Love and Its Place in Nature

Love and Its Place in Nature: A Philosophical Interpretation of Freudian Psychoanalysis (1990; second edition 1998) is a book about psychoanalysis by the philosopher Jonathan Lear, in which the author discusses the importance of love in Freudian theory.

Love and Its Place in Nature: A Philosophical Interpretation of Freudian Psychoanalysis
Cover of the first edition
AuthorJonathan Lear
CountryUnited States
LanguageEnglish
SubjectPsychoanalysis
PublisherFarrar, Straus and Giroux
Publication date
1990
Media typePrint (Hardcover and Paperback)
Pages243
ISBN0-571-16641-5

The book received positive reviews, praising it as an accessible discussion of psychoanalysis. Commentators noted that Lear revised Freud's psychoanalytic theories and compared his views to those of the psychotherapist Alfred Adler.

Summary
Sigmund Freud, the founder of psychoanalysis

Lear argues that Sigmund Freud's creation of psychoanalysis involves "three related elements whose significance we have only begun to understand: a science of subjectivity; the discovery of an archaic form of mental functioning; the positing of Love as a basic force in nature." He believes that the form of mental functioning discovered by Freud is difficult to recognize because of the way in which it is expressed in dreams, acts such as slips of the tongue, and physical phenomena and symptoms that do not initially appear mental in nature. He argues that interpreting this type of mental functioning through expressing it in more familiar terms can potentially transform it, maintaining that this occurred during Freud's work with hysterics. Lear argues that Freud recognized love as a "basic developmental force in nature", and that if love is a "basic force in nature" then "our conception of nature must be transformed." He discusses the physician Josef Breuer's treatment of his patient Anna O. and the way in which it led to the development of psychoanalysis.[1]

He maintains that most criticisms and defenses of psychoanalysis are irrelevant, giving as an example the philosopher Adolf Grünbaum's arguments in The Foundations of Psychoanalysis (1984). He describes Grünbaum's account of Freud as tendentious. He credits Grünbaum with effectively criticizing the philosopher Paul Ricœur's Freud and Philosophy (1965) and the philosopher Jürgen Habermas's Knowledge and Human Interests (1968). However, he adds that, despite what is often assumed, Grünbaum's arguments "do not undermine the more general possibility of a causal hermeneutic account of human motivation."[2]

Publication history

Love and Its Place in Nature was first published in 1990, in the United States by Farrar, Straus and Giroux, and in Canada by HarperCollins. In 1992, the book was published in the United Kingdom by Faber and Faber.[3] In 1998, a second edition with a new preface by Lear was published in the United States by Yale University Press.[4]

Reception

Love and Its Place in Nature received positive reviews from Genevieve Stuttaford in Publishers Weekly,[5] Paul Hymowitz in Library Journal,[6] the psychiatrist James Samuel Gordon in The Washington Post,[7] and Don Browning in The Christian Century,[8] and the philosopher Elijah Millgram in Mind.[9] The book received a mixed review from Michael Kott in The New Leader,[10] and negative reviews from Robert Brown in The Times Literary Supplement and Carl Goldberg in the American Journal of Psychotherapy.[11][12]

Stuttaford described the book as a "heartfelt and scholarly treatise" that provided an impassioned interpretation of psychoanalysis and further develops "the revolutionary models raised in Freud's writings." She compared it to the psychoanalyst Reuben Fine's Love and Work: The Value System of Psychoanalysis (1990), but found it "more tightly focused".[5] Hymowitz described the book as well written. He credited Lear with explaining psychoanalytic concepts in a "lucid and compelling manner" and showing that they have a psychological rather than a biological root and that "love rather than sex and aggression" is a central motivator in Freudian theory. He wrote that psychological theorists might question Lear's neglect of the psychoanalyst Erich Fromm, and other authors who have focused on love without being committed to Freudian orthodoxy, but concluded that both lay readers and scholars would benefit from his discussion of psychoanalysis.[6]

Gordon called the book "sensitive and surprising", describing it as a "revisionist" text comparable to the work of the psychiatrist Carl Jung, the psychotherapist Alfred Adler, and the psychoanalyst Wilhelm Reich. He found it to be "dense, difficult and rewarding" and praised Lear's "passionate hopefulness". However, he criticized him for failing to provide "cultural context for his perspective".[7] Browning credited Lear with providing an "engaging philosophical perspective on Freudian psychoanalysis", "an important philosophic reading of Freud", and profoundly investigating important themes. He predicted that the themes of Love and Its Place in Nature would appeal to religious readers, despite the fact that the book itself was not religious, and compared it to Freud and Philosophy, though he found it more accessible to the average reader.[8]

