening remarks about the dangers of our current political situation, I shall devote the remainder of my time to a focused examination of the core of Freud’s professional work:  the discovery of the unconscious.  There will be some, but really not very much, sex talk, and absolutely no reference to Civilization and its Discontents or Moses and Monotheism.  On the other hand, there will be a great deal on primary and secondary thought processes, countertransference, resistance, and overdetermination in the dreamwork.

Why shall I be behaving in a manner apparently deliberately designed to disappoint?  Because I find Freud’s discussion of the unconscious conceptually fascinating, and his musings about Western Civilization not very interesting at all.


Lord, what have I done?  As you may have noticed, I am obsessed with how many “views” my video-ed lectures get, and here I am driving potential viewers away.  It is enough to make one suspect that I am engaged in neurotically self-defeating behavior.  But I digress …

2 comments:

Unknown said...

Looking forward to your Freud lectures. You knew Marcuse. What do you think of Eros and Civilization? I read it in 1972, and was not impressed. My favorite book on Freud is Philip Rieff, Freud: The Mind of a Moralist. Also read an obscure book comparing Freud and Marx. It was very interesting. Too bad I can't remember the title.

Unknown said...

I looked up my obscure reference. It is by Martin Kalin and is titled The Utopian Flight From Unhappiness: Freud Against Marx on Social Progress. Worth a look, especially for Marxist Freudians. Even for Freudian Marxists!