Freud as Philosopher: Metapsychology After Lacan

Using Jacques Lacan's work as a key, this groundbreaking work reassesses the philosophical significance of Freud's most ambitious general theory of mental functioning: metapsychology. Richard Boothby forcefully argues that this theory has been misunderstood, and that therefore Freud's impact on philosophy has been unjustly muted.Freud as Philosopherilluminates in a fresh and newly accessible way the central points of Freud's metapsychology-including the guiding metaphor of psychical energy and the final, enigmatic theory of the twin drives of life and death-through the three cardinal Lacanian categories of the Imaginary, the Symbolic, and the Real. This exciting and brilliant book will have a definitive impact on how psychoanalysis is conceived in relation to philosophy.

Richard Boothby is Associate Professor and Chair of the Philosophy Department at Loyola College in Baltimore, Maryland