Irrationality and the Philosophy of Psychoanalysis

In a reconstruction of the theories of Freud and Klein, Sebastian Gardner asks: what causes irrationality, what must the mind be like for it to be irrational, to what extent does irrationality involve self-awareness, and what is the point of irrationality? Arguing that psychoanalytic theory provides the most penetrating answers to these questions, he rejects the widespread view of the unconscious as a \'second mind\', in favour of a view of it as a source of inherently irrational desires seeking expression through wish-fulfilment and phantasy. He meets scepticism about psychoanalytic explanation by exhibiting its continuity with everyday psychology.

• This book reconstructs Freud and Klein to offer an account of psychoanalytic theory accessible to all philosophers, without requiring specialist knowledge • A student of Freud expert Jim Hopkins, Gardner\'s work receives high praise from other leading Freud scholar Richard Wollheim, printed on the book • Gardner approaches the subject as a philosopher, and not a psychologist or psychoanalyst. He is a contributor to the Cambridge Companion to Freud

Acknowledgements; Note on the text; Introduction; Part I: Dividing Persons: 1. Ordinary irrationality; 2. Persons in parts; 3. Persons and sub-systems; Part II: Psychoanalytic Concepts: 4. Unconscious motives and Freudian concepts; 5. Wish; 6. Phantasy and Kleinian explanation; Part III: Psychoanalytic Conception of Mind: 7. Metapsychology and psychoanalytic personality; 8. Consciousness, theory and epistemology; Appendices; Notes; Works of Freud cited; Bibliography; Index.

\'It has been a commonplace for many decades that Freud changed our conception of the human mind. Few writers and very few philosophers have tried to to tell us what this change amounts to. Sebastian Gardner’s book is the most remarkable attempt I know to put this right.\'

– Richard Wollheim