Rarely does a book cause one to rethink an entire field. Alfred Tauber's detailed and accessible study of the philosophical underpinnings and implications of Freud's work (and psychoanalysis in general) will have this impact on both the humanities and psychoanalysis. Tauber's rigorous framing of Freudian thought in the context of the history of philosophy (and the history of science) makes this the most important book on the shape of Freud's thought in recent times. -- Sander L. Gilman, Emory University To his enormous credit, Tauber avoids the selective approach that is almost always taken by philosophers studying Freud. Instead of isolating facets of this multifaceted thinker, Tauber has striven to give an integrated and holistic portrait. He also provides a careful and detailed account of Freud's debt to German thinkers close to his own time. This is an important contribution. -- Jennifer Radden, University of Massachusetts, Boston

Freud began university intending to study both medicine and philosophy. But he was ambivalent about philosophy, regarding it as metaphysical, too limited to the conscious mind, and ignorant of empirical knowledge. Yet his private correspondence and his writings on culture and history reveal that he never forsook his original philosophical ambitions. Indeed, while Freud remained firmly committed to positivist ideals, his thought was permeated with other aspects of German philosophy. Placed in dialogue with his intellectual contemporaries, Freud appears as a reluctant philosopher who failed to recognize his own metaphysical commitments, thereby crippling the defense of his theory and misrepresenting his true achievement. Recasting Freud as an inspired humanist and reconceiving psychoanalysis as a form of moral inquiry, Alfred Tauber argues that Freudianism still offers a rich approach to self-inquiry, one that reaffirms the enduring task of philosophy and many of the abiding ethical values of Western civilization.