Freud and Nietzsche

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I know that the psychoanalystic idea of id ( Das Es) comes from Nietzsche , but don't know the detail of Nietzche 's theory of Das Es, can anybody help me ?

-- michael li (jihua79946@sohu.com), May 31, 2004

Answers

Nietzsche introduced "das Es" in Thus Spoke Zarathustra. You can find an English translation at http://www.luminary.us/nz/zarathustra.html another at http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/mod/1891nietzsche-zara.html

Ellenberger traces "das Es" to section 4, on The Despisers of the Body

Freud actually attributed his use of "das Es" to Georg Groddeck, Das Buch vom Es; psychoanalytische Briefe an ene Freundin (1923) translated ass THe Book of the Id (New York: Nervous and Mental Disease Publishing Co., 1928)

Freud didn't read Nietzsche until his own ideas were fairly well formulated. But you might find inspiration in the essay posted at http://www.philosophos.com/philosophy_article_57.html

-- Hendrika Vande Kemp (hendrika@cox.net), May 31, 2004.


Hi Michael,

As previously noted, Freud took over das Es from Georg Groddeck most directly, but he likely knew that Nietzsche had used this term. Beyond Good and Evil is another place to look for Nietzsche's use of das Es, particularly section 17. My reading of Nietzsche and Freud is that Freud used the term in a more well-defined way. Although Freud clearly intended das Es to be a metaphor for "that which in our nature is subject to natural law," and that it stood for that which was not yet conscious, he was positing it in a dynamic relationship among other psychical (psychological) forces (namely the ego and superego). Nietzsche's 'theory' doesn't appear to be a theory in this sense. Also consider, on a related note, the somewhat Nietzschean sound 'Uber-ich' must have had at the time (compared to Ubermensch). I have published a paper on the intellectual relationship between Freud and Nietzsche in JHBS (2002), vol 38, pp.303-315; if you are interested, drop me a line and I'll email you a copy.

yours, Scott

-- Scott Greer (sgreer@upei.ca), June 02, 2004.


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