The thesis examines the nature of political reform and the role of culture in the liberal utopia envisaged by Richard Rorty in Contingency, Irony, and Solidarity. Rorty's overall project is outlined, and situated within the anti-foundationalist critique that has been the hallmark of his recent career. The perilous position of nonintellectuals within the otherwise-acceptable utopia is detailed. Harold Bloom's conception of the strong poet is then examined and compared to the use Rorty makes of Bloom; I conclude that the faults of the liberal utopia lie primarily in establishing the strong poet as that culture's hero. I turn to Rorty's reading of Sigmund Freud, a reading which consistently inverts Freud's insights in order to make Freud fit into Rorty's plan. Finally, I re-examine Freud and suggest ways in which he can be used to correct the faults of the liberal utopia.

This thesis traces Freud's debt to classical Greece and argues that the development of his theory should not be considered apart from its roots in this legacy. The psychoanalytic project sheltered under the umbrella of Altertumswissenschaft and used the "ancient world to illuminate the modern". Winckelmann's Hellenism provided the foundations to German culture in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries and dominated the educational and cultural institutions in which Freud lived and worked. Nietzsche later challenged Winckelmann's Apollian vision of Greece, and his "psychology of the Dionysian condition" acknowledged both irrational passion and sexuality. Freud is heir to both Winckelmann's and Nietzsche's Greece, and the dialectical tension between the rational and irrational, the mind and the body, that is evident in the reception of classical Greece in the nineteenth century is often paralleled in Freud's work. Hellenism is an essential element in Freud's theory of dreams and the unconscious. Greek mythology grounds the Oedipus complex, and informs his theorising on human sexuality. It plays an influential role in early sexology, and many of the challenges to psychiatry and neurology have their origin in Greek classicism. Not only does psychoanalysis rely on content drawn from this legacy, but its methodology as well as it structure are deeply influenced by Freud's knowledge of ancient Greece and his involvement in classical scholarship. / Thesis (Ph.D.)-University of KwaZulu-Natal, Durban, 2008.

No description available.

No description available.

Zugl.: Aachen, Techn. Hochsch. und Metz, Univ., Diss., 2006 u.d.T.: Salin, Sophie: Verflechtung nietzscheanischfreudianischer Motive mit dem Werk Gilles Deleuzes und Salin, Sophie: Cryptologie de l'inconscient

Senior Honors thesis--Regis University, Denver, Colo., 2009. / Title from PDF title page (viewed on May 11, 2009). Includes bibliographical references.

Zugl.: Bonn, Univ., Diss., 2008

Thesis (doctoral)--University of London, 2002. / BLDSC reference no.: DX 221035.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Washington, 2000. / Vita. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 251-260).

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Chicago, Department of Comparative Literature, December 2000. / Includes bibliographical references (p. 544-569). Also available on the Internet.