Love and Its Place in Nature: A Philosophical Interpretation of Freudian Psychoanalysis

Rating:
Summary: stunning
Review: An important development of Freud's ideas, which goes far beyond standard misunderstandings in a way that is wholly justified by Freud's later works. Lear, a philosopher, is a remarkable thinker in his own right. The theme of this book is nothing less than the way that the discoveries of depth psychology pose an unavoidable challenge to our prevailing scientific ways of thinking about self and world. The needed revision would not be a lapse into softheadedness but a science of the human psyche which would do justice to the subject. To understand love, theoretically and in practice, is to accept a vision of rationality and a view of the world that the most progressive thinkers -- those who have accepted the legacy of psychoanalysis -- have just begun to sketch. Lear, who is at the forefront of such thinkers, has written a cogent and loving book which can be read by the specialist or by anyone interested in a topic which is of concern to each of us.

Rating:
Summary: Freudian metaphysics?
Review: This is a stimulating book. It begins with a very illuminating account of Freud's central ideas, critically alert but sympathetic, and offering lots of fruitful development.

The problem is in the later parts of the book, which try to graft the Freudian idea that the world must offer enough love, and enough objects of love, for the developing child to thrive, on to a bizarre sort of metaphysical idealism, according to which the nature or existence of the world depends on its being lovable. Taken literally (as empirical idealism), this is just silly: the existence of the universe does not depend in any way on love. Perhaps it is instead a form of transcendental idealism (the nature of the world _as it is for us_ depends on love). But that's still pretty far-out, and the idea is not developed enough - at least not here - to seem remotely defensible.