Millgram wrote that the book had "received less attention from the philosophical community than its deserves" due to negative views of Freud held by analytic philosophers. He praised Lear's discussion of Freud for its lack of orthodoxy, writing that "Freud provides Lear with a way of raising and thinking through a range of important but generally neglected issues" and that Love and Its Place in Nature remained valuable and "of great philosophical interest" even if one rejected many Freudian views. He endorsed Lear's view that "propositional attitudes" and "applying concepts" are "psychological achievements" and that "to have a mind is always to be generating new proto-mental material". However, he questioned Lear's "description of the way a mind emerges from the field of archaic thought, and of what is going on in psychoanalysis".[9]

Kott found the book lucidly written and provocative. He praised Lear's explication of Freud's thought. He noted that Lear departed from Freud's understanding of the mind, comparing this to the way in which Adler departed from Freud's thought. He found Lear's discussion of Breuer's treatment of Anna O. to be the most interesting part of the book. However, he questioned Lear's view of the political implications of psychoanalysis and suggested that Lear's "happy gospel is too one-sided to be true, wish and desire notwithstanding."[10]

Brown wrote that Lear seemed to suggest that psychoanalytic claims are true despite being untestable in practice adding that, "If that is his claim, it will be enthusiastically received by seers, gurus, and oracles everywhere."[11] Goldberg described the book as "provocative". He criticized Lear's view that Freud's therapeutic methods are "efforts to enable the patient to change the type of responsibility he characterologically assumes for his emotions", arguing that Lear failed "to notice the unfortunate counterpoint to psychoanalysis' concern with individuation—social irrelevance and a lack of attention to moral responsibility." He argued that Lear's view that "analytic inquiry" is an "act of generosity and compassion" misrepresents Freud, and avoids what Freud actually wrote about love. He also disputed Lear's view that "Freud was committed to science", writing that it was more likely that Freud was "quite ambivalent" about the subject. He found Lear's attempt to reconcile Freud's determinism with personal responsibility unconvincing. He concluded that the book provided a "thoughtful account of what Lear believes psychoanalysis should be about", but that readers should not assume that Lear's views follow logically from Freud's.[12]

The historian Paul Robinson suggested that Love and Its Place in Nature, like Mark Edmundson's Towards Reading Freud (1990), represented a revival of Freud's reputation.[13]

See also

References
  1. Lear 1992, pp. 3, 5–7, 12–13, 29–68.
  2. Lear 1992, pp. 5–6, 49.
  3. Lear 1992, p. iv.
  4. Lear 1999, pp. iv, ix–xii.
  5. Stuttaford 1990, p. 59.
  6. Hymowitz 1990, p. 1087.
  7. Gordon 1991.
  8. Browning 1991, p. 340.
  9. Millgram 2001, pp. 1087–1092.
  10. Kott 1991, pp. 19–20.
  11. Brown 1991, p. 22.
  12. Goldberg 1999, pp. 564–565.
  13. Robinson 1993, p. 270.

Bibliography
Books
  • Lear, Jonathan (1992). Love and Its Place in Nature: A Philosophical Interpretation of Freudian Psychoanalysis. London: Faber and Faber. ISBN 0-571-16641-5.CS1 maint: ref=harv (link)
  • Lear, Jonathan (1999). Love and Its Place in Nature: A Philosophical Interpretation of Freudian Psychoanalysis. New Haven, Connecticut: Yale University Press. ISBN 978-0300074673.CS1 maint: ref=harv (link)
  • Robinson, Paul (1993). Freud and His Critics. Berkeley: University of California Press. ISBN 0-520-08029-7.CS1 maint: ref=harv (link)
Journals
  • Brown, Robert (1991). "Directing the natural drive". The Times Literary Supplement (March 1, 1991).CS1 maint: ref=harv (link)  – via EBSCO's Academic Search Complete (subscription required)
  • Browning, Don (1991). "Love and its place in nature (Book Review)". The Christian Century. 108 (March 20, 1991).CS1 maint: ref=harv (link)  – via EBSCO's Academic Search Complete (subscription required)
  • Goldberg, Carl (1999). "Love and its place in nature (Book Review)". American Journal of Psychotherapy. 53 (4).CS1 maint: ref=harv (link)  – via EBSCO's Academic Search Complete (subscription required)
  • Hymowitz, Paul (1990). "Love and Its Place in Nature: A Philosophical Interpretation of Freudian Psychoanalysis (Book)". Library Journal. 115 (16).CS1 maint: ref=harv (link)  – via EBSCO's Academic Search Complete (subscription required)
  • Kott, Michael (1991). "Freud on his head". The New Leader. 74 (July 15–29, 1991).CS1 maint: ref=harv (link)
  • Millgram, Elijah (2001). "Love and Its Place in Nature. Jonathan Lear". Mind. 110 (440).CS1 maint: ref=harv (link)  – via EBSCO's Academic Search Complete (subscription required)
  • Stuttaford, Genevieve (1990). "Forecasts: Nonfiction". Publishers Weekly. 237 (33).CS1 maint: ref=harv (link)
Online articles
